Tiana Proctor
Employers should not have a say in what healthcare benefits they choose to provide because it allows them to discriminate against the needs of their employees, due to their own moral and religious objections. According to planned parenthood, birth control can reduce chances of developing certain cancers and what it is most known for, reducing the risk of unwanted pregnancies. Lawmakers and employers shouldn’t have a say in what healthcare should be provided. Contraceptive is not only to reduce unwanted pregnancies, and helps with several other health issues, which should be a basic right for women. Let’s be honest, if birth control was made for men instead of women, this would not be such a huge debate but unfortunately it is.
“The Daily Beast” reported that “71% of elected officials are men”, who have little to no knowledge of birth control. The Guttmachter website published, “31% of women use birth control to ease menstrual pain, 28% of women use birth control to regulate flow of their period, and 14% of women use birth control to control chronic acne which is known to affect whether you can get hired or not”. Viagra is covered through most insurers, but people have a moral issue with birth control.
If we let employers get involved with what should be included in health care, what else will be regulated out of our basic rights. It is a slippery slope that can only end badly with citizens having to come more and more out of pocket for what should be basic healthcare. Before President Trump reversed Obama’s birth control mandate, employers were required to cover at least 18 of the FDA approved birth control methods. Women have said birth control greatly improved their lives, according the Guttmachter study:
- 63% of women said it allowed them to take better care of themselves and their family
- 56% said they were able to support themselves financially
- 51% said they were able to complete their education
- 50% said they were able to keep or get a job.
Birth control is a basic human right and denying it is simply sex discrimination in healthcare. Birth control is preventative healthcare, proven to lower chances in endometrial and ovarian cancer, helps with cysts in the breasts and ovaries, bone thinning, and serious infections that can affect the fallopian tubes and uterus. 27 million women have already benefitted from birth control. Abortion rates have gone down significantly with easier access to birth control.
Without insurance, birth control is not the most affordable according to the “US News” in 2012:
- Pill – $160 – $600
- Patch – $160 – $600
- IUD – $500 – $1000
- Shot – $220 – $460 (per year)
There is no FDA approved birth control method for men, so women must take the responsibility in preventing unwanted pregnancies, but they have the majority say so in whether it is available to women under health insurance. All women included those employed by religious officials should be insured, birth control has been proven to increase the infant and maternal mortality rate. Without birth control more unwanted pregnancies are likely to occur which spikes the abortion and welfare rates, because women cannot afford the cost of children, while basic healthcare should have prevented this by employers offering women their basic right to birth control. It is a woman’s choice when she is ready to have children and a woman’s choice to use preventative health measures.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/71-of-all-elected-officials-are-men
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states
https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/alpha-consumer/2012/03/05/the-real-cost-of-birth-control