The Institute of Medicine has recommended that health plans under the Affordable Care Act cover birth control at no additional cost to the patient. Kay Steiger responds to critics like the Family Research Council whose protest is based on the belief that contraception is a form of abortion:
I find FRC’s objections to be unreasonable. After all, the way insurance works is that you all pay into a big pool and people get to pay for what they need. The idea that you have a say over subsidizing a procedure or prescription you personally object to has never been a standard for insurance, and rightfully so. If all medical procedures were up for a vote, it might make dealing with insurance even more nightmarish than it already is.
Pema Levy provides some good background on the controversy:
During health-care-reform deliberations in December 2009, the Senate approved the Women’s Health Amendment (known as the Mikulski Amendment), which requires private health insurance plans to provide preventative services for women free of charge. But to avoid a political storm over contraception, the law wisely punted the decision of what would be covered off to HHS, which in turn asked for guidance from the IOM. What this has done is take the decision out of the political realm and left it up to medical experts. This not only makes it more likely that contraception will be covered but makes it harder for an anti-abortion, anti-contraception president to come along and strip it from the law.
That such a maneuver was necessary is a testament to how anti-abortion activists have succeeded in making something as popular as contraception a political lightning rod. Contraception is extremely popular, and polls show broad support for making it affordable. But that hasn’t stopped them for successfully cutting off access. In a stroke of genius, the anti-choice movement has managed to repackage their resistance to contraception by folding it into their opposition to abortion. And what better way to do that than to name-drop Planned Parenthood?
The Dish 