Why do some want to forfeit rights in the false name of abortion as "healthcare"?

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear the challenge by the Christian-owned Hobby Lobby stores against the HHS birth control mandate, which requires all employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception, abortifacient drugs and sterilizations. 

Hobby Lobby's employee health insurance currently does offer 16 of the 20 FDA-approved contraceptions required by Obamacare. They simply object to the remaining ones that cause abortions, because abortion violates their deeply held religious beliefs.

Not surprisingly, the hysterical feminists and their male counterpart supporters are in a self-righteous, Sandra Fluke-like frenzy over Hobby Lobby's audacious "attempt to impose its religious beliefs" on women by "denying them access" to birth control - which they wrongly refer to as "women's healthcare."

First of all, Hobby Lobby - specifically its founder, David Green, is not forcing any religious beliefs on anyone. If Hobby Lobby were to say any employee working for them was not allowed to use contraception as a condition of employment, the argument may have a bit more merit. But even then, not really, for the simple fact that nobody is forced to work at Hobby Lobby.

Second, preventing or terminating a pregnancy is not healthcare. Maternity is a valid health issue to the extent of "well-care" pre-natal visits, delivery, and the like. I don't know of any company that objects to coverage of maternity for those to whom it applies (although, under Obamacare, plenty of us object to being forced to carry it, including men, who do not need it). But contraception or abortifacients have more to do with the woman's decision on whether to pursue or terminate pregnancy. That is simply not healthcare (not to mention the fact that there are actually many health dangers that come with contraception use and abortion).

Other Hobby Lobby critics argue that a corporation is not a person, and therefore has no constitutional rights. I marvel at these people's grasp of reality as I try to imagine a company coming into existence and functioning without individual people to make it all happen - people who, in this case, are individuals with guaranteed rights as American citizens.

But reason and logic are non-existent to the group of frantic people who define women solely by their reproductive systems and literally freak out at the notion that a woman may have to make her reproductive choices on her own -- without the forced complicity of her employer.

It could be almost humorous to reflect on all the times we hear pro-abortion supporters tell the government to keep its hands off women's bodies and its noses out of their bedrooms, while these same people want employers to become directly involved against their will in these supposedly private aspects of women's lives. The problem is, there is nothing funny about what is happening here.

Indeed, it's a gravely serious matter that our government, through the HHS mandate, is throwing out our constitutional right to freedom of religion - including the free expression thereof - and is replacing it with a restricted parameter of how we can live our religious beliefs. Should the government get its way, we will be free to go to church (for now) and read the Bible in the privacy of our own homes (for now), but will need to check all our beliefs at the door upon entering the public square.

To all those who think an individual should be forced to choose between the law and his faith in the false name of "women's healthcare", I simply ask, what makes a woman's desire to use contraception or abortifacients -- which she is free to access on her own -- more important than any citizen's constitutional right not to partake in these actions on religious grounds? Why should these women's beliefs be more important than anyone else's? 

There's a dangerous precedent being set here by our government, one that could be used against all of us depending on which ideology is in power. So with that, I leave the Hobby Lobby critics with this age-old caveat: Be careful what you wish for. Stifled freedoms like the one you're demanding to stifle could just as easily be used against you should someone else be in power who doesn't think like you. For your own sake, you should pray that Hobby Lobby wins its case, and then you should thank them for fighting on your behalf to keep the constitutional rights you'd be sorry to lose - whether you realize it now or not.

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