|
|
|
The decision to have a child or to not have a child is one of the most sacred and private decisions a couple can make. It is an individual choice.
A decision to have a child changes a woman’s life forever.
In addition to the immediate changes to a woman’s body during pregnancy, women can have lasting changes as a result of carrying a child and can even risk death.
Economically a woman’s life changes. If a teenage girl has a child, she and her child are more likely to live in poverty.
Even in the best conditions, in a two-parent household, the USDA estimates the average child will cost $124,800 to raise to 18.
To try to quantify the emotional rigors of carrying and raising a child would be absurd.
Decisions on reproductive health are crucial to women’s overall physical, mental and fiscal health.
It touches every part of their lives.
Access to appropriate birth control is as essential to a woman as breast exams or pap smears.
President Obama has expressed support to women’s access to birth control, but proposed an exemption for religious institutions after he came under fire from religious officials, including Catholic bishops.
I am disappointed Obama is proposing this loophole.
An exclusion of certain religious institutions from a requirement to offer birth control to women is a violation of individual choice.
One might argue a small group of employees working for a church might share the same religious beliefs, but what about large metro hospitals, like Via Christi, which arguably have many employees who different views?
Even among the largest denomination in the world, there is disagreement on the role of birth control.
A survey from the Public Religion Research Institute indicated almost 60 percent of American Catholics agree with the idea of employers being forced to provide birth control.
A decision to take charge of one’s physical body is an elemental freedom. A woman’s evaluation of how birth control fits into her spiritual beliefs should be made on a personal level — not by presidents, popes or politicians.
Individual choice is real religious freedom.
The decision to have a child or to not have a child is one of the most sacred and private decisions a couple can make. It is an individual choice.
A decision to have a child changes a woman’s life forever.
In addition to the immediate changes to a woman’s body during pregnancy, women can have lasting changes as a result of carrying a child and can even risk death.
Economically a woman’s life changes. If a teenage girl has a child, she and her child are more likely to live in poverty.
Even in the best conditions, in a two-parent household, the USDA estimates the average child will cost $124,800 to raise to 18.
To try to quantify the emotional rigors of carrying and raising a child would be absurd.
Decisions on reproductive health are crucial to women’s overall physical, mental and fiscal health.
It touches every part of their lives.
Access to appropriate birth control is as essential to a woman as breast exams or pap smears.
President Obama has expressed support to women’s access to birth control, but proposed an exemption for religious institutions after he came under fire from religious officials, including Catholic bishops.
I am disappointed Obama is proposing this loophole.
An exclusion of certain religious institutions from a requirement to offer birth control to women is a violation of individual choice.
One might argue a small group of employees working for a church might share the same religious beliefs, but what about large metro hospitals, like Via Christi, which arguably have many employees who different views?
Even among the largest denomination in the world, there is disagreement on the role of birth control.
A survey from the Public Religion Research Institute indicated almost 60 percent of American Catholics agree with the idea of employers being forced to provide birth control.
A decision to take charge of one’s physical body is an elemental freedom. A woman’s evaluation of how birth control fits into her spiritual beliefs should be made on a personal level — not by presidents, popes or politicians.
Individual choice is real religious freedom.
