by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Arizona just keeps getting meaner and stupider.
This week there is a piece of legislation making its way through the Arizona Legislature that would allow employers to deny their workers health insurance coverage for contraception - based on the employer's religious beliefs. Those in favor of this latest tactic in the war on women state that it is a matter of religious freedom and First Amendment rights. Those opposed see it more clearly as employers imposing their religious beliefs on the poor souls who work for them.
Count me in the latter group.
I spent this evening in the company of good friends. One, the sweetest lady on Okinawa, said that she cannot believe that the Republicans and religious fundamentalists are attacking contraception, something that has been an accepted and prevalent family planning practice in America for half a century.
My other friend, a male, noted that even though conservatives love to rail against Sharia Law, they are in effect no different than the Mullahs when it comes to the treatment of women.
Here are some of my concerns: Will these same employer's grant their pregnant employees maternity leave, or time off when these unplanned children become ill? Will they pay their employees sufficient salary to raise a family? Will they provide health insurance for families of their employees?
It's expensive to raise a kid - far more expensive than the cost of birth control pills.
What's next, gentlemen? Burqas?
Citizen Journalist
Arizona just keeps getting meaner and stupider.
This week there is a piece of legislation making its way through the Arizona Legislature that would allow employers to deny their workers health insurance coverage for contraception - based on the employer's religious beliefs. Those in favor of this latest tactic in the war on women state that it is a matter of religious freedom and First Amendment rights. Those opposed see it more clearly as employers imposing their religious beliefs on the poor souls who work for them.
Count me in the latter group.
I spent this evening in the company of good friends. One, the sweetest lady on Okinawa, said that she cannot believe that the Republicans and religious fundamentalists are attacking contraception, something that has been an accepted and prevalent family planning practice in America for half a century.
My other friend, a male, noted that even though conservatives love to rail against Sharia Law, they are in effect no different than the Mullahs when it comes to the treatment of women.
Here are some of my concerns: Will these same employer's grant their pregnant employees maternity leave, or time off when these unplanned children become ill? Will they pay their employees sufficient salary to raise a family? Will they provide health insurance for families of their employees?
It's expensive to raise a kid - far more expensive than the cost of birth control pills.
What's next, gentlemen? Burqas?
1 comment:
I live in Florida, a "right to work" state that pays most workers so little that few can afford to have children in the first place, let alone raise a family.
But what bothers me most is that these workers are "building" the payment history that will determine their Social Security payments when they (perhaps are able to) retire.
A bit of trivia: In the 1970s, I earned three times what workers doing the same job are able to earn now. And that's three times as measured by 1970 dollars.
And Social Security is still an important part of my income.
So ... how can we reasonably expect today's workers to exist when they reach the age where they can no longer work?
And that's to assume that benefits will remain the same --- and the GOP is bound and determined to cut into that amount as deeply as possible.
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