>>>Now you're starting to sound like the GOP stating that the hearings on contraception "have nothing to do with women, it's not about women, it's about religious freedom". Yeah, it is - it's about my employer not imposing HIS (or HER) religous beliefs on me simply because I work for their company... To answer your question "Where is the victim?", it certainly isn't the bishop, or the priest. It's the women - and yeah, I can hear your eyes roll from here. Pregnancy can be very hard on the body - particularly when pregnancy follows pregnancy etc etc
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>Where is all this coming from?! In the real world, nobody is trying to deny women access to contraception. The issue is that the Bishop was going to be forced to offer it to employees, which is against his deeply held convictions. IMHO it's insulting to women to pretend that if the Bishop doesn't offer contraception, they won't know what to do and babies will drop out in every direction. Perhaps we might give female intellect more credit and expect that a worldly-wise modern woman taking a job at a religious institution knows exactly what to expect and what not to expect. IOW there won't be OC lollie-scrambles by the boss. The compromise by Obama still requires religious institutions to pay for contraception for employees, but not to have to offer it.

I'm going to answer without reading downthread because it seems to me there's a key point missing in a lot of this discussion. Unfortunately, in the US, we have a stupid system where payment for health care is tied to employment. Getting health coverage outside of what your employer offers is outrageously expensive. So, if the plan your employer offers doesn't cover contraception (whether it's "free" from the plan or simply covered by the plan, possibly with co-pays), there's a significant out-of-pocket cost.

Of course, in my view, the best solution is to detach health coverage from employment.

Tamar