Persephone Magazine

We have people trying to make windows into women's uteruses, many times motivated by religious institutions and what these institutions teach. Yet when the Obama administration announced that all businesses in the United States would be required to have health insurance that covered and paid for contraception for women patients, religious institutions got upset about this and claimed that the government was trampling on religious freedoms. So the Obama administration came up with a Plan B: religious institutions wouldn't have to pay for the contraception themselves, but the insurance companies would have to pay for it. Still a lot of people are against this policy, and there has been much political posturing over it. Speaker of the House John Boehner—who just likes to run his mouth anyway regardless of whether or not he sounds intelligent—has bellowed that such a policy is trampling over the religious rights of those who believe and practice otherwise. The House of Representatives has gone so far as hold hearings and hear testimony from religious leaders as to why it does and from others who say why it doesn't. Yet when a young law student from Georgetown wanted to make her voice heard as to why it didn't trample on religious rights and why it was important, she was banned from testifying. Because her voice wasn't important enough.