It’s begun. My healthcare provider didn’t wait until our new plan year, it has implemented new coverages immediately starting August 1.

I just received an email from the HR director at my secular job (I have a “regular” job in addition to my position at the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod) regarding the new mandate under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that requires all health insurance plans, except grandfathered plans, to cover things that are considered women’s healthcare such as contraceptives and sterilization.

It’s amazing how words are thrown around to make ideas look good and most people don’t take the time to actually read the words and question what’s really happening. From the email I received:

Under the Affordable Care Act, women will now have access to life-saving preventive care, such as mammograms and contraception, without paying any more out of their own pockets.

I took issue with this sentence in the email for several reasons. Firstly, it should be noted that mammograms were always covered under our health plan as preventative care. Secondly, when did contraception become a “life-saving” medication? Finally, to make things sound really good, they added “without paying any more out of their own pockets”? Really? Because the last time I checked, nothing is free…oh that’s right, the woman will pay for it in increased premiums, as will everyone else in this plan.

On the first page of a newsletter from the health insurance provider attached to the email, there’s a table showing all the wonderful new coverages under women’s healthcare. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for healthcare that benefits people, but here are some new provisions that should make everyone pause and think:

1. Counseling and screening for sexually transmitted infections for females only beginning at age 10.

2. Counseling and screening for HIV for females only beginning at age 10.

3. Coverage for contraceptive methods and counseling:
a. Counseling, females beginning at age 10;
b. Oral contraceptives as prescribed;
c. Injected/implanted contraception as prescribed; and,
d. Sterilization, females only.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t males also get STIs? Why does the mandate, and my health plan, only cover counseling and testing for females? And why beginning at age 10? And why should my health plan, to which I pay premiums, cover a personal choice like sterilization? The plan doesn’t cover elective plastic surgery, so why should it pay for elective sterilization?

My really BIG question is this: doesn’t this amount to gender bias or gender discrimination? Females can get all these services provided for free (on the surface), but males have to pay for them? Why is there no outrage over this discrimination? Where’s the ACLU to protect me from this bias?

As for those who crafted and supported this legislation, I can’t speak for their motives, I can only question them as I look at what we’re being forced to do. For more on why it is wrong to start “counselling” 10-year-old girls about STIs and contraception, read a series on sexuality on Ezerwoman’s Blog starting with “Sexuality & the War on Women.”

The pro-aborts claim that pro-life folks are waging a war on women, but let’s look at the real facts. They want to sexualize children by 5 years old, they want to make contraception available (to females only) by 10 years old and have all of us pay for it, and they want no limits on abortions such as parental consent or notification (and also make us pay for it–don’t forget that there’s a $1 monthly charge on every health plan participant to pay for abortions under PPACA). And one final truth for everyone to consider: 50 percent of the 1.2 million babies aborted every year in the US are female.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the pro-aborts are the ones who are really waging a war on women. Unfortunately well-meaning folk are being used by them to promote this war and it’s our mothers/wives/sisters/daughters who will pay  the consequences.