Contraceptive rights are a woman’s only

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This is in response to the article on the White House revision of the insurance coverage for women's health care, particularly contraceptives. I emphatically disagree with the National Association of Evangelicals opinion that the contraception mandate should be dropped to please the religious objectors. Reproductive rights belong to each woman. They are hers alone, and all health issues including contraceptives are private matters. Health care is as basic as the right of those who are religious to seek to impose their beliefs on others. Their religious rights stop at the intersection with the rights of others. This coverage does not keep them from practicing their faith in any way. Conscientious objectors pay their taxes even though a goodly portion of it goes toward military use. Freedom of speech does not allow one to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

The Catholic and evangelical complaints infringe on the religious rights of their employees. The cost of the coverage of the preventive reproductive health care is a screen of the real issue. Patriarchal religious groups prefer to dictate and control all women's reproductive choices. Withholding access to preventive reproductive health care is immoral as well as unintelligent. There is no theological or moral ground for forbidding contraceptives. This country needs to stop subjecting women's health issues to unhealthy and immoral male objections.

Berna K. Gingras

Schaumburg