We are at a very serious junction in the life of the United States of America, but never have we been so unable to define our problems. Political Correctness has penetrated our discourse like a cancer. We are no longer able to call a spade a spade. The fact is that if you cannot agree on the words used to describe a problem, it is impossible to define a problem and, therefore, if you cannot define it you cannot solve it. The current debate about contraception provides a window into this language dilemma.
First, the background: As part of Obamacare the Obama Administration decided that, in order to protect her health, every female should have access to contraception, and that each employer should provide it. It came to pass that this mandate applied to the employees of the charitable associations of the Catholic Church that teaches that contraception should not be employed at all, ever. Since the First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the separation of Church and State, it followed that the government should not be able to mandate something that goes against the religious principles and teachings of a Church. Confronted with this dilemma, President Obama offered a compromise; the Church’s insurance company would be required to provide the contraceptives, gratis.
In essence what Obama was proposing was that the Catholic Church would pay their insurance company to provide contraception for the employees of the Church free. Legally this is “a distinction without a difference”? Since we all know that here is “no free lunch” it is likely that the insurance company will simply raise their premiums, and who will pay? You guessed it, none other than the Catholic Church! This subterfuge doesn’t pass the laugh test!!
This would have remained a legal debate about the Constitutionality of the plan, but along came Sandra Fluke, an attractive, intelligent, single, thirty year old law student enrolled at prestigious George Washington University, a Catholic school. She testified before Nancy Pelosi’s committee that it costs her $ 1000 per year for the contraceptive devices needed to protect her health, and that she would have to work all summer to earn this amount. Her plight so moved President Obama that he personally telephoned to help her though this traumatic time in her life.
The discussion went swiftly downhill from there. Suddenly the issue changed from one of interpretation of Constitutional Law to one where women were going to be deprived from obtaining contraceptives. And the Republicans were to blame.
Now, if we are talking about a woman’s health related to sexual activity, one would assume that we are talking about the risk of the woman’s contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD). A cursory review of the subject on WebMD reveals that: The Condom and Abstinence are the only effective methods to avoid STD. The Pill and the IUD, while preventing pregnancy, do not protect the user from the sexually transmitted diseases. On the same website, the reader can also learn about the side effects of the Pill, which includes pulmonary embolism and cervical cancer.
So, why in the world did the activists and the media try to make us believe that women are denied the availability of the one health protection device that prevents STD, namely the Condom, when everyone knows that it is readily available from every drug store and every service station’s rest room, at very low cost? The truth is that what women want is the convenience of the day before Pill, the day after Pill and the IUD, and they want them from their employers free of charge.
From the perspective of problem solving then, do we know what problem we were trying to solve? Of course not! STD is only preventable with condoms or abstinence; therefore, something else must be involved. It was subsequently revealed that the “something” was avoiding pregnancy, but since a condom will also prevent pregnancy, what is the problem?
The irony of this situation, and why this is so sad, is that all that President Obama’s carelessly and poorly thought through mandate will do is to encourage women to use devices which can expose them to extremely dangerous diseases while claiming concern about their health. Women have been and will continue to be able to purchase all the Pills and IUDs they want at reasonable cost, but they should be made aware of the adverse consequences. Clearly the absurdity of this provides more reason than ever to repeal Obamacare as soon as possible before it does more damage to our freedom and our health.
Finally, the principal purpose of writing this blog is to illustrate what damage Political Correctness is doing to our Society. If we continue to muck up our language such as we are doing in this case, we will never be able to define or solve problems. That is unfortunate because the problems this Nation faces right now are larger than we have ever experienced before and require the best of possible definitions.
