You’re concerned about health care.
Romney emphatically endorsed the Blunt Amendment. Despite deliberate obfuscation on the part of the Romney campaign,* this amendment1 makes it possible for an employer to decide whether or not your employment-based insurance covers your birth control. Out-of-plan birth control is hideously expensive.
Of course, Romney has stated his intent to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, so that would eliminate the single largest affordable option for birth control in this country. This is a very real economic issue for women who use it.
Additionally, abortions account for only three percent of the services Planned Parenthood provides.2 Millions of women will no longer have access to annual exams, breast cancer and cervical cancer screening, pregnancy tests, STD tests and other critical health care services. Considering that the Romney/Ryan ticket is fervently anti-choice, it’s rather hypocritical of them to have endorsed a law that would have undoubtedly led to more unwanted pregnancies.
And despite the misleading statements the Romney campaign have made, it is not just religious institutions that would have gotten to make this call. Read the amendment; any employer with a ‘moral objection” to birth control could have decided not to cover it.
The Blunt Amendment language actually says in Section a 2 (A) (page 3):
The purpose is “to ensure that health care stakeholders retain the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions, without fear of being penalized or discriminated against under PPACA.”
Not only would this eliminate birth control, it leaves the door wide open for your boss to deny you medical coverage of any kind. Consider the costs involved with cancer. There is a very real possibility that your boss could raise “moral objections” to your cancer treatments, or anything else that might impact their bottom line.
Any time Romney says something that the Republican Party doesn’t like, his campaign quietly releases a retraction the next day. So, we really have no way of knowing a) what Romney actually believes or b) whether his unknown policy positions or the positions of the Republican Party would be implemented when he’s in office. Either way, a Romney presidency does not look good for women, or the rest of the country.
Even more terrifying is the fact that Romney selected Robert Bork as the co-chair for his “Justice Advisory Committee”.3 Bork is infamous for being extremely conservative (before the Tea Party made extreme positions popular on the right) and he’s also known for being anti-woman. If you don’t know about Robert Bork, you can read more about him here.
With Roe v Wade being a 5-to-4 decision, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg being a 79-year-old cancer survivor, the next president will almost certainly appoint at least one Supreme Court justice. There are three other Supreme Court justices in their 70s as well. Do you really want someone like Mitt Romney choosing as many as four Supreme Court justices?4 Especially considering the gravity of some of the cases that will probably end up at the Supreme Court during the next session alone.
Republicans opposed renewing the Violence Against Women Act earlier this year,5 and a Republican in New Hampshire introduced HB 1581, which Comedy Central blogger Ilya Gerner has jokingly referred to as a beat-your-wife bill.6 When you consider the offensive anti-women rape statements made by conservative politicians, and some of the legislation that is being introduced, it looks very much like a war on women.
* During a telephone interview in February of 2012, Romney said, “Of course I support the Blunt amendment. I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception. So I simply misunderstood the question and of course I support the Blunt amendment.” Yet during the second presidential debate, Romney said: “I don’t believe that bureaucrats in Washington should tell someone whether they can use contraceptives or not, and I don’t believe employers should tell someone (emphasis ours) whether they can have contraceptive care or not. Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives, and the president’s statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong."7
Obviously, what he didn’t say during the debate was that he may not feel like an employer can tell a woman she can’t use birth control, he just feels they should be allowed to decide if they want it covered by insurance. So in fact, to women who can’t afford the out-of-pocket expense of birth control, their employer does get to decide whether or not they get it.