Businesses Providing Birth Control Products

Until my opponent rebuttals my arguments, people will most likely find my arguments simple and straightforward, as I believe this matter is decided easily by a few factors. 1) Religious Freedom The right to religious freedom is found in our First Amendment[1]. It protects religious establishments from being impeded from practicing their beliefs, or suffering due to their beliefs. If Christian business owners had to purchase insurance packages that provided services and items their religion considered to be intrinsically immoral, that would be an example of Christians being impeded from practicing their religion's belief. If this mandate for insurance with contraceptives was only applied to public institutions, to government institutions, that would be a different matter. However this isn't the case, and private businesses should not be forced to act in violation of their beliefs. 2) Price of non-compliance My opponent mentioned that businesses are not required to provide these birth control services to their employees. This is true, they are required to either provide the mandated insurance packages or to pay fines, but the fines involved put businesses between a rock and a hard place. The fines would wreck just about any business. The way this is set up, it might as well be between two options: 1) Violate your beliefs, or 2) Be so heavily fined your business is likely to fail. The fine is $100 (on average) per employee not covered properly according to the mandate, per day[2]. An example of the damage this can cause to a business is found in this link. One man's business could lose over 9 millions dollars in a year if he follows his faith[2]. Refer back to those two options. Either would be an example of a violation of the First Amendment. Christian business owners will either be forced to violate their beliefs or be severely punished for staying true to their beliefs. 3) Discrimination in Hiring Consider this. If a new government mandate requires businesses to provide items and services to women that they consider to be immoral, isn't there a possibility for gender discrimination? Definitely not in all businesses, but it isn't unrealistic to suggest you would see businesses hiring men instead of women to avoid covering costs of birth control insurances. Many people may point to the laws in place to prevent hiring/workplace discrimination[3][4]. While businesses must technically follow these rules, they can come up with legally acceptable reasons for why a person who they are in reality illegally discriminating against should not be hired. Take Hooters for example. Technically they're not allowed to discriminate based on age or weight, but you haven't seen any 55 year old, 290lb waitresses there, have you? Given their uniforms, I certainly hope not. ------Conclusion------ Private businesses should be protected from these mandates of the ACA, as they violate their First Amendment Right. To comply with this mandate would be to not practice your faith, and to resist the mandate would be financially disastrous. Whichever option is taken, the First Amendment is being violated. If these requirements weren't removed, there is the possibility for an increase in gender discrimination in hiring. Sources: [1] http://constitution.laws.com... [2] http://dailycaller.com... [3] http://www.law.cornell.edu... [4] http://www.eeoc.gov...