U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., addressed the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, and the subject was – as it has been all week – the fictional “War on Women.” DeGette, no stranger to this theme, tried to make it an issue of economic liberty…
“And when they deny women access to birth control so that we can plan to have our children, it hits women and families right in the pocketbook. Reproductive freedom means economic freedom – and that’s what this debate is all about.”
We agree that there’s a debate on economic freedom, just not how Rep. DeGette interprets the term.
The far more immediate threat is to the economic freedom of the employer, as the case of Denver’s own Hercules Industries shows. The potential $10 million annual fine for non-compliance with the HHS contraceptive mandate could force the company out of business. In their zeal to keep the Newland family from operating their business in accordance with their religious conscience, the Diana DeGettes of the world would keep them from having a business to operate at all. And in their zeal to ensure contraception coverage for employees, they would force Hercules’s workers into unemployment, where they won’t have any insurance through that employer at all.
As usual, the price that Big Government advocates are willing to pay comes at someone else’s expense.
