Last week, the Catholic Vote.org Legal Fund filed the very first lawsuit against the contraceptive care mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Why?  Because a business owner in Missouri, Frank O’Brien, has come forward as feeling religiously persecuted by having to affiliate himself in any way with the contraceptive care of his employees.

So let’s talk a bit about the reality of birth control.

Most women who use birth control are not using it for its contraceptive effects.  They use it because they have irregular or painful periods, because the pill keeps them on a predictable 28 day cycle, because they don’t have to take days off of work in order to vomit and bloat and bleed profusely.

In fact, many women who take the pill for non-contraceptive reasons, like alleviating the symptoms mentioned above, are not protected from becoming pregnant.  That’s because many forms of the pill is effective for preventing pregnancy only when taken very carefully- at the exact same time every day.  However, if you take the pill every day but not within that perfect window, you can still become pregnant.

Women get on the pill as soon as they realize that they can control the incredibly unpleasant nature of being a woman every approximately 28 days.  NOT to get some sort of free pass to all the consequence free sex that they want.

So if Mr. O’Brien is so offended by providing contraceptive care, perhaps he will be less offended by female employees who instead regale him with tales of woe and illness every four weeks when they are too ill to come to work as a result of their lack of hormonal regulation.  And maybe then, he won’t be so bothered by helping them pay for the medication that allows them to continue working for him.