FOW- Free Sterilizations Must be Offered to All College Women, Says HHS

(CNSNews.com) - All student health care plans covering female college students in the United States must include coverage for free voluntary sterilization surgery, the Department of Health and Human Services announced late Friday afternoon.

Women of college age who do not attend school will also get free sterilization coverage whether they are insured through an employer, their parents, or some form of government-subsidized plan.

All student health plans, HHS said Friday as it finalized a new regulation under the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) must cover the full set of cost-free women's "preventive services" that HHS ordered last month must be covered by all U.S. health care plans.

These free "preventive services" include surgical sterilization procedures and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.

"These preventive health services include, with respect to women, preventive care and screening provided for in the comprehensive guidelines supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that were issued on August 1, 2011," HHS said in a request for comments about how the new regulation will be implemented.

"As relevant here, the HRSA Guidelines require coverage, without cost sharing, for '[a]ll Food and Drug Administration [(FDA)] approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity,' as prescribed by a provider," said the HHS description of the regulation, which will be published in the March 21 edition of the Federal Register.

In announcing the rule for college-based health plans, HHS said it would follow the same system for enforcing the rule on religious colleges and universities that object to purchasing sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients for its students that President Barack Obama has proposed for enforcing the regulation on religious non-profit organizations in the coverage for their employees: The insurer will be forced to provide the sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients to the students free of charge.

"Under the final rule, students will gain the same consumer protections other people with individual market insurance have, like a prohibition on lifetime limits and coverage of preventive services without cost sharing," HHS said in a press release. "In the same way that religious colleges and universities will not have to pay, arrange or refer for contraceptive coverage for their employees, they will not have to do so for their students who will get such coverage directly and separately from their insurer."

The U.S. Catholic Bishops have said that this mechanism does not satisfy their concerns about the regulation's violation of the freedom of conscience and religion of those who have moral and religious objections to sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion. Institutions that object on moral and religious grounds would still have to provide insurance plans that covered these things, even if these particular services were theoretically paid for by the insurer rather than the institution securing the insurers services to cover its students and employees.

Also, just as the regulation requiring free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients makes no accommodation at all for private-sector employers who object on religious or moral grounds, the rule requiring this coverage for students makes no accommodation for non-religious private schools that object on religious and moral grounds or for state colleges in states where local voters, taxpayers, legislators and governors may object to providing free sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients to college students.

The committee said women of "reproductive capacity" included those as young as 15 years of age.

"Sterilization," the IOM report said, "is a surgical procedure."

According to this CDC report, among women ages 20-24, who are using contraception, 2.4 percent have been sterilized. Among those aged 25-29, who are using contraception, 15.0 percent have been sterilized.



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Vicki Cubeiro Comment:

"Pure evil. Obama and democrats are obsessed with death, sterilization, abortion, birth control and yes sex and anti-faith. What is next, pedophiles are legal because they are just instructional about sex to minors. Now birth control is available to 12 year olds. Planned Non-Parenthood does not report abortions given to young girls, that would be rape. So in Obamas world rape of minors, sterilization of 20 year old college students, $1.00 abortions (HHS ObamaCare), churches forced to go against principals of valuing life. Man they don't need those death panels, no one will make it to be elderly, thus too expensive to live.
Evil pure evil."