Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) today compared a new regulation requiring insurers to provide women birth control without a copay to September 11th or Pearl Harbor.
In a speech on the House floor, Kelly said it was such a travesty that women wouldn’t be paying hundreds of dollars a year in copays that it should go down in history as a great tragedy similar to those two events that killed thousands of Americans:
“I know in your mind you can think of the times America was attacked,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), a freshman.
“One is December 7 — that is Pearl Harbor Day. Another was September 11 — that was the day of the terrorist attack.
“I want you to remember August 1, 2012 — the attack on our religious freedom. That is a date that will live in infamy, along with those other dates.”
Today marks the beginning of implementation for the birth control mandate, which is a part of Obamacare. It is just one of the many benefits in the law for women. The mandate has been hotly contested, however, by the Catholic church, which considers it an affront to religious freedom, despite the fact that many Catholic institutions already cover birth control, and the church itself wouldn’t be paying for contraception.
Update:
Kelly has no regrets about his comparison — in an interview with Newsmax, Kelly’s office said that the birth control mandate is “an undeniable and unprecedented attack on Americans’ First Amendment rights”:
“Our freedoms and way of life have been under attack before, from both internal and external threats. If we fail to defend our constitutional rights, we risk losing the freedoms that so many brave men and women have given their lives to defend throughout the course of our nation’s history.”