Okay, so that may sound harsh, but how else do you describe Sec. Sebilius’ explanation of the cost-effectiveness of the manadate? She explains that because fewer babies will be born, insurance premiums will actually be either a net-neutral or net-negative. Let me get this straight then; here’s the recipe:

• The woman wants to have as much sex as she can
• They get “free” contraception from the government
• The babies they would normally have had are therefore never born
• The insurance carrier (i.e., Obamacare) is spared from pre/post-natal, ob/gyn, then pediatric care costs
• The woman gets to go on having as much sex as she wants
• Repeat cycle as many times as desired

From the CNS story:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a House panel Thursday that a reduction in the number of human beings born in the United States will compensate employers and insurers for the cost of complying with the new HHS mandate that will require all health-care plans to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.

“The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception,” Sebelius said. She went on to say the estimated cost is “down not up.”

Ummmmm….so from this we’re supposed to glean that having a child is a bad thing? Is this part of the Obama administration’s “green” agenda? I know that sounds like a stretch, but there are many so-called environmentalists who believe that over-population would be bad for the environment.

Are decreased birth rates in the Western world what we really want? There are plenty of studies out that show lower birth rates in Western countries are really going to prove detrimental to civilization globally. From Demographic Winter:

The years have not been kind to this most important institution – the family, particularly the last four decades. Worldwide, families have broken down at a historically unprecedented pace. There are certainly records of how now-extinct societies have experienced similar declines before their demise, but what we now face is unique in that it has a global spread. This has ominous portent.

The family’s importance to basic social structures has perhaps been more explored and discussed than its importance to other aspects of our world, and certainly deserves continued study. What is probably less obvious, and therefore less examined, is the family’s impact on such things as the rule of law, democratic structures, societal and even technological advancement, education, successful commerce and economic structures. Society depends on these in order to remain stable and the family’s impact on them is profound.

When the great social experiments of the 1960’s were launched, and when concern over a “population bomb” loomed large, we did not have the social science and economic studies we have available to us today. So the world embarked unknowingly on a self-destructive course.

Do we really want to go down this sacrificial path for woman’s (and man’s) pleasure alone? I hope we don’t turn out to be that selfish as a civilization. But if Obama and Sebelius have their way, children will soon be nothing more than a choice (before or after the fact). If we continue down this path, how can we truly expect to be able to self-sustain? That frightening answer is, no, we cannot.