Wage slaves and prostitutes

by digby

This post at RH reality check addresses something that’s been driving a lot of people nuts, including me. Namely, this ridiculous notion that somehow women (aka “sluts”) are asking the government to pay for their birth control. I don’t know where this comes from, but the ruling was for insurance companies to offer contraception at no cost, like any number of other preventive care practices. How they have seen that as asking the government to pay I don’t know.

But it gets to a bigger issue, which is that employer paid health insurance is a form of compensation, not some perk like free coffee in the break room:

Health insurance is part of earned income. When a woman takes a job, she is offered a health insurance package in addition to her paycheck as compensation for her work. Do I hear you saying that’s “entitled”? How droll. A workman is worthy of his hire, isn’t he (1 Timothy 5:18, for those who like references)? Why isn’t a working woman worthy of receiving the fruits of her labor?

It’s part of a worker’s wages and unless one agrees that an employer’s “conscience” allows it to withhold part of its employees’ salary if the employees do something with that money it doesn’t approve of, this entire argument is more than just an assault on women — it’s an assault on workers in general.

In America, employers don’t have the right to tell their employers what they can spend their earnings on. At least not yet.