By now, everyone and their mother is familiar with President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. It has caused controversy since even before its enactment on Jan. 1, 2014, and is currently making headlines once again because of an issue that has most people in a tabooed tizzy: contraception. Personally, I agree with the side rooting for the contraception  mandate within Obamacare. I feel that freedom of choice trumps religious views when it comes to decision making; so, something that directly has to do with a person’s health, contraception included, should be covered by their insurance, regardless of their employer’s beliefs.

To sum it up, the contraception mandate means that most preventive health care methods are covered for women, and readily available with little to no copay for those that seek them. These methods include, but aren’t limited to, birth control pills and emergency contraception. The controversy over the mandate in the political and public eye has to do with certain religiously-affiliated groups that are speaking up and taking matters to the courts. These groups feel that contraception violates their religious and moral beliefs and therefore don’t want to cover it. In some cases, they don’t want to pay for contraceptive coverage because the members of their groups would never use it, and they see it as a waste of money to cover it.

I disagree with these groups. I think that contraceptive options are necessary in today’s society for one basic reason: bodily autonomy. This concept, simply put, means that a person has a basic human right to control what he or she does with their body. The arts and crafts giant, Hobby Lobby, disagrees with the mandate. Their stores are closed on Sundays in accordance with their Christian beliefs, so naturally they find something like mandatory contraceptive coverage to go against those beliefs. The only problem is that not all of their employees share the same religious beliefs, and by saying they don’t want to cover contraception, Hobby Lobby is making a decision for someone else about what they can and cannot do with their body and their health insurance.

In addition to making a decision without consulting the person it will be affecting, the groups that protest also aren’t taking into account the financial burden they are leaving their employees with. Birth control pills are the most common method of ingested contraception, and they can run anywhere from $15 to $50 per month, and emergency contraception may cost anywhere from $35 to $65 per dosage. This can add up really quickly for someone without insurance, or without adequate coverage, but since the mandate lowers the copay and, in some cases, eliminates any costs, I can’t see why someone wouldn’t at least want to leave this option open for someone that could really use it.

I feel that Obamacare should in fact include the contraception mandate, because it makes these methods easier to obtain and a lot more affordable. I would suggest that those who oppose the use of contraception should just not use it, because whether or not something violates a moral belief or a religious belief is in my opinion, irrelevant; no one has the right to take away someone else’s decision that they make for themselves. No matter what.