Institute of Medicine recommends contraception and other preventive health services for women be covered free of charge. http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/22/3786955/contraceptives-belong-among-the.html the government is recommending that birth control be free. it makes sense on many levels. it would reduce unwanted births estimated to be 30% of births, it would reduce abortions, it would reduce welfare costs, it would reduce poverty. who could be against all of these desirable goals? the catholic church. it considers birth control a sin. You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.â â Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian, 1927
The Catholic Church is straight up wrong when they oppose birth control but saying that they are an impediment to progress is going too far. Organized religion goes a long way toward building communities. If people didn't go to church every sunday there would be a hell of a lot more lonely people out there. They'd get socially frustrated. Especially in today's internet age. Then they'd go out and do crazy destructive things. The church keeps these people in line.