You're right to bring up that this girl might be more mildly affected, but that doesn't change my argument. The parents are the ones who best know what the family as a whole can cope with and whether they'd be able to give a child with special needs the care they deserve, so I'm going to go with their judgment over that of a bunch of outsiders who know next to nothing about the situation.

It will pay for medical care... special education... long-term care, when the parents either die or are too ill to care for her themselves anymore...

Exactly. One false negative on a test is one thing, but if there were other indications that the test was wrong or improperly read - as there were in this case - the hospital was negligent in not doing the proper follow-up and getting the parents the correct result.

As for those condemning the parents, I respectfully suggest they stay quiet. None of us know what resources, financial and otherwise, they have to properly deal with the medical, educational, and long-term care needs of a child with severe medical issues who will, most likely, never be able to live independently. What's more selfish - recognizing your limits and doing the best you can by your child, or knowingly biting off more than you can chew and letting your child suffer so you can get a few Martyr Parent points?

Cyberbullying certainly isn't the only reason, but don't dismiss it. I was sometimes bullied in school (nothing too horrific, thankfully, but it happened) and one of the things that really helped it is that home was a haven. Once I got home, I could relax. The other is that incidents passed. Cyberspace gives bullies the potential for 24/7 access to their victims, and any online exchange can be brought up verbatim for-EVER.

You'd be wrong, which is why women who fit in that 14% of medical-reasons-only users affected by these 'no BC covered' rules are fighting this.

No, but since you couldn't follow the logic I'll make it simpler.

*Your Personal, Private Religious Beliefs Are No Justification For Denying People Necessary Medical Care*

Many things that are labelled birth control have other uses as well, some of them critical for the people who depend on them, and there's no infringement of religious freedom in requiring insurers to cover and doctors and pharmacists to provide a minimal standard of care to their patients.

I take birth control pills because the hormones can also be used to treat a medical condition I have, like millions of other women do. You're not saving any babies by denying me the drug, as I'd have to be in a relationship to even have opportunity to get pregnant, and you are severely limiting my ability to live my life One of the women who helped bring this case up has likely lost her ability to have children because she couldn't afford BC from other sources besides student health at her catholic institution to treat a medical condition , therefore didn't take it as her doctor had prescribed, and wound up having to have an expensive, unnecessary surgery.

As to your abortion bit... may I assume you support forced organ and tissue donation, since you support forced gestation? After all, that'd save lives and donating blood is a lot less trouble than pregnancy and birth. Oh - You don't like that idea, I'm guessing? Here's a fundamental ethical principle of medical/body ethics in the West: No human being should be forced to give up the use of their body or its products, even to save another, against their will. Since women are human beings, hard as that might be for you to believe, it applies to us as well.

Religious freedom means you get to follow your religious beliefs. It doesn't mean you get to impose them on others.

How is it in ANY way an expression of religious freedom for you to deny me medical care? You have every right to follow your religious tenets in your own life, teach them to your children, etc, but you do not have the right to deny me my religious freedom to take a drug my doctor considers medically necessary for me.

Wouldn't you rather pay for them to go to college than pay for them to be on welfare, in jail, etc.? I think it comes out cheaper in the end.

The day a foster kid turns 18, they age out of the system and get little further help. These kids don't have parents like you who've saved for their education, or who can even just provide a place to live cheaply while going to school. I see this as easing a burden your kids don't have to struggle under rather than a special privilege.