text: This writer misses, as many Catholics and their bishops continually do - the point of the mandate.  
  
  The mandate is for the purpose of protecting the right that women have to free, safe, and easily accessible birth control no matter where they work.  It is not to make the church either strong or weak.  Neither would it have accomplished either if the Church and its ministries were made to fill out the form telling the Govt and their female employees that they are against birth control so the Govt will have to give them access instead of the Insurance Co.  This form already gave distance and so our Church is wrong to even fight further.  
  
  Our stand on birth control, esp. since abortions have been down in the U.S. in the last 5-10 years and it is believed because of this better access to B.C. (a rate lower possibly than when it was illegal to abort in the U.S.), is misogynistic & fatal to the unborn.
  
  We should not pay for private schools because then the public schools start to fail.