How far off the moral rails is America’s present government taking this country? Here is a grotesque, enraging example.

Remember when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pitched the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—aka Obamacare—by saying, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it”? Well, it passed, and now we’re finding out.

Hold on to your seat.

Can you stomach free sterilizations for 15-year-old girls?

Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act, enacted in March 2010, listed several services that American health insurance plans must “provide coverage for and shall not impose any cost-sharing requirements for.” Among them were unspecified “additional preventive care and screenings” for women. Just what that care would include was to be determined by an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.

To decide what “additional preventive care” meant, the hhs commissioned the Committee on Preventive Services for Women of the Institute of Medicine for recommendations. In July of last year, that committee advised that this federal mandate include “the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for women with reproductive capacity.” Its report defined “women with reproductive capacity” as including those “from the time of menarche to menopause.”

Menarche. As defined by the National Institutes of Health in the U.S., this is girls around age 12. Now eligible for free provision of the “full range” of federally approved contraception—including sterilization.

We are talking about the government mandating that insurance companies pay all costs of teenage girls and even younger to receive tubal ligation surgery or surgical implants, rendering them incapable of ever bearing children.

hhs adopted the committee’s recommendation a month later, with one slight change: adding the word “all” before the phrase “women with reproductive capacity.” Presumably, they wanted to close a potential loophole in case anyone tried to make any exceptions. Like for young teen girls.

cnsnews.com ran an excellent article last Friday about this unbelievable provision in the Obama administration’s health-care statute, which as of two weeks ago is law. It examined state laws on the age of consent for sterilization, and noted that Oregon law designates the age of informed consent as 15. “Under Oregon law, girls from 15 years of age and up are given complete control over whether to be sterilized or not,” cnsnews explained. “The parents or guardians of a minor girl—between 15 and 18—can neither grant nor deny consent for a sterilization.”

Sterilization is effectively permanent. It is at least 98 percent effective. A woman who wants to reverse the procedure must undergo a more extensive surgery, and the success rate is low.

What were legislators in Oregon thinking when they gave a 15-year-old girl the power to make that life-altering decision—without even telling her parents?

And what was the federal government thinking when it forced insurance companies to pay for these surgeries—without even putting an age limit on them?

The law says these girls are under the age of consent to even have sex. Yet somehow they are mature enough to decide, by themselves, that they will never want children?

This 15-year-old girl who wants to be sterilized—wouldn’t any authority in her life who cared for her be naturally inclined to tell her that such a drastic move was a bad idea? What kind of person would cave in and tell her to go ahead with it if she feels it’s best—let alone actually encourage someone that young to be sterilized?

But these folks have gone way past that. They have made it law that the procedure is free for that girl—and on top of that, they have decreed that her parents shouldn’t need to know about it, and cannot intervene if they do find out!

When cnsnews tried to pin down politicians and government employees to comment on whether free sterilizations for 15-year-olds were appropriate, they got stonewalled. Speaker Pelosi peevishly implied that anyone concerned about the idea was inappropriately inserting religion into a policy discussion. “You know what, I told you before, let’s go to church and talk about our religion,” she said. “Right here we’re talking about public policy as it affects women.”

Sorry, but these people are the ones pushing their agenda with religious zeal. Unconcerned about public opinion or backlash, they are undermining parental authority and manipulating impressionable young people. They are forcing insurance companies to support something that these companies may well consider morally abhorrent. They are compelling all insurance holders to pay for these procedures in the form of higher premiums.

All this in order to force their extreme views while euphemistically calling it “preventive care for women.”

The Institute of Medicine report boasted about sterilization’s advantages as a contraceptive since it doesn’t rely on “user compliance” and is more cost-effective than long-acting but non-permanent methods. In recommending that sterilizations be free to women, it cited one study that found that “when out-of-pocket costs for contraceptives were eliminated or reduced, women were more likely to rely on more effective long-acting contraceptive methods.” “The elimination of cost sharing for contraception therefore could greatly increase its use, including use of the more effective and longer-acting methods, especially among poor and low-income women most at risk for unintended pregnancy,” the report said.

If you’re looking for the cheapest, most potent and foolproof way to prevent people from having children, nothing beats sterilization. And when you make it free, more women choose it. It’s a no-brainer for people who see no reason a 15-year-old shouldn’t get sterilized.

These are the same people who work to keep it legal to abort a baby simply because of its sex, who fight to preserve the practice of partial-birth abortion, and who oppose legislation to protect newborns who somehow manage to survive abortion. This is the administration headed by a man who argued for abortion by saying that if his daughters were to “make a mistake” and get pregnant, “I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

When moral absolutes are cast aside, then all kinds of “solutions” to the problem of teenage pregnancy open up.