Personally, I truly and honestly have no problem with a woman choosing to have an abortion as long as it’s done prior to the stage of development before the fetus develops advanced brain functions.

With the caveat that late-term abortions are very rarely elective, I will take that as a good point of agreement! Autonomy for the woman is enough for me.

I have no problem with contraception and I don’t personally know any other conservatives who do…

It will surprise you, no doubt, that I have argued the abortion issue with a lot of conservatives over the years. Usually within a few paragraphs we are arguing about birth control. Birth control obviously prevents abortion. If abortion was primary, they would be supporting birth control with every breath. Instead (Hobby Lobby) they fight it.

In terms of the ACA… the objection is to government dictates for certain types of coverage.

The reason we spend 17% of GDP on health care and Canada spends 10% is because national health care turns the entire population into a single risk pool. The reason employers always opt for group insurance is that it turns their entire employee population into a single risk pool. The broader your risk pool, the cheaper the insurance is. That is the logic behind the ACA. Employers make their workers pay for stuff they will never use in order to spread out the costs and make it cheaper on everyone. They do it because it works. The government wants to do that too.

So, yes, the birth control money comes out of your pocket. But the money for your prostate exam comes out of mine.

Republicans have spent millions (maybe billions) of dollars trying to convince people that it’s a wonderful idea to spend almost twice as much on far less and that doing what the rest of the rich countries do would somehow, magically, be way more expensive in the hands of Americans. I wish they had a higher estimate of American intelligence and it’s embarrassing that they appear to be correct.