The Affordable Care Act is coming under scrutiny for a mandate that requires businesses to provide free birth control as part of the health care plan.  In 2013, it’s almost incredible to believe this is the area of greatest contention because most families in the United States use some form of birth control.  Except in certain communities and poorer socio-economic situations, very few families have greater than three or four children.  It simply doesn’t make economic sense for families to be that large.  Generations ago, when half or more of children didn’t survive to adulthood, it was a matter of chances.  Catholic Churches are filled with small families and ignorance, despite its preference by the clergy, is not a substitute for reality.  As this country has raised the socio-economic and educational levels of its citizenry, having children, is a choice.  People actually enjoy sex for the activity, without the desire to reproduce.  Even the religious zealots feel that way, they simply choose to tell others how to live their lives under the guise of God and religion.  If God didn’t mean for sex to be enjoyable, he could have made us just like all the other animals with an estrus cycle.  In the case of religious institutions, however, they are exempt from having to provide family planning services.  But businesses, owned by the faithful, are also attempting to opt out, suing the government over the birth control mandate.  There are more than forty lawsuits claiming the mandate is a violation of religious beliefs.  One such example referred to by NPR is Hobby Lobby, a business with five-hundred locations in forty-one states, employing twenty-two thousand people.  The founder and CEO David Green told reporters this past Fall that, “Hobby Lobby has always been a tool for the Lord’s work.  For me and my family, charity equals ministry, which equals the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  On its website is a list of job openings and in the benefits section, it says it provides medical and dental.  Birth control is part of medical.  In a corporate environment, the religious convictions of the owner or CEO plays no part in running the business.  Brigitte Amiri of the American Civil Liberty Union told NPR, “Once you enter the public sphere, and particularly when you operate a for-profit company, you can’t impose your religious beliefs on your employees”.  But Green and Hobby Lobby does have a choice, if it denies covering birth control, it can opt to pay a $1.3 million fine per day.  Since every court up to and including the US Supreme Court have denied him an injunction, the fines can begin immediately.