\u201cI\u2019ve got more interest in good quality long underwear than I have in birth control pills,\u201d the unfamiliar voice on the phone said to me.<\/p>\n
It was Michael Potter, the Eden Foods founder and CEO. He was calling to respond to my Salon report from last week, which revealed that his organic food company \u2014 which markets itself to a crunchy, liberal crowd \u2014 was quietly suing the Obama administration over its requirement that his company\u2019s employee health plan cover birth control. Mostly, he said in the most amiable, avowedly Midwestern way imaginable \u2014 at one point he called himself \u201ca pretty simple guy, a Midwestern homemade-soup guy\u201d \u2014 he was calling to apologize to me.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t that he was upset about my reporting or what his company was doing. He was just sorry my request for comment had gone unanswered due to an oversight. I accepted the apology, and asked why he said he didn\u2019t care about birth control, since he filed a suit about it and all.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I\u2019m a man, number one and it\u2019s really none of my business what women do,\u201d Potter said. So, then, why bother suing? \u201cBecause I don\u2019t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel\u2019s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That\u2019s my issue, that\u2019s what I object to, and that\u2019s the beginning and end of the story.\u201d He added, \u201cI\u2019m not trying to get birth control out of Rite Aid or Wal-Mart, but don\u2019t tell me I gotta pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the federal government tells him to do a lot of things, I said. Why sue over this if he had no particular issue with contraception, as the suit \u2014 \u201cthese procedures almost always involve immoral and unnatural practices,\u201d his court filing explained \u2013 clearly alleges he does out of religious conviction? Well, he said, he opposes \u201cusing abortion as birth control, definitely.\u201d But the mandate doesn\u2019t cover abortion, I reminded him, only contraception, and emergency contraception is not abortion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a morass,\u201d Potter said. \u201cI\u2019m not an expert in anything. I\u2019m not the pope. I\u2019m in the food business. I\u2019m qualified to have opinions about that and not issues that are purely women\u2019s issues. I am qualified to have an opinion about what health insurance I pay for.\u201d<\/p>\n
I floated by him the fact that contraceptive coverage is cheaper to pay for than, say, maternity coverage.<\/p>\n