As I posted yesterday, I really think the Obama administration needs to change course on contraception, and the sooner the better. The one thing we do not need, and that the President does not need, is more opposition to the health care law. Support for the law is weak, and still needs to be consolidated. Catholics — including Catholic institutions, can and should be a part of that. They want to be a part of it. And again, as a matter of principle, those institutions should not be made to violate their beliefs — however misguided or wrongheaded we may think them to be. Freedom of religious conscience is paramount.
EJ Dionne and others have made the case that even liberal Catholics have been blindsided by the decision. Here’s Dionne:
Speaking as a Catholic, I wish the Church would be more open on the contraception question. But speaking as an American liberal who believes that religious pluralism imposes certain obligations on government, I think the Church’s leaders had a right to ask for broader relief from a contraception mandate that would require it to act against its own teachings. The administration should have done more to balance the competing liberty interests here.
Dionne is a thoughtful commentator. He’s not a slash-and-burner. And I think he’s right.
I think there’s a lot more to lose by sticking with this path than by making a quick reversal.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this issue simply that every health plan – including those offered by the Catholic Church to their employees in non-church activities (like schools, colleges, and hospitals) must provide contraception?
This law isn’t making the church give out the contraception. It is just saying that health care plans must cover this treatment.
This is only an issue because the Catholic Church has its hands in a lot of activities, many of which go outside religious activity, and many of which employ non-Catholics.
Imagine if Jehovah’s Witnesses happened to own a lot of restaurants, employing a lot of non-Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they demanded that the health care plans they were required to offer could not cover blood transfusions. Would people be on board with that?
I’m a little tired of the “fungibility” argument here. Just because the health care plan offers contraception does not make this an attach on Catholicism. No one is making Catholics do anything they don’t want to do.
While we’re talking about “religious objections”, why is the Church any different from individual Catholics? What if the CEO of Domino’s Pizza says “I’m Catholic, and I object to offering my employees plans that provide contraception”? And if the BOD backs him, would this be OK too?
With the line on Jehovah’s Witnesses, you hit on the same argument I’ve been making to friends of mine the last few days. To take an even more radical example: say that the restaurant owner in your example spends some time down on Huntington Ave. and converts to the Church of Christ, Scientist. Now he says that he refuses to offer health insurance plans to his employees that covers procedures other than “spiritual healing”. What distinguishes this from the case of Catholic hospitals and coverage for contraception? That is, aside from the political calculus involved and the baseless cultural stigma attached to contraception.
calculations. By and large, most Catholics don’t agree with the 44 year-old birth control doctrine. 98% ignore it and, for that matter, most Catholics ignore the episcopacy. There will be little political damage done with Catholic voters and meanwhile, the base gets some red meat to chew on.
The Globe published a marvelous and relevant piece by Gene Robinson this morning. Here’s the money quote (emphasis mine):
Indeed.
President Obama should NOT reverse course, he is finally doing the right thing.
Suppose on religious grounds:
a (private) school segregates classrooms by race
a (private) hospital won’t prescribe antibiotics
a (private) adoption agency won’t place children with gay couples
but all receive federal funds. Further suppose that now comes a requirement that to take the funds these institutions must end these respective practices.
Can you explain how these examples are different from the instant case? Or is there no difference and the requirement is restrctive of First Amendment rights in all cases?
If the latter: Really? Can you explain how?
By the way I think you probably understate the damage this will do to Obama’s reelection bid, sorry to say. But in the merits I just do not understand your argument.
The Church is free to apply religious law to religious matters: they can decide who gets communion, whose confessions they want to hear, and who will go to heaven.
But for civil matters, like access to medicine and medical procedures, the same law should apply to everyone. This is not a theocracy subject to one understanding of God, it is a multi-religious society.
This is already the law. I do not know if Massachusetts is one of them, but I assume that it is. The church squawked over the morning after pill, too, but eventually accepted it so long as their was no pregnancy involved. Frankly by November, nobody will care. The worst thing Obama could do now is reverse course and alienate women’s groups, empower the church’s enabling of social inequality (focusing on social justice, a former church priority, would do more to limit abortion than banning the procedure outright would) and then appear weak.
Moreover, the church is not being asked to provide abortions. Rather it is simply requiring that its insurance plans give their employees the right to make their own decisions. The church can condemn an abortion any abortion as ending a life. We don’t have to have a religious debate to contemplate that matter. However, the contraceptive thing is really only a theological mandate between the church and its adherents. Not anybody else, including their employees. Episcopalians are okay with Contraceptives and may not even have a recognized marriage as far as the church is concerned. Should they be fired to living in sin let alone for using birth control?
It becomes a problem when it is about enforcing religious doctrine upon people outside your faith.
plenty of other countries with Catholic populations provide birth control. They may not have our Constitution, but Rome must be living with the reality.
This scenario is just another case study in favor of universal, non-employer-based health insurance.
I would also say that it’s probably better for the government to stay out of it. It’s a bit scary though that the church could possibly go even further and say they will not treat STD, or give medical care for out of wedlock pregnancies, etc. I don’t know if they would but it’s sort the first step to getting there, maybe. Today’s contraception is safe and so commonly used that it should practically be an over the counter medication anyway. A quick health history, blood pressure check and it should be dispensed. There is no need for an expensive office visit. Also, birth control pills should by now be very inexpensive, less than the cost of a standard co-pay, if Big Pharma and CVS would ever allow it.
Are you kidding me? Just because the Catholic hierarchy opposes Obama on birth control doesn’t mean it’s not WILDLY POPULAR. Look, a recent study showed that 98% of Catholic women use birth control. Clearly, what the Catholic church says has little correlation to what people actually do, even WHILE IDENTIFYING AS CATHOLIC. Remember, Calista Gingrich was identified as a “devout Catholic” the whole time she was banging Newt Gingrich. who was married to another woman. Think the Catholic dogma speaks highly of that?
Birth control rights is an incredibly popular subject and Obama’s on the side of the people – almost all of them – on this one.
But moreover, it’s the right thing to do.
believe in the religion? One part I couldn’t stand about being a Catholic was all the hypocrisy. All of the “sinners” I would see out “sinning” during the week and then see them praying with all of the innocence and glory of a perfect Catholic on Sunday. It was the most absurd thing to witness and be a part of. I was a sinner, damn well knew it, knew that God knew it, and felt that it was better to be free of all the condemnation provided by the church than it was to drown in it. The God I believe in is better and less controlling than that. So why would a Catholic even expect the church to provide coverage for birth control. If they feel that way about it, they have no business being a Catholic.
When you start or take over a for-profit corporation or business, largely created under laws of the state, you agree to operate under those laws. However, if a church is itself the benefactor of an institution such as a hospital or school, those are generally the property of the diocese and as such the religious exemption should apply.
Liberals should believe in religious tolerance and freedom of expression and freedom to choose but apparently many liberals here think the state should impose its will, however benign, upon churches however misguided. If allowing churches to set their own policies regarding their own employees is “theocracy” then I shudder to think that some on these forums are just as foolish in thinking they can use the state to enforce their beliefs. The religious right is a malignancy on our democracy not because of its values but because it wants to use the state to enforce them. Several “progressive liberals” apparently share this malignancy only for their side. This is terrible politics and is the only thing priests are talking about at Mass. In Mass this might not be apparent but as someone who has campaigned extensively in the Midwest I can attest to the fact that the President is losing. Others and volunteers over this. Many of my friends I campaigned with are sitting Ot over this issue. It’s also only going to make the mandate more unpopular. This is not a debate about the morality of contraception but about liberty.
Anecdotally, I think I would add that this is objectionable even among those Catholics who are Democrats, and don’t necessarily agree with the Church with respect to its stance on contraception. Catholics are, for historical reasons, sensitive to government abrogation of religious liberty.
I don’t understand the politics of it. I suppose it is possible that the controversy fizzles, but I don’t see any sign of that yet. Rather, it seems to be building.
If I were a betting man, I would wager that the controversy will linger, that the administration will realize that it hurts them it some rather crucial swing states, and will climb meekly down, thus getting the far left into Nader-crazy mode and without undoing the damage among Catholic moderates.
And this lose-lose position taken two weeks after the Hosanna Tabor Lutheran Church case in the Supreme Court, which casts the enforceability of this mandate into serious doubt.
on this decision. If you had bothered to read the decision, or the summary of it, you would find that it had nothing to do with your contention that “it’s the church, not the government, that gets to decide”.
The Court ruled unanimously that the the teacher could not sue because of the “ministerial exception.” Not because she was a church employee, but because she was an employee carrying out a ministerial function. The facts of the case included the fact that she was ordained, had presided over services once or twice, et cetera. Had she not served a ministerial function, then the case, though not necessarily the outcome, would have been different.
Here’s from SCOTUS Blog:
As the Times reports,
The decision only applies to people who don’t come under the “ministerial exception.”
As Kagan and Alito’s concurring opinion stated,
The Hosanna decision has nothing to do with this health insurance policy.
The existence of some “ministerial exception” was something that was the subject of much debate, and the subject of a division among the various courts of appeal. What I see in that case is 9 justices endorsing a broad protection of religious liberty against government intrusion, and 0 justices exhibiting discomfort with such protections.
They did not go so far as Thomas would have done, foreclosing all such claims against religious institutions. Instead, they adopted an umpteen factor test, the most important factor in which was what the church called the claimant.
With respect to the Catholic Church, education and care for the sick have been a major part of its missions in America since it came to America. I don’t think the rule will survive on legal grounds, in the unlikely event that it is not sooner killed on political grounds.
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I cannot agree more. While I find Humane Vitae quite eloquent and moving in its call to protect all life, I do think its ruling on contraception falls short of meeting the Church standard for applying reason to faith by upholding a moral ideal that is not only incredibly hard for nearly all Catholics to abide by but one that is also potentially dangerous in a post-HIV overpopulated world. Just as the Church embraced Evolution and Darwin and changed its course when confronted with scientific evidence it should do so here. But the state is not the agent to force those kinds of changed that most come organically and from the church. Benedicts’ signalling on the HIV question lead me to think it might be revised in the near future, but only he can make that decision, not the President.
Additionally I think your predictions are coming true sooner than you think. Today Axelrod signaled a possible compromise whereby the Church permits its employees to purchase supplemental insurance directly from the providers so no Church funds could conceivably go to contraception. And I also agree it will piss off the ‘progressive’ wing that will inevitably and absurdly find even this sensible compromise an assault on choice as well as doing little to mend the fences with the Catholic community. While I do think most of these voters will pick Obama over Romney when push comes to shove, I think many Catholics that really went to bat defending the President and health care reform, particularly in America and Commonweal and in Catholic universities, will luckily retreat from active participation this season and thats the greatest mistake he made.
“those kinds of changes (sic Changed)”
“must come organically from the Church: (sic most come organically and from the church)
“likely retreat from active participation” (sic luckily retreat)
it won’t survive on legal grounds is laughable. No one’s forcing the Catholic Church to create institutions that can’t exist without federal funding.
Many of their services that they create almost operate exclusively on federal, state and local funding — like, for example, their adoption services that they played politics with after we created marriage equality in this state.
The vast majority of that funding came from the state and that’s why it had to obey our anti-discrimination laws when adopting children, or else cease those adoption services… which is what ended up happening.
After they closed up shop, the state just shifted the funding elsewhere and low and behold… kids are still being adopted in Massachusetts. The same will happen for any other Catholic organization the church decides to play politics with over women’s health, while simultaneously taking government money to fund it.
When religious institutions create services like hospitals or schools, then ask for government funding to keep them open, they accept the fact that they can’t discriminate over who they hire or serve when giving out those services.
When the federal or state government aggressively ensures the people getting those services and the people who are employed to give those services aren’t being discriminated against by the religious institution, it’s not the state stamping out religious freedom… it’s the state protecting the religious freedom of all the employees working at those institutions and all the clients getting those services.
I don’t mean I disagree, but that I cannot understand your position based on what you say.
Where do you draw the line at institutions that take public money enforcing religious restrictions on nonbelievers? Or would any kind of malpractice (at a hospital for instance) be okay?
If those schools and hospitals take federal funds, then they damn well better not discriminate against the clientele or the people they hire to work them. That’s the price they pay for taking federal or state or local money.
This is doubly so since many hospitals, shelters and other services that are provided by these institutions — and funded through the state — are services and institutions of last resort.
There aren’t so many hospitals in most areas, so if you happen to live near the Catholic one and you were raped… you shouldn’t be denied emergency contraceptives. Period.
If you’re a nurse in that area and that hospitals takes federal dollars, it shouldn’t be able to discriminate against the women in their employ by denying basic, essential medicare coverage in their plans. Period.
This isn’t rocket science.
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.” Leviticus 20:13
…should the Government interfere?
If you cave to the opinion that IUDs violate the teachings of the Bible, where do you stop caving?
I would argue there is a hierarchy of rights. My right to life trumps your freedom of religion, but your freedom of religions trumps my desire for you to pay for me to do something that you believe is a sin.
I think there is also the active/passive or commission/omission distinction. In other words, the law can stop you from actively doing something that would harm me, but should allow you to pass on doing something that could help me.
I mean if Catholics are truly listening to the church, Catholics working for church aligned organizations like schools and hospitals won’t ask for prescriptions for birth control, and thus the price of policies sold to said organizations will reflect this (much in the same way that a company with young employees usually has rates that reflect less cancer and other illnesses that are age-related).
When the church convinces its followers and employees to not want birth control, they won’t pay for it.
If the church is doing a poor job of having its members follow its teachings, why should the feds have to do their dirty work?
On another note, the church is supposedly against the death penalty and was against Bush’s wars of choice. Why does it not ever cause a big stink about the death penalty? The only time these controversies blow up into these big deals are when there is sex involved.