On Friday, President Obama tried to quell the uproar over his ongoing effort to force Catholics (and everyone else) to pay for contraceptives, sterilization, and pharmaceutical abortions. Unfortunately, the non-compromise he floated does not reduce by one penny the amount of money he would force Catholics to spend on those items. Worse, this mandate is just one manifestation of how the president's health care law will grind up the freedom of every American.
Even though the contraceptives mandate exempts parish priests and the Church hierarchy, it still violates Catholics' religious liberty in at least four ways.
First, the mandate fines Catholic institutions like Notre Dame and the Eternal World Television Network that adhere to the Church's teaching that contraception "is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin." In order not to sin against their God, these employers must now pay tribute to Caesar.
Second, it takes away the freedom of Catholics to donate to institutions that uphold their religious views. There is a reason my parents donate to Catholic institutions rather than Planned Parenthood: they don't want to fund contraception. The mandate takes away that choice.
Third, it violates the freedom of Catholic business owners. How is it that the First Amendment protects the religious liberty of the employers who sit on the altar, but not the equally devout employers who sit in the pews?
Fourth, it violates the freedom of Catholic workers by forcing nearly every individual American to purchase contraceptive coverage. How is it that the First Amendment protects a devout Catholic if she works as a secretary for her local parish, but not if she works as a scientist at an environmental consulting firm?
The administration's defense of the mandate -- that a majority of self-identified Catholics use contraception and that some Catholic institutions already cover it -- likewise has at least four flaws.
First, thank God we don't live in a theocracy that forces those folks to adhere to Church dogma. But why should the government commit the opposite sin of forcing doctrinaire Catholics to violate a religious principle that imposes no harm on others? Second, Catholics are not the only ones who consider contraception sinful. Third, it is nonsense to argue that the percentage of Americans who believe contraception is forbidden by God is small enough that the First Amendment doesn't apply to them; the whole point of the First Amendment is to protect minorities. Devout Catholics are a minority, but they are quite sincere.
Finally, it's not just people who consider contraception sinful that oppose this mandate. That's because the mandate also violates the freedom of those who have non-religious reasons for not wanting to purchase contraceptives, who would rather pay for contraceptives out of pocket, or who want such coverage now but might change their minds in the future.
Rather than respect each individual's freedom to make their own choice, President Obama demands that even those who will never need contraception -- gays, lesbians, the post-menopausal, the celibate, the infertile -- must underwrite other people's sex lives.
In his most recent address to Congress, President Obama asked Americans to emulate the military, encouraging us not to "obsess over [our] differences," but to "focus on the mission at hand." The president seeks to achieve universal health insurance coverage by forcing everyone to purchase it. With a populace sharply divided over what health insurance should include, however, that mission becomes an altar for sacrificing individual rights.
President Obama is not the first world leader to call on his people to subordinate their essential diversity and freedom to a military ethos. Even left-wing Catholics like E.J. Dionne and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) protested the health care law's impact on this one type of liberty. That suggests how illiberal an enterprise universal coverage really is.
Michael F. Cannon is director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute and coauthor of Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.
Melissa Rogers: Honoring Religious Objections and Access to Contraceptive Coverage
This could get out of control in a hurry.
Just another reason, really, to cut the employer out of the health care equation altogether and get a national exchange (at least) set up.
Down here, where real people live, work, spend time together, and make choices about managing the timing and size of their families, the only freedom that counts is the freedom not to have health care benefits or decisions dictated by religious employers.
Or, to be financially penalized because religious employers have some doctrine they have to apply to private citizens.
American citizens want the law to protect their individual freedoms from religiously inspired social engineering or control.
The vast majority of Americans also know, if this was a case of a MUSLIM hospital trying to block employees from receiving medical care, because they deemed improper according to Sharia law, you would be completely and utterly silent at best.
More likely, you would be wagging that finger in dire warning about how Islam was defying American Law, and trying to supplant it with religious strictures, in violation of the Constitution.
Stop acting so threatened by one small group of people who don't want to subsidize something they believe to be wrong. Nobody is trying to make contraception illegal. So stop acting as though birth control will not be available if a Catholic institution does not pay for one.
I also do not buy the argument that religious institutions are trying to force their morals on their employees, probably because I work at one so I can speak from first-hand experience. They ask that I respect their beliefs, but they have never asked me to follow them. Likewise, they are not telling me not to use birth control at my Catholic institution, they are simply asking not to have to pay for my birth control because they believe it is wrong. If I demanded they pay for my birth control then I am asking them to compromise their core beliefs, and it is I who is enforcing my beliefs on them, not the other way around.
If General Electric informed its employees it was restricting what health benefits it's employees could receive, based on it's own ethical choices, is that ok? What if GE decides vaccines aren't acceptable? Or, the Church of Scientology refuses psychiatric prescriptions?
According to your reasoning, ANY employer has the right to ignore Federal Law, and decide on its own what would be excluded from the insurance coverage of its employees, if it has some moral or ethical conflict with that coverage.
The fact that in this particular case, the employer has a crucifix over the door makes absolutely no difference, at all. The Catholic Church is using it's religious standing as an excuse to penalize individuals who don't hold their beliefs. As I'd pointed out, no one would be defending a Muslim institution for the same behavior - it would be attacked as un-constitutional, and in violation of federal law.
As you know, many women have very legitimate medical reasons to take oral contraceptives besides family planning - no exception is being made for them, so your argument about birth control being a right or not, doesn't hold water either.
This is simply a flimsy political issue, raised by culture warriors.
The fact is, the Federal provision being discussed is in line with many State laws which already require the same thing.
The only reason you didn't hear about those, and aren't hearing about them now, is because a few Republicans want to make a ruckus about the President.
Are you in favor of granting all employers the right to pick and choose what health coverage they exclude from employee's insurance, or just the Catholic Church?
No one (not even Rick Santorum) is trying to take away a woman's ability to get birth control. They are just opposed to an employer being forced to pay for it.
"he'd get it for her in a heartbeat." Yes he would. What does it have to do with government forcing employers to provide it?
Religious liberty does not extend to commerce or employment. Otherwise a catholic institution employing a non-catholic is violating the employee's liberty.
Personal liberty is far more in line with the founding fathers beliefs. There is a reason they separated church and state. So that in all cases, personal liberty stands above religion.
That being said, religious liberty basically allows people to practice religion as they see fit. It absolutely extends to commerce and employment.
Religious liberty is some made up conservative thing. That you can impose that freedom on another who may choose not to embrace that belief.
Are you not then restricting the "freedom" of another who may enjoy a different religion? And should commerce by a church be allowed to restrict anothers freedom.
Freedom isn't something you grant to one person in a way they can take it from another who differs in belief.
Freedom is something you grant to everybody regardless of belief.
You are incorrect on your reading of the 1st ammendment. "...Congress shall make no law...". Sayings nothing about Business XYZ deciding how to run itself.
Pay no attention to the Koch's behind the curtain.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/issue.php?congress=111