By an executive order in 2010, President Obama assured the nation that the new health reform law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, would maintain conscience protections. Now the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could be heading in the opposite direction. Will the President assert himself to safeguard conscience protections now?
HHS will soon list the "preventive services" for women that must be included in private insurance plans. At HHS's request, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has presented a list of mandated services, which includes: provision of drugs approved by the FDA for use as contraceptives, some of which also cause abortion; sterilization; and counseling to encourage people to use such medicines and procedures.
This manipulation of the health care reform law is troubling. As HHS and IOM outline their plan, there is no mention of providing a conscience exemption for institutions and persons who object to paying for procedures that violate their beliefs.
Given the U.S. Constitution's declared right of religious liberty, should the government be able to force anyone, including a Catholic diocese or Catholic school or Catholic Charities agency, to foot the bill for surgical sterilizations for their employees? Should the federal government force such organizations to pay for contraceptives that are marketed to prevent pregnancy but instead can abort tiny children in their earliest stage of development? Should they have to pay for counseling that violates their beliefs?
Abortion lobby forces such as Planned Parenthood, which will make a bundle if this wish list of government mandates to buy their services is accepted, seem to have had undue influence on IOM. Several of the authors of the IOM report have served on the boards of state Planned Parenthood organizations. One IOM committee member, Anthony Lo Sasso, professor and senior research scientist at the University of Illinois at the Chicago School of Public Health, dissented from the report. His reason for objecting, he said, was that "the process tended to result in a mix of objective and subjective determinations filtered through a lens of advocacy."
HHS and IOM may feel indebted to their well-heeled Planned Parenthood friends. But that is no reason for President Obama to lose the good will he gained when he assured the nation of his support for rights of conscience. It certainly is no reason to turn the U.S. Constitution inside out so that religious liberty takes second place to an irreligious lobby. The president needs to get involved now. He might look for inspiration from the brilliant lawyer Thomas More.
Thomas More was Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor. More was beheaded in 1535 when, as a matter of conscience, he refused to sign on to the king's decree making himself head of the church in England. This was Henry's effort to sanction his divorce of Catherine of Aragon for not producing a male heir that lived beyond infancy. (We can leave to a feminist discussion the unfairness of the situation given that the sex of a child is determined by the father, not the mother.) More sacrificed his life for principle and integrity, a sacrifice heralded by other great thinkers after him. "I die the king's good servant," said More at his execution, "but God's first."
One great thinker, G.K. Chesterton, in 1929 warned of those who would lose sight of the importance of personal integrity and predicted what would happen 100 years later. Said Chesterton: "Sir Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death ... but he is not quite so important as he will be in a hundred years time." Society moves fast. More's message may be more important in 2029, as Chesterton predicted, but it's especially vital in 2011. The Administration might want to recall that Henry VIII's role in the affair is not looked upon kindly by history.
Follow Sister Mary Ann Walsh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/USCCB
Rep. Jackie Speier: Republicans Putting Party Above Country
Should an employer be allowed to force its beliefs on its employees, wielding its economic power over them in order to influence their health, well-being, future plans and even, sometimes, their ability to continue living? Hm?
And trying to construct straw men cheapens your argument; Planned Parenthood does do abortions, but mostly they do a lot of other good and necessary things, and most people know this. Your willful blindness of the complete nature of that organization and eagerness to cast them as evil baby killers comes across as shrill and extremist. Inasmuch as you are writing this to persuade the public, and not to just feed the egos of people who already agree with you, it fails.
You do a disservice to your religion by writing such inaccurate and divisive pieces.
From the moment as a young child that I was able to see that males and females were treated completely differently, especially in the RCC, I KNEW that all the flowery talk BY MEN about the "noble" and "dignified" role of females was a big LIE. I knew that NOTHING in my mind and soul made me any different than any male, and that all of the restrictions and rules around my very existence were also big LIES.
There is NOTHING "noble" or "dignified" about allowing a female, a wife, a mother, to DIE when her life can be saved. There is NOTHING "noble" or "dignified" about refusing to provide COMPLETE medical care to females. There is NOTHING "noble" or "dignified" about denying a person the right to bodily autonomy for ONE reason and ONE reason alone - THAT SHE IS FEMALE.
As I previously stated, I would like for the HP to feature an article by Sr McBride on this topic. Sr Walsh only wants for women to remain chained in biologic slavery and thrall to a punitive, hyper-masculine misogynist "God". Sr McBride is truly the servant of Christ who sees the TRUE nobility and dignity of females as full children of a loving God in whom there is no male or female.
Your depth of feeling is admirable. I just suggest you practice better aim.
Speaking of the better angel of our nature, how many children have you adopted so far? There are millions out there, in desperate need of parents, many from parents who couldn't afford to raise a child and didn't want to have an abortion, so adoption was the only choice. A respect for human life and an urge to defend the weak who trust us with their protection fairly demands you adopt, correct?
This fine female US citizen, for her courage and convictions, was excommunicated from the Church she served for many years. This was her reward for saving the life of another female US citizen, a wife and mother.
People like Sr Walsh would rather this woman had died, even though her fetus was unviable, because that is the result that her "conscience" would dictate. People like Sr Margaret Mary McBride, on the other hand, with medical experience, medical training, and spiritual compassion, acted from her conscience and was condemned by the Church for saving a woman's life.
Such an opinion piece from someone like Sr McBride (I suppose I should say "former Sr" so as not to "offend" the "conscience" of Sr Walsh) would be especially important at this moment, because the women of Louisville KY are now threatened with the discontinuation of critical health care services, products and medicines, because of a merger that leaves a major university hospital facility with a 70% ownership stake by the Catholic Church.
PEOPLE can be PARENTS. But they are, first and foremost, INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE, who are completely EQUAL in spirit and in mind.
And I'm frankly offended by your hoary treacle that has only one purpose, which is to keep females oppressed in degraded life roles that suit the patriarchal status quo, particularly in the Wojo/Ratzo regressive fundamentalist RCC.
There is nothing inherently noble or dignified in the ability to reproduce the species. Animals lacking self-awareness can do it quite successfully. The misogynistic fetishization of the biologic reproductive functions into the highest, most important role for female humans is insulting and demeaning. It degrades human females to the level of livestock. It stunts their souls and minds. And it makes them completely and utterly into easily replaced utility property. If a man's cow dies in childbirth, get a new cow. If a man's wife dies in childbirth, it's God's will, and He will bless his next marriage since that inconvenient woman is dead, not just sinfully divorced and ALIVE.
I AM NOT LIVESTOCK.
You seem to believe an excess of emotion equates to a viable argument. It does not.
I await your explanation.