Jost & the editors on the “accommodation.”
First Tim Jost [.pdf], health-care law scholar:
Accommodation of religious belief and “neutral laws of general applicability” is not an easy task. I am a religious conscientious objector and object to the requirement that I must pay taxes to support war. Yet I do not consider the federal government to be at war with religion, even though it makes no accommodation for my religious beliefs, much less the accommodation that it affords those who object to contraception.
For two centuries that United States has been conducting an experiment virtually unprecedented in human history—a government that neither establishes nor forbids any religious beliefs. Sometimes, as with respect to laws prohibiting polygamy in the nineteenth century or my objection to war taxes, it has offered no quarter to minority beliefs. In other situations, as with the implementing of the preventive services requirement, the government has gone a great distance to accommodate minority beliefs, while at the same time trying to accommodate the needs of the majority. As a member of a religious group that has always Sydney been in the minority, and is likely to stay there, I rejoice in this ongoing experiment. President Obama, himself a professed Christian, is not at war with religion, his administration is rather trying to find a peaceful solution to one of the many conflicts over religious values that characterize our diverse nation.
Second, our latest editorial:
Conservative Catholics complain that too many liberal Catholics instinctively greet every statement from the Vatican with suspicion, skepticism, or derision. It’s a fair point. The motives and judgment of those who appear unthinkingly hostile to all hierarchical authority should be questioned. Patient attention to the legitimate concerns of others and the presumption of goodwill on the part of those we disagree with are essential virtues.
Unfortunately, patience and the presumption of goodwill were not much in evidence in the response of the U.S. bishops and many conservative Catholics to President Barack Obama’s compromise on the question of mandated contraceptive coverage for employees of religious-affiliated institutions. Even before all the details of the president’s proposal were known, the bishops rejected it and then upped the ante by insisting that the only possible solution was to repeal the mandate altogether. In other words, the bishops are now demanding that no employer be required to offer free contraception coverage to its employees. To justify their response, they offered only the most tendentious reading of the possible flaws in Obama’s proposal. Now the USCCB is threatening a concerted political and public-relations campaign—during an election year—that casts the president as a determined enemy of religious freedom.
Tags: contraception, health care reform, HHS, USCCB
Jost isn’t accurate in how he sets up the problem:
First, contraceptives are common and cheap, and no one who actually has a job (which is a precondition of the health insurance policies being discussed here) should have trouble getting them. That said, if you can’t afford contraceptives even with a job, then your problem is that the job doesn’t pay enough, not that you lack access to a phony product called contraceptive “insurance.”
Similarly, if I can’t afford to fill up my gas tank — and gas is way more expensive than contraceptives these days — my problem is that I don’t have enough money, not that my employer is “preventing gasoline access by not giving me gasoline insurance.”
Second, people who choose to work for Catholic institutions are presumably adults. How is it that they didn’t know what the benefits would include when they signed up? If I go to work for a Mormon institution, it would be ridiculous to complain that I didn’t have “access” to coffee just because the Mormon institution failed to give me free coupons to Starbucks (which is ALSO way more expensive than contraceptives).
If you do not have insurance and don’t want cheap high-dose contraceptive drugs — the older models cause more pronounced side effects and likely correlate more strongly with cancer — you’re probably going to be paying about $150 a month. For a lot of people that’s not an insignificant amount of money.
Grant you have way over-estimated the monthly cost. This article shows costs start from $200 per year and go up.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/04/14/contraception-cost-birth-control-pills-craigslist/
President Obama has compromised — from the position of the original contraceptive mandate with its narrow exemption to the new position that lets Catholic-affiliated hospitals and colleges and charitable organizations off the hook (i.e., as employers, they will not have to pay for their employees to have insurance that includes contraception coverage).
In my estimate, this was a big compromise on Obama’s part.
But the Catholic bishops evidently want no part of his compromise. Instead, they want to spearhead a campaign regarding freedom of religion.
As American citizens, the Catholic bishops are of course entitled to enter the political arena and express their political views regarding freedom of religion.
No doubt the Catholic bishops will win over some people who support their claims regarding freedom of religion.
However, as the bishops win over supporters, I suspect that the bishops will also be met with resistance and opposition. I personally am not thrilled with the prospect of renewed culture wars regarding freedom of religion during the 2012 election campaigns. But the Catholic bishops seem to want to precipitate a new round of culture wars.
I hope that the Catholic bishops and their supporters remain non-violent. However, I personally find Archbishop Dolan’s reported comment in Rome about the cardinals’ color and bringing “blood” (his word as quoted in the AP news story) ominous, to say the least.
So people who can’t afford birth control should get higher paying jobs?? And if they can’t buy bread, let ‘em eat cake? And how confident would you be in buying medication–prescription medication–on craigslist? Would you get YOUR prescriptions there?? In fact, birth control can be a significant expense. That’s been addressed in other threads. But this thread is about Jost and the new editorial.
So the USCCB is going to run an anti-Obama ad campaign, hiding behind “religious liberty” even though at least some of them must be aware that they are not in accord with Catholic moral tradition concerning the proper role of civil law and the principle of cooperation. Will they announce to their people that now their collection plate dollars will go to support partisan politics? And no moderate bishops dare to speak. These are sad days.
Well, birth control pricing information is hard to find. But judging from internet comments, Ortho-Tricyclen-Lo was available in 2007 for $47 to $65 a month: http://ehealthforum.com/health/topic121007.html#b Yasmin and its generic Ocella were available for about $50-60 a month in 2008: http://www.topix.com/forum/med/TMHJ6JR3KGLK38Q4V Cryselle is available for a max of $30 a month: http://www.drugstore.com/cryselle-28/0-3-30mg-mcg-tablets/qxn00555904958
Even in the rare instance that $150 a month is accurate, once again, your problem is a lack of money, not a lack of contraceptive “insurance.” There’s really no such thing as contraceptive “insurance,” as the very concept of insurance cannot apply to regular purchases that are planned. What’s really going on, by definition, isn’t insurance but a cross-subsidy — a transfer of money. Which is indicative of the fact that you need money.
So why not just announce a government subsidy of, say, $50 a month to women of childbearing age? They can buy contraceptives if they want, or they can buy other stuff, but there’s no need to involve religious employers at all.
The editorial’s point is a fair one, but I think it is weakened somewhat by ignoring that the HHS Mandate did not appear out of nowhere. Rather it follows a curious pattern from the Administration, beginning with the CRS grant denial, then its facially absurd (to paraphrase Justice Kagan) argument in Hosanna-Tabor, and most recently its renewed efforts to kill the DC School Voucher program of which Card. Wuerl (and Speaker Boehner) are leading advocates of. So yes, “patient attention” is necessary, but it strikes me that sometimes it leads you to see the handwriting on the wall.
Below is proof that Commonweal editors are not forever blinded to the dangers of “liberal monism.”
John Leo, a fearless Commonweal editor in the sixties, is now able to see that this “story isn’t just about birth control. It’s also about the ‘morning after’ pill and sterilization, and down the road it will be about suicide pills, genetic engineering, abortion and mandatory abortion training, transgender operations, and a whole new series of morally problematic procedures about to come over the horizon. One very large principle is at stake: the right of religious believers to apply their own moral principles at their own institutions.”
Hope and Change! If even former Commonweal editors can eventually see the light, no one is forever doomed to walk in darkness.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2012/02/14/How-Obamacare-Reignited-the-Culture-Wars.aspx#page1
@Studebaker (2/17, 10:51 am) “So why not just announce a government subsidy of, say, $50 a month to women of childbearing age? They can buy contraceptives if they want, or they can buy other stuff, but there’s no need to involve religious employers at all.”
Given the nature of the “religious liberty” argument some bishops are now making, would the bishops then be arguing for a “conscience exemption” for Catholics (and others) who oppose the use of tax money for contraceptives? (And if so, why haven’t they been making this argument about Medicaid for the past several decades?)
It is editorials like this that have kept me as loyal “Commonweal” reader and supporter for more than two decades. Bravo.
“President Obama, himself a professed Christian, is not at war with religion, his administration is rather trying to find a peaceful solution to one of the many conflicts over religious values that characterize our diverse nation.”
I don’t debate President Obama’s good will. I don’t think he looked to pick a fight with Christianity. I think the mandate was motivated by genuine concern for women’s health, and also by the political desire to energize a voting bloc – progressive women – he needs to motivate in order to prevail in November.
Tim Jost’s post suggests a new approach. Conscientious objectors, during the Vietnam War, were required to perform alternative service, whether or not they were members of our peace churches. Noncombatant military service was not required, nor were conscientious objectors required to find or pay for a substitute, as they had been in some earlier wars.
Similarly, there are alternative health-care services that Catholic non-profit organizations could subsidize in exchange for an exemption from the proposed requirement. Some preventive services — dentistry and routine eye examinations — are usually excluded from health-insurance contracts, for example.
Commonweals editors wrote: “Even before all the details of the president’s proposal were known, the bishops rejected it ”
That’s true. And even before all the details of the proposal were known, Sr. Carol Keehan accepted it and allowed herself to be used as contra-candy.
There are plenty of knee-jerk reactions to go around, plenty of useful idiots serving each side. Commonweal has decided it will defend the administration on the strength of its words, but in doing so it loses sight of the fact that the president they are defending was happy to make a shocking and unprecedented move against the church that voted for him, to begin with. Others may forget that, but I cannot. I am inclined at this point to pay more attention to what the administration does, over what it says. It’s good advice.
Ann Y has a very constructive idea.
I agree: Ann Y has a very constructive idea. But of course it won’t work, because the special interests the mandate is intended to satisfy are not in the dentistry business.
@Kathy (2/17, 12:10 pm) Well, that and the fact that dental care has traditionally (i.e., for hundreds of years) been treated separately from medical care.
The problem with many alternatives I keep seeing people suggest (not the bishops, who basically seem to say no to the mandate as the only thing acceptable) is that in the end, cash is still being collected for something that Catholics think is morally wrong. When you start making the claim of remote material cooperation with evil is not permissible many options are no longer possible (and many things once supported are no longer acceptable, either, and should be put on the table).
Of course, if Catholics started to look at it with the way St Thomas Aquinas looked at prostitution, I think we might begin to have a better discussion.
Luke — dental care is much more relevant to “medical” care than the average use of contraceptives is. See, e.g., this.
The more I think about it, the more annoying it is that people are demanding “insurance coverage” for this rather than asking for $50 a month for women of childbearing age. Of all the women who have trouble coming up with $9-$50 a month, why should the only women who get help be those who use contraceptives? My wife doesn’t use contraceptives, and will never have any “need” to again (she had her ovaries out due to the cancer).
We could definitely use an extra $50 a month, probably more than most of the people griping about this issue. We have expenses, after all, that are far more costly than contraceptives, such as the upkeep for 6 children (two of whom are adopted), etc.
Yet the debate here is about giving subsidies only to those women who use contraceptives, even though other women (i.e., my wife) would be treated more equally if everyone got $50 a month, and even though the contraceptive users themselves would be better off with cash rather than “insurance” (cash can be spent on other things when needed).
Studebaker –
Don’t worry about your wife not needing contraceptives. What with family health plans, your minor children are entitled to free contraceptives, with or without your consent.
These desperate claims by hierarchs and their supporters that President Obama is “attacking religious liberty” and casting the president as an “enemy of religion” are both a canard and a totally bogus charge. The hierarchs are desperate to revive their rejected political ideology that is rooted in chauvinism and patriarchy.
It strikes me that the hierarchs with their concerted political and media attacks on President Obama have only served to make many, including some on these blog streams, much more comfortable with their deeply submerged political proclivities to oppose the president’s reelection, no matter the facts, no matter the consequences.
David Boies, a distinguished constitutional attorney – who argued Bush v. Gore before the SCOTUS, has opined in the media that claims of First Amendment violations are baseless in this regard. And further, the Obama administration is only applying long-standing, precedent-guided employment law to the enforcement of the ACA.
[Hence, you have the almost two decade acquiescence of Catholic educational and healthcare institutions to similar requirements for contraceptive coverage, long before we ever heard of any hierarchs' paranoia about religious freedom.]
It is not a “knee jerk” response on the part of so-called “liberal Catholics” [whatever that means?] to point out that the hierarchs’ political gambit to wound President Obama’s reelection chances at the expense of endangering women’s healthcare are, once again, evidence of the hierarchs’ futile attempts to bolster their flagging political hegemony over Catholics.
And besides, none of the hierarchs’ political shenanigans we have been witnessing would ever happen unless they had unlimited, unaccountable access to literally $billions in investments to fund their politicization of women’s health care needs.
Face it, Obama has politically outmaneuvered the hierarchs: Women are not about to go back, as Opus Dei candidate Rick Santorum’s billionaire funder Foster Friese told us yesterday, to the hierarchs’ halcyon days when “birth control is a woman putting an aspirin between her knees.”
If Rick Santorum is the hierarchs’ stealth candidate in this race, I’ll gladly stick with the foreign-born, Kenyan socialist, Islamic, black community organizer president.
Given how much money the hierarchs have to burn to be meddling interlopers in the coming election, with anonymous “super-pacs” all the rage these days, I’m not convinced that this whole issue couldn’t continue to haunt the president’s reelection.
As the hierarchs fade more and more into irrelevance and alienation from our lives, there is a growing awareness among Catholics that if our religious community is to even survive to the end of this century we will have to find a way to separate the MINISTRY from the MONEY.
@Studebaker (2/17, 1:21 pm) Thanks for your reply. I’m aware that dental care is relevant to medical care. (I’ll leave the disputation over whether it’s more relevant than contraception, e.g., in the case of a woman for whom another pregnancy might reasonably be expected to kill her, to my intellectual betters.)
The debate, as I understand it, is not about “giving subsidies only to those women who use contraceptives”. The debate is whether contraceptive services should be considered part of a basic health insurance package. The answer to that debate in dozens of states over the last few decades, and now nationally with the ACA, has been, “yes”.
For what it’s worth, plenty of Catholic and/or Republican legislators and governors have voted for or signed those bills into law. Also for what it’s worth, the Bush administration for eight years supported and upheld a similar federal requirement under the Civil Rights Act as interpreted by the EEOC.
Given that history, it seems to me the most plausible explanation for the current kerfuffle is that it’s an election year and Republicans see some potential political advantage to making this a big issue. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I am saying it makes it harder to take seriously all the people who have suddenly discovered great moral qualms about the issue.
Thank you for the thoughtfulness and usefulness of this editoral. Perhaps it is the thing it lacks I find so refreshing…..pettiness.
I’m aware that dental care is relevant to medical care. (I’ll leave the disputation over whether it’s more relevant than contraception, e.g., in the case of a woman for whom another pregnancy might reasonably be expected to kill her, to my intellectual betters.)
Luke, I referred to the “average use” of contraceptives. Do you think the average woman who uses contraceptives does so only because a pregnancy would literally kill her?
The debate, as I understand it, is not about “giving subsidies only to those women who use contraceptives”. The debate is whether contraceptive services should be considered part of a basic health insurance package.
OK, but the only reason for debating that question is that, as Grant said above, some people are worried that contraceptives are too high a monthly expense. $50 a month is just too much. In which case the obvious response, as I already said, is that if $50 a month is too much for your budget, what you need is more money period, not more expansive “insurance.”
Put it this way: imagine that I have the following expenses per month:
$1,200 rent.
$600 groceries
$300 utilities
$200 gasoline
$400 clothing and all other random things
$50 contraceptives
Suppose my income is $2,700 a month — just enough to cover everything except the contraceptives. Why would it occur to me, or to anyone, to argue in public that I therefore need something called “contraceptive insurance,” as opposed to “gasoline insurance” or “clothing insurance” or “grocery insurance” or “utilities insurance” or something else that would somehow make up my $50 deficit per month?
In fact, if you are worried about the fact that I’m short $50 a month due to contraceptives, how about just giving me $50 per month rather than mucking around with insurance markets and giving the finger to so many Catholic voters? It’s mysterious both in terms of policy and politics.
” .. . . it would be ridiculous to complain that I didn’t have “access” to coffee just because the Mormon institution failed to give me free coupons to Starbucks (which is ALSO way more expensive than contraceptives).”
Dear Studebaker –
I read your posts with interest because you usually at least clarify an issue if not offer a good defense of your side. But this particular defense shows a continuing problem in your argumentation. It is a contender for the world’s championship of straw man arguments.
First you present an totally hypothetical analogy: Mormons are not expected to give free coupons to Starbucks, the other part of the analogy being that Catholics should not be expected to give free contraceptives, a real life issue at the moment. Then you say that the Starbucks coupons are more expensive than contraceptives. Well — so what? Why is your analogy even relevant? The employees of the Catholic employer are not arguing about a frivolous, expensive product of no great practical importance in their lives. In other words, the price of Starbucks coffee is totally irrelevant in this problem.
This problem is about the consciences of the bishops and the women employees, and, now, about whether the President of the U. S. is waging a “war on religion”. It isn’t about anything remotely like costly java.
the case of a woman for whom another pregnancy might reasonably be expected to kill her
_____________
If sex is such a high-risk, potentially deadly activity, could the government not only mandate the purchase of contraceptives, but could it mandate the use of them? After all, if a woman does not and consequently has a high-risk pregnancy, it will cost a lot of money.
But, of course, sex is not a high-risk, potentially deadly activity, and people do not use contraception as they would a bullet-proof vest so that people can shoot them.
Rather, contraception is used in order to engage in wholly voluntary recreational sex. And now you are mandated to subsidize the voluntary recreational sex lives of other people.
@Studebaker (2/17, 3:08 pm) Thanks for your reply. Maybe that’s one reason we have differing views on this issue. You’re writing about the “average use” of contraceptives. I’m writing from the perspective of knowing people whose lives were irrevocably affected by their access to (or lack thereof) contraceptive services.
In addition, speaking more generally about health insurance, the whole point of it is to spread risk and expenses because none of us knows what the future holds. A devout Catholic mother develops a serious illness such that another pregnancy would likely cause death. A non-smoking, non-drinking, regular exerciser develops a rare, hereditary heart condition that requires emergency surgery, the implantation of a $30,000 device and extensive followup treatment, monitoring and medication for the rest of his life. A couple, late in life, has a baby born with multiple life-threatening birth defects, requiring medical expenses that are regularly in the five figures annually, and sometimes into six figures.
If we’re not making health care policy with those folks (and millions like them) in mind, then (in my humble opinion) we’re going to make bad health care policy. Further, making health care policy with just the “average user” in mind, will make things worse.
@Bender (2/17, 3:25 pm) Thanks for your response, but it’s probably best in the future if you stick to commenting on what you know.
Yes, plenty of people (including most married American Catholics) use contraception to engage in wholly voluntary recreational sex. And then there are people for whom access to contraception can literally be a life-or-death matter. I have close personal knowledge of both situations—as well as many others.
If you don’t have those experiences, there’s nothing wrong with that. But again, it’s probably best not to advertise your ignorance and/or lack of empathy and moral imagination.
Thanks, Ann!
Then you say that the Starbucks coupons are more expensive than contraceptives. Well — so what? Why is your analogy even relevant? The employees of the Catholic employer are not arguing about a frivolous, expensive product of no great practical importance in their lives. In other words, the price of Starbucks coffee is totally irrelevant in this problem.
The analogy is relevant only to the extent that if I go to work for a Mormon organization, I shouldn’t profess surprise or indignation when it turns out not to offer subsidized access to something that it considers wrong, any more than I should expect to be given a Christmas ham if I work for a Jewish day school.
The fact that Starbucks coffee is less important than contraceptives, at least for some women, doesn’t really matter to the analogy. The principle is still the same: a religious organization shouldn’t be forced to provide special access to something that it considers morally wrong.
Luke — you’re talking about incidents all of which involve the true function of “insurance.” If that’s all that were at issue, there would be virtually no debate.
In fact, your criticism — that we should be “making health care policy with those folks (and millions like them) in mind” — needs to be directed at Obama and other liberals, not at me. In the current debate, one of the most frustrating things is precisely that we are NOT making policy with your situations in mind. Instead, we’re talking about extending the reach of “health insurance” to millions of contraceptive purchases that have zero or little to do with health and nothing whatsoever to do with the very concept of “insurance.”
Luke, not to argue about which kinds of medical care are most important, but just a few years ago a twelve-year-old child in a Maryland suburb of Washington died of complications that followed a dental abscess. That death could almost certainly have been prevented by ordinary, routine, dental care, but his mother couldn’t find a dentist who took Medicaid.
Is there a way to get past the current disagreement and start talking about the people who don’t have health insurance to begin with?
I’m with Jost on this one. But ought not all of us, bishops and people like me, admit that this is a case in which it is not surprising that there is deeply held disagreement and that decency requires that all of us accord our opponents the presumption that they are good, intelligent people. I trust I am not alone in finding some of the things said both by some bishops and by some of their opponents to fail that test of decency.
Now I am really out of this issue. I know that I have nothing else to say that could be of use to anyone. Silence often has much to recommend it.
“And then there are people for whom access to contraception can literally be a life-or-death matter. I have close personal knowledge of both situations—as well as many others.”
Luke – if the President had proposed a mandate targeted to this small subset, we would be having a very different discussion. If this is the problem he wished to solve, why didn’t he propose a policy that targets that problem and avoids igniting this needless firestorm?
“And now you are mandated to subsidize the voluntary recreational sex lives of other people.”
Yes, it’s called “the common good”.
Last I knew, sex is pretty hot stuff among couples, married or not. And it’s hot among gobs of couples. We’re not talkin’ a fringe element here, after all.
When I pay my federal income tax, I am subsidizing a lot of stuff I’d rather not: unnecessary wars, for instance; courts constantly putting up with appeals from guys who are guilty as all hell; bridges to nowhere, ad nauseum.
On the other hand, I am also subsidizing the voluntary recreational lives (outside of sex) of other people: national parks, roads and bridges to national parks, park maintenance, etc.
What’s wrong with subsidizing sex?
The only way this issue becomes a political football is if the Catholic left opts out. Don’t do it, guys, please.
Joseph J. —
It depends on how you look at it. Bishop Lori, chair of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, spoke at a House hearing 2/16/11 against providing contraception directly or indirectly in contravention of the Church’s teaching. He said “That’s what we don’t want to do. It’s one thing when tax dollars pay for it; it’s another when church dollars do.” Apparently he doesn’t think as I do — my share of those dollars all come out my same pocket. Oh, for a tax-exempt status.
I think the discussion of whether the belief that free contraception is a good thing is a reasonable belief is a distraction.
Just as other people questioning whether our belief in Humanae Vitae is a reasonable belief.
If freedom of religion means anything, it must be that the government cannot make judgements about whether people’s religious or moral beliefs are reasonable.
The question is to find a way to accomodate conflicting beliefs to the extent possible – not to make judgements as to which is best.
Bishop Lori, chair of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, spoke at a House hearing 2/16/11 against providing contraception directly or indirectly in contravention of the Church’s teaching
Did he explain why it is not in contravention of Church teaching that Catholic hospitals in his diocese provide emergency contraception?
Again, it’s the conflation of “use” with “provide” or “pay for”
To call the unitive aspect of sexual relations “voluntary recreational sex” certainly does demean that aspect of the marital union.
When you said that did your nose wrinkle up like you had just smelled a dirty baby’s diaper?
Bishop Lori led off as first witness among the 5 men testifying before the 9-man Congressional panel inquiring into religious liberty on 2/16/11. He devoted his entire statement to the “The Parable of the Kosher Deli”. He used eating pork and free ham sandwiches as stand-ins to represent pregnancy and contraception in his metaphorical objection to the mandate.
A woman from Georgetown who showed up to testify on real aspects of women’s health care and contraception was refused an opportunity to speak. The USCCB needs help, yesterday.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-parable-of-the-kosher-deli
Link to Lori quote, my 2/17/12 5:31pm above
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/lawmakers-debate-mandated-coverage-of-contraceptives-in-health-care-law/2012/02/16/gIQAgf3jIR_story.html
Jack Barry @ 5:31 has it down pat: “Apparently he doesn’t think as I do — my share of those dollars all come out my same pocket. Oh, for a tax-exempt status.”
However, here’s an idea that might take hold here in the US even more than it already has:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/world/europe/italy-sets-tax-on-church-property.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=rachel%20donadio&st=cse
Put it this way: imagine that I have the following expenses per month:[...]
Student are big users of contraception. Here’s a realistic student monthly budget:
Income $300
Expenses:
Weekday lunches $6.50 per lunch, times 23 = $150
Dinners, weekend meals: $0
Housing, utilities: $0
Commute to visit boyfriend: $20 per trip, times 5 = $100
Unexpected expenses (gym shoes, notebook, dentist co-pay, kleenex, and other random things) = $30
One outing at the movies: $10
Contraception: $50
Coffee, snacks, alcohol, clothes: must not ever yield to that temptation
Total $340
Result: – to balance budget, must skip lunch every third day.
Claire — the point, which no one can refute, is that if you don’t have enough money to pay for contraception (which is awfully cheap compared to most things in life), what you need is more money, not a federal mandate on religious employers’ insurance policies.
I have read Bishop Lori’s “Parable of the Kosher Deli”. If tomorrow weren’t Saturday I would go to to Rubin’s to muse about it. The analogy conveys an incorrect mpression of what the HHS regulations require but it will probably be convincing to people who do not recognize its inaccuracies.
Expect to hear people repeating “Would you want to require Kosher Delis to serve ham sandwiches?”
Lori Parable: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-parable-of-the-kosher-deli
Indeed, Jim. His good will is fine. He sincerely believes that the government’s view of morality must override the Church’s.
I can’t believe how this argument has morphed. Wasn’t it only a week ago that everybody, including liberals, were concerned about the religious liberty of religiously affiliated ORGANIZATIONS such as Catholic hospitals? But when the President said they’d be exempted from the contraception mandate, the arguments got all convoluted, with folks claiming employers who didn’t have to pay REALLY did have to pay, no matter what Obama said, etc. I finally threw up my hands and signed off. Now, the bishops are saying NO employer should have to buy insurance that covers contraception, period. Then a bunch of guys start claiming women’s contraceptives are so CHEAP nobody needs coverage anyway. So we’re officially lost at sea! To which MESS, I reply:
1. The cost-effectiveness of contraceptives was ONE OF THE PRIMARY REASONS the government suggested including them as routine preventive care treatments for women.
2. Moreover, these cheap pills aren’t just for birth control anymore. Birth control may be considered preventive care, but the pills are also routinely used by women suffering from endometriosis to prevent both pain and further progression of the disease; same for women with polycystic ovarian disease and fibroid tumors, even migraine headaches. Survivors of ovarian and endometrial cancers take the pills routinely to prevent recurrences. That’s just some of their preventive uses. Without such a cost-effective alternative to older treatments, these women’s health costs — and ours — would be much, much higher.
3. Now that religious organizations have been declared exempt, I think the bishops would do well to take a week off and re-think their position. Do they really have to oppose this mandate for women’s preventive health care on moral grounds? Is it contraceptives or contraception that’s morally evil? Then, I propose they thank the President for his offer, have their lawyers work out a way to exempt self-insured dioceses, and get on with their business. If they need to explain themselves to Rick Santorum or other Republicans who’ll still be doing all they can to block whatever Obama proposes, I’m sure they’ll think of something whether it makes sense or not. Forgive me, but at this point I doubt anyone would notice.
“3. Now that religious organizations have been declared exempt, I think the bishops would do well to take a week off and re-think their position. Do they really have to oppose this mandate for women’s preventive health care on moral grounds? Is it contraceptives or contraception that’s morally evil?”
To which, one may object that, if there really were no question of a direct cooperation in evil to begin with, why the need for Catholic organizations to be exempted at all? While there’s no necessarily direct relationship between contraceptive use and contraception, there IS an association, certainly in the popular mind, and for that reason I can see why the official leadership and teaching authority of a religion that proscribes contraception would not want to give the appearance of their making contraceptives more easily available, however out of sync with reality that appearance may be. Keeping their policies separate and allowing direct dealings between employees and insurance companies to obtain contraceptive coverage still seems like the best solution for everybody involved.
According to Vatican II, the Church is all of us — the community of believers— not the hierarchy alone. Vatican II also envisioned a dialogue among priests, laity and bishops. Without this dialogue, either the laity or the hierarchy goes astray. In this case, the bishops have gone astray.
And a country is all its people, too, not just the government. But that doesn’t sanction anarchy, even tho most countries are democracies, which the Church decidedly is not.
The hierarchy, the Pope speak for the Church. You may speak within in, but not for it.
—- The hierarchy, the Pope speak for the Church. You may speak within in, but not for it. —-
” Authority has simply been abused too long in the Catholic Church and for many people it just becomes utterly stupid and intolerable to have to put up with the kind of jackassing around that is posed in God’s name. It is an insult to God Himself and in the end it can only discredit all idea of authority and obedience. There comes a point where they simply forfeit the right to be listened to.”
Thomas Merton, Hidden Ground of Love, p. 230
Sounds like an embittered old monk, Jimmy :O)
Contraceptive Health Care: Women v. Bishops; Bet on Women
The most important issue today in health care morality is crystal clear. It has nothing to do with birth control, the Catholic hierarchy, or Republican presidential candidates.
The New York Times recently reported that several cancer drugs, the “mainstay of treatment regimens used to cure” various cancers, are not being manufactured in sufficient quantities to meet the life and death needs of cancer patients. Dr. Michael Link, the president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, was quoted, “If you are a pediatric oncologist, you know how to cure 70 to 80 percent of patients. But without these drugs you are out of business.” The children will die.
Our present health care system, awash in its anti-socialist, free market, capitalistic principles, has blown a British Petroleum-sized hole in the fragile membrane of U.S. health care. Why are these life-saving drugs not available? Because drug manufacturers can make more money— a lot more money— manufacturing other drugs.
So guess what? The manufacturers opt to make more money. They produce “newer brand-name cancer drugs that do not cure anyone, but just extend life for a few months, at costs of up to $90,000 per patient. Only the older but curative cancer drugs — drugs that can cost as little as $3 per dose — have become unavailable.”
We haven’t read anything about Catholic-bishop rage over this latest “Oops” moment in health care supply and demand capitalism. It appears that the bishops’ moral indignation concerning health care is engaged elsewhere, defending a supposed attack upon their finely calibrated collective conscience.
The bishops have taken to arms against women and President Obama, who collectively are making “War on Catholics,” and “War on religious freedom and the Constitution.” That, according to those great religious thinkers of the day, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Charles Colson and Foster Friess. Mr. Friess, Santorum’s money man, is nostalgic for the days when birth control was a joke about sex, and the joke about sex was about women holding aspirin between their knees. Birth control was not only funny, it was “very inexpensive.”
As near as one can understand, the bishops’ heroism purports to be the only thing that stands between the First Amendment’s protection of the Catholic Church’s right to preach an anti-contraceptive doctrine, and health insurers from providing contraceptive coverage to employees of Catholic universities and hospitals.
Here is a modest suggestion: (1) the prohibition of contraceptive birth control has lost its authority as a teaching of the Catholic Church, and (2) the First Amendment’s religious exercise freedoms do not include a hierarchical shield against the government compelling contraceptive insurance coverage for women.
The Status of the Birth Control Teaching
Catholic teaching, sourced in the bible and in tradition, is not and never has been a fixed collection. Because of its developmental life, the Catholic community no longer presses its kings to murder heretics, no longer considers belief in the Copernican theory of solar movements as heresy, no longer includes charging interest on a loan to be mortal sin—it’s an old religion and there is a long list of discarded teachings.
Change in moral doctrine generally bubbles out of the culture, from the “people.” At some time, it becomes clear that the people have rejected a teaching. Under those circumstances, slavery becomes an unacceptable human condition, religious liberty is seen as a fundamental right of all humans including heretics, and some marriages actually can be dissolved.
The entire teaching authority of the church – popes, three ecumenical councils, bishops and theologians – universally proclaimed the anti-usury doctrine. By the 16th century, European trade required new forms of credit. By the eighteenth century, the old usury doctrine was formally maintained by the papacy, but abandoned in practice. By the 20th century, church involvement in banking outnumbered its involvement in novenas. What was evil is evil no longer.
It is also true that development in church doctrine has seldom been initiated by hierarchical promulgations. Our bishops have not been the type of people who are comfortable saying, “We were wrong.” They are much more likely to proclaim “We are not wrong. We are the church, and the church is infallible. We are never wrong. ”
The bishops’ have also taught that use of contraceptive birth control is evil. That claim is not believed by the laity. Like other doctrines, the birth control teaching has been massively rejected, and it has been rejected through the powerful witness of daily lives lived. It has been abandoned de facto, as we say in Latin. The bishops insist on broadly inflicting a teaching that is kaput.
The Status of the Bishop’s Free Exercise Claims
The bishops’ constitutional claims are also flawed. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The bishops’ claim that a law requiring health insurers to provide coverage for contraceptive birth control to employees of Catholic universities and hospitals violates the bishops’ right to freely impose its religious “doctrine” on employees of all institutions affiliated with the Catholic religion.
We are in an age when the methodologies for interpreting our Constitution are sources of great debate. Invoking the basic fundamentalist interpretive methodology— pursuing the “original intent” of the authors of the Constitution— is no help. Post-colonial medical care in the United States did not have much in its reproductive bag, especially for women who were not permitted the vote for another one-hundred and fifty years. The very concept of health care insurance, let alone insurance coverage of birth control contraceptives, was unknown. In this present political circus, groping for religious “freedom to exercise” answers from James Madison is a farce.
Ultimately, we are left to our own communities to determine whether or not the principles expressed in our Constitution’s religious freedom clause are repulsed by President Obama’s health care reform provision assuring free access to contraceptive birth control. We study the question through various lenses— weighing factors such as text, context, purpose, results and consequences, history and precedent— analytical factors often raised by constitutional jurists such as Justice Stephen Breyer.
With any kind of reasonable analysis, what becomes clear is that the connection between the constitutional principle of religious freedom and the religious exemption that Catholic bishops demand, is so attenuated, so distant, so convoluted, so remote, as to be logically unsustainable. Requiring a limited number of Catholic-owned institutions from providing contraceptive birth control insurance coverage to employees? A violation of their governing board’s members’ right to freely practice Catholicism? No one is stopping anyone from any rational concept of religious exercise. A more practical constitutional concern would involve the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the government’s denial of this insurance coverage to women solely because they are employees of Catholic institutional employers. That should be the sharper point of constitutional concern in these circumstances.
In this day and age, when the parents and caregivers of children suffering from leukemia are being informed that life-giving drugs are not available, it would be appropriate for Catholic religious authorities to shift their focus, to redirect their rage. Such a change is particularly needed in light of the bishops’ prolonged and indefensible role in the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy.
But that’s not how things work in the world of the Catholic hierarchy. Galileo did not get a papal apology until four hundred years after he died. And he was a man.
Terrance R. Kelly ((Co-owner of Commonweal Subscription with Alice Kelly), tkelly@lmr-law.com;
Loras College 1965, Notre Dame Law School 1968; Associate Member of Our Lady of Victory Noll Missionary Sisters
Sounds like an wise old monk, David :O)
David said: ” He (the President) sincerely believes that the government’s view of morality must override the Church’s. ”
No, he and the majority of Americans sincerely believe that one particular church’s view of morality can and must NOT override the greater common good associated with a broad-based healthcare program that addresses the needs and wants of that majority of Americans.
When this government FORCES everyone to use contraceptive devices as a condition for anything, then you can get your knickers in an severe knot.
Nobody’s getting kinckers in knots, Jimmy. If you don’t see that it’s happening, you don’t. We all experience reality differently. Enjoy.
Alice and Terrance —
Before you blame “anti-socialist, capitalist free-market principles” for the shortage in cancer drugs, you should read the same NY Times article you quoted. The following paragraphs explain why your theory is PRECISELY the opposite of the truth. There is no free market in cancer drugs today, precisely because of a 2003 federal law that was intended to lower drug company profits:
Btw, George Weigel, writing for National Review Online, fires some heavy artillery at the project of liberal Catholicism, and may have inflicted some damage.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/291455/catholic-betrayal-religious-freedom-george-weigel
So, potted history loosely tied to blanket statements about the motives of these Catholics he doesn’t name loosely plus unargued predictions about the accommodation’s future equals inflicted damage? I don’t think so.
A statement by Evangelicals and Catholics Together, “In Defense of Religious Freedom”, positions the HHS controversy as one item amid a worrisome trend of eroding religious freedom around the world.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/02/in-defense-of-religious-freedom
I have read the statement by Evangelicals and Catholics Together. While I apgree with many of the thoughts in in it, it never faces the issue that, in a diverse society, there will be conflicts between the religious/moral/other beliefs of different groups and that the necessary role of the civil government is to find a way through these conflicts.
It’s a long statement but to take just a very short example to illustrate my point, it says:
“in no state where the redefinition of marriage has passed the legislature has the religious institution exception provided all the religious freedom protections needed for individuals and groups that oppose the legalization of same-sex unions in those states.”
I think that is a reference to situations like this one in New York:
“Fotusky appears to be the first municipal official in New York to resign rather than sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples.
‘There was no protection provided in the legislation for Town Clerks who are unable to sign these marriage licenses due to personal religious convictions, even though our US Constitution supports freedom of religion.,’ Fotusky wrote in her resignation letter.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2011/07/barker-ny-town-clerk-quits-her-job-rather-than-sign-marriage-licenses-for-gay-
The implication of the ECT statement seems to be that freedom of religion requires that the Town Clerk be free to refuse to issue a marriage license to a same sex couple.
Back when the Supreme Court outlawed the miscegenation laws, that would have meant that a Town Clerk could have refused a license to a mixed-race couple.
The law rightly protects doctors and nurses from having to perform abortions. Arguing that that principle should extend to the point at which a clerk does not have to issue a legal document is a mistake, in my opinion.
How does “potted history” differ from historical reality? He’s talking about something that sounds pretty substantial. Why isn’t it worth discussing, or at least refuting?
Three paragraphs from the opening section:
You say “rightly”, John. It’s not a stretch, I think, to imagine what might become of these “rights” if we have a single-payer health-care system in this country. Such a system would involve a lot of government mandates on what medical professionals may and may not do – a lot more than exist now.
David Smith, Medicare is a single-payer health-care system and people who have it seem to like it a lot. However, the likelihood of switching everyone to a Medicare-like system anytime in the near future is pretty unlikely for political reasons, in my opinion.
Looking through this string it would appear there are some pretty basic pieces missing in this conversation.
1) Contraception is something prescribed by a doctor, which means the cost of a doctors appointment, an exam, and then you can pay for your contraception.
2) $50/month is a huge expense for many people in this economy – this is not an insignificant amount of money when you consider somewhere around 40% of Americans are living at below or very near to the poverty line currently.
3) Over 50% of all prescribed contraceptive drugs are NOT being prescribed for contraceptive purposes, but in fact, to address other health issues.
4) In light of #3, it would appear it acceptable in this country to fund a man’s want of sex (for example Viagra is covered by public aid/Medicaid and Medicare), but not a woman’s need to health care
5) Since when did we make a return to the days of the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Inquisition? The government is stating that contraception should be covered for those who choose or need to use it. If you don’t want to use for moral reasons, then please don’t. No one is forcing you to use it, however, please respect the choices of others if you want your choices to be respected.
6) I believe Jesus said something about giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. He also told the apostles and others in the Jewish community he was not there to be a physical revolutionary, to be crowned king, and take up a sword against the Roman Empire. In fact, Jesus strongly encouraged people to live within the rules of society around them. And that meant eating non-Kosher food when it was offered (if you have had a missionary nun or priest in your family, you know all about this). It meant following the general rules of society. However, within one’s self, within their local community, within their private lives, they would make the choice to follow the rules and tenants of their faith. Have Catholics, and namely the bishops forgotten how this works?
7) Also, last I checked, nothing about contraception is mentioned in the Nicene Creed, which covers the essence of the Catholic faith and what we must believe as Catholics. Additionally, I do not recall any ex-cathedra statements being made about contraception either.
Just some things to think about . . . .
John, Medicare is single-payer, but it’s opt out. If an all-encompassing single-payer system were implemented, the same people – the Washington policy makers – who wrote tight cost-effective control into the health-insurance mandate would want the same thing there. Getting them to make conscience exceptions would, I think, be like be pulling impacted wisdom teeth.
Everything that big has big unintended consequences – sometimes unintended only by the unwary.
David Smith said: “John, Medicare is single-payer, but it’s opt out”
You can decline payments from Medicare but you can’t opt-out of it if you have accepted Social Security.
See: http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/0/890596479218E0818525799D00548389/$file/11-5076-1356903.pdf
Conscience execeptions for services perfomed by hospitals, doctors and medical staff are covered under other provisions and haven’t been affected by ACA as far as I know.
I was thinking of government in general, John, not just one government program. Government has a great interest in efficiency. Conscience exceptions aren’t efficient. If the government sees the public interest – the common good – being clearly served by including contraception, sterilization, and abortion among mandated services, the tendency inevitably will be to omit conscience exceptions for providers, except where they become politically necessary.
Hopefully, Catholic bishops and others will be able to make them politically necessary for a long time to come, but that’s by no means a sure thing. Opposition within the Church itself is bound to make their job harder. That can’t be helped, but it seems a shame.