Timing Is Everything
For me, one of the most interesting things about the lawsuits filed last week against the contraception mandate was their timing. (I confess at the outset that I haven’t read all of the complaints, just the one from Notre Dame.) I think the Notre Dame complaint makes some reasonable arguments about the intrusiveness of the original mandate, but I found it odd that the university was challenging a rule that everyone agrees (and the complaint acknowledges) will be superseded by a new, broader exemption before it goes into effect. Now, I think Notre Dame is right to be worried even about the new rule, because I have still not seen a clear explanation of how the new exemption will deal with self-insured religious entities, like Notre Dame. (On the other hand, I think the university undermines the broader plaintiffs’ position when it says that the direct provision of contraception by the government though a tax-funded program would not violate rights of conscience.) While I was reading the complaint, though, my main reaction as a lawyer was that it would probably have been better to wait a bit longer before initiating litigation.
The complaint discusses the timing issue by noting how far in advance the university has to make its insurance arrangements. But, even by their own description, Notre Dame likely could have waited a few months more without undue risk. From the tone of the complaints, larded up as they were with rhetoric clearly designed for media (rather than judicial) consumption, it seemed to me that the coordinated lawsuits were filed now, not primarily because of the plaintiffs’ insurance planning needs, but as a PR prelude to the Bishops’ “Fortnight of Freedom” (perhaps the most unfortunate name for a putative social movement since the ill-fated “Nanocentury Against Nukes”).
As if on cue, a few days ago the Christian News Service posted an article linking the lawsuits with the Fortnight and touting what it optimistically hopes will be “the most massive campaign of civil disobedience in this country since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and early 1960s.” I am doubtful. The article discusses a document the Bishops plan to insert into parish bulletins next month, which makes the comparison with the civil rights movement and comes complete with quotations of the Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The mandate does not take effect for another year. And it’s hard to visualize people refusing to obey a mandate to issue insurance covering contraception. It certainly doesn’t have the visceral (and visual) punch of students being physically attacked or dragged off by police for refusing to leave a segregated lunch-counter. The civil disobedience the Bishops have in mind will have to be something other than refusal to obey the law they think is unjust.
I have a broadly permissive attitude towards civil disobedience. Most democratic theorists do not. On almost any account of civil disobedience, though, refusing to obey a duly enacted law in a functioning democracy is a serious action that stands in need of some substantial justification. In that regard, the Letter from a Birmingham Jail is a strange document for the Bishops to cite in favor of their campaign. King was very careful to spell out the limits of appropriate disobedience in a democratic society, placed great emphasis on the political exclusion of African Americans in the pre-civil rights south, and treated disobedience as a last resort in response to even clear and grave injustice. (King also lists “self-purification” as an essential prelude to civil disobedience.) In contrast, the Bishops (who share very little with 1963 Birmingham black community in terms of their political influence) seem positively eager to kick off their new movement. What form it takes, and who will participate, remains to be seen. (HT Mother Jones)
Tags: contraception, HHS, USCCB
I likewise found inappropriate the passing reference to the “Letter…” MLK’s reasoning, rhetoric, example, and the clarity of the cause were so different from this appeal by the bishops. It seems almost expolitative to have cited it this way.
In other places, I and others speculated abut how these suits may be rolled togethre and the time frame for a judgment, but I would appreciate an attorney’s take on that also .
African-Americans tend to get quite upset when the LGBT movement tries to equate itself with the Black civil rights movement. Let’s see how AA’s handle MLK being co-opted by by a bunch of pampered over-fed white folks who have had their way since time immemorial.
I think that the comparison to the civil rights movement is very offensive, and they should drop it.
But I don’t see any particular reason why civil disobedience needs to be a measure of last resort. I think it is probably the most effective way a very small minority can bring attention to an issue they care deeply about. Though I have no intention of joining them, if the Catholic bishops want to occupy Zuccotti Park, I say more power to them.
Who will be the first to be arrested, I wonder.
Catholics have been engaged in civil disobedience for years:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0527-04.htm
One example. Notice the key component of civil disobedience–you must be willing to incur the consequences:
“The sisters sat in a Colorado jail for seven months awaiting trial rather than sign personal recognizance bonds promising that they wouldn’t commit any further crimes during wartime. But after the trial, they signed the bonds in order to say goodbye to loved ones and give away their belongings before their sentencing.”
The nuns were sentenced to 41 months in federal prison. The number of Catholics willing to engage in civil disobedience over the HHS mandate is near zero.
I think that hoping for and comparing a flock of gray hairs protesting the availability of BC, to the 1960s Civil Rights movement is a product of delusional thinking. Delusional in the most severe meaning.
Could someone bring me up to speed about what activities are planned for the bishops’ Fortnight of Freedom?
Are Catholics going to march on Washington and block access to the White House because President Obama lives there, or what?
Are bishops going to be arrested and taken to jail for civil disobedience? If this is planned, what are the bishops planning to do by way of civil disobedience to get themselves arrested?
It is legally false what you and Grant keep saying, that the mandate does not go into effect until August 2013. The one-year “safe” harbor available for some, not all, groups does not even claim to NOT enact the mandate of coverage–it claims only that the government will not enforce it. Nothing more. But, PPACA triggers ERISA lawsuits by plan participants and their beneficiaries if their employer gives them a plan in violation of a PPACA reg such as the coverage mandate, which is not NOT finalized, and therefore which will be being violated starting everyone’s next plan year after August 2012, not August 2013. So the government is saying don’t worry, we have authorized your plan participants to sue you to force you to give them contraception because we finalized our rule requiring objective compliance starting August 2012. If they really wanted a safe harbor they would have suspended the final rule altogether. And similarly, it is ignorant to suggest that anything will or need happen on June 19 when the current comment period ends, because the THING being commented on is not itself a rule. Nothing happens June 19 except maybe some bureaucrats start reading all the comments they IGNORED last September, then they are obliged by the current comment period to do exactly nothing, since there is not even a proposed rule yet. If they ever issue a proposed rule that will start the comment and review process all over again. By which time the election will be over and there is no reason to believe any change will ever be made, except by the exceedingly naive. Nothing happens anytime soon, if ever, except the final rule authorizes private lawsuits against religious groups their first plan year after August 1 2012.
It is not legally false to say that the contraception mandate will not affect objecting institutions until 2013. Your reasoning is worst-case-scenarioism.
For groups who believe that they are experiencing discrimination quoting MLK is completely justified — he is not owned lock, stock and barrel by any group. He is a symbol of resistance, a beacon of hope for the maginalized. He is like Gandhi — basically in the public domain for better or worse.
Civil disobedience and the church have a long history. I’d love to see the bishops take to the streets.
It is not legally false to say that the contraception mandate will not affect objecting institutions until 2013. Your reasoning is worst-case-scenarioism.
Grant,
Anitra is reading you the law as its written. Thats not worst-case-scenarioism. The government may not sue until plan years starting after Aug 2013 but plan participants are able AND its not clear that everyone who wants a religious exemption qualifies for the enforcement safe harbor. Your reasoning is what HHS wants the public to believe.
You are in denial. The mandate directly authorizes lawsuits by plan participants, it finalizes its requirement of coverage of abortifacients, contraception, sterilization etc starting August 1, and the safe harbor says nowhere (which is why you won’t quote it) that it is making anything “safe” except that “the Departments” won’t enforce the mandate (won’t enforce what? the thing they have imposed–meaning, it is objectively law starting August). The safe harbor is a sloppy effort made because the administration stubbornly refused to back down during deliberation or think before shooting. It didn’t want to and it didn’t delay the underlying requirement. The plan participant lawsuits are in full effect. Read the congressional research service or something before pontificating about legal conclusions. It is false to say there’s no harm until August 2013. Fact check yourself before you run after the bishops.
Civil disobedience is noncompliance with an unjust law. It is not breaking unrelated just laws (such as trespassing) in order to raise attention.
For most of the people touting their planned civil disobedience, I don’t really see what that would mean. The only people in a position to do actual civil disobedience would be institutions that self-insure but don’t qualify for an exemption once the mandate actually takes effect.
It’s a great temptation but also a great risk to compare one’s future actions and campaigns to history-changing events of the past. Very little in American history equals the Civil Rights movement in moral gravity or intensity of commitment. The men and women who marched with King faced a very real martyrdom with eyes wide open. They came at the end of decades, even centuries, of uneasy awakening to the festering horror at the heart of American life. The time was ripe.
We will see what sort of outpouring the bishops’ call to action will elicit, what form the civil disobedience will take, and how grave the nation will regard this threat to liberty. But they have raised the bar so high with their ill-judged comparison, that fiasco looms. As Horace put it, “Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.”
Help me with forgotten Latin…
Thomas Farrell wants to know what activities are planned for Fortnight of Freedom.. Let me paint the hoped for scenario.
I suggest Anita William’s screed be published in every parish bulletin and after the gray hairs read it at Mass { and understand it?], let the march to jail begin. Maybe we can expect the march to meet-up with allies joining in from flanking streets.( Think 1930s movie] Mormons, Scientologists, Quakers , Mennonites, Muslims, home schoolers, Tea Party activists etc. Film at 11.. This farce is a delusional dream.
Of course the bishops can quote MLK. They quote Jesus, don’t they?
The point is not about protocol or right, but appropriateness, parallelsim, and integrity.
David,
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Horace#Ars_Poetica.2C_or_The_Epistle_to_the_Pisones_.28c._18_BC.29
The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be born.
Hearing certain bishops talk these days about the federal government’s duty to respect the consciences of Catholics brings to mind another time and setting where this same issue of conscience arose.
In 1970 I received a Selective Service classification of 1-A, which guaranteed me a ticket to Vietnam. I sent my draft board a two sentence letter: “I am a conscientious objector. Please send me the appropriate form.”
As my application was processed, the draft board (composed of patriotic WWII vets) wanted me to show them where the Catholic Church stated that a good Catholic could also be a conscientious objector. That proved to be a very difficult task. The American bishops were silent on the rights of Catholics to conscientiously object to the taking of human life. If anything, the face of the American Church at that time was Francis Cardinal Spellman, who would be photographed sprinkling holy water on American bombs.
Confronted with the most pressing moral issue of a generation and the need for support and encouragement in claiming conscientious exemption against the government, it felt like my Church had abandoned me.
And now, on the issue of a birth control method, the bishops finally find the courage to speak out?
Too late and way too lame, if you ask me.
Pierre Angulaire
I do hope this Fortnight of Freedom generates some alternative rallies. It would be a good time, for example, for an ecumenical rally to protest the harassment of Muslims we see gong on around America. I would go to a rally like that.
I appreciate your post, Pierre, being of that era and very aware of my seminary classification as 4-D. When a freind left and filed and received CO status, we corresponded much and it was a great education for me.
As you know, the bishops did call for a consciencious selective objection in their later document, but I don’t know how tested it ever was since I don’t believe it is recognized by the state and is now moot.
Perhaps a conscientious objection by the bishops may be a serendipitous moment… though I can’t yet picture them being cuffed and taken fora booking… it would be great theatre!
As an expression/alternative, I am offering a brief course in the development of religious liberty in America from discovery to 1819 to attempt to begin a conversation on how we got here.
I just read syndicated columnist’s Connie Schultz article entitled “Catholic Leaders’ Rhetoric” today in our local paper. In the article she stated that she was not a catholic and had been ignoring the issue even though it outraged her as a proponent of women’s rights. However, when the bishops called it a “do-or-die issue for all Americans” she said she could no longer ignore it. She was outraged as are many people who believe that women’s health should never become an issue blown out of proportion like this when 82% of catholics and 90% of noncatholics believe in some form of contraception.
Does anyone have evidence (other than their rhetoric) that any of our bishops are undertaking serious preparation for a campaign (or even a solitary action) of civil disobedience as part of the Fortnight for Freedom? (So far all I’ve seen is preparations for lots of prayers, Masses and the occasional press conference or rally.)
82% of catholics and 90% of noncatholics believe in some form of contraception.
Denise,
If it is so important to you, open your wallet and pay for it yourself.
“Civil disobedience” can include direct violation of laws thought to be unjust, but wouldn’t you also include actions like that of the Catonsville 9, who disrupted the function of a draft office (also pouring blood on draft files,) as a way of protesting the war?
For Gandhi, et al., the power of non-violent resistance is that it reveals the violence inherent in unjust structures–think of the salt protests, e.g., or other protests violently put down by police. Likewise MLK’s marches, met with violence by the authorities.
In this case, however’ the bishops should be careful of the message they’d be sending. Imagine a group of, say, 20 elderly celibate men, representing an all-male hierarchy leading the march to protest making contraception accessible for free to employees of Catholic institutions. Do you suppose they’ll be met with police dogs and fire hoses? Or will it be a situation in which the bishops are seen to care about contraception more than almost anything? After all, there’s been no coordinated action by the bishops about the recent wars, even though the Vatican declared at least the Iraq war to be unjust. Will this fuel even more talk of a “war on women”? Great PR for the Church! The Epsicopal Church, that is…
Bruce: If having children is so important to you, open your wallet and pay for it yourself.
Pierre Angulaire:
I have to take issue with what you wrote:
It wasn’t a difficult task at all. I was a conscientious objector during Vietnam, and I remember going to the New York City office of the Catholic Peace Fellowship and gathering plenty of material which documented that, as you put it, “a good Catholic could also be a conscientious objector.” More than forty five years later, I don’t have that material at hand, but just now, doing a bit of research on the internet, I found this in the documents of Vatican II: “It seems right that laws make human provisions for the case of those who for reasons of conscience refuse to bear arms (Gaudium et Spes, No. 79)
You also claim that “the American bishops were silent on the rights of Catholics to conscientiously object to the taking of human life.” Wrong again. Not only did the bishops support conscientious objection, they went beyond that and supported selective conscientious objection, i.e. the right to be exempted from military service when one was not an absolute pacifist but did conscientiously object to a particular war (e.g. Vietnam):
You also say that when you filed for C.O. status,
Not quite. You say you filed in 1970; at that time, Spellman had been dead for three years. And when, before his death, I had my hearing at my local draft board, one of the people who came to testify on my behalf was Msgr. Robert Stern, an official in Spellman’s chancery. I’m not saying, of course, that Spellman was against the war; I’m simply saying, let’s get things straight here, and let’s not say things which are inaccurate, e.g. your claim that
No, that was one case in which the church didn’t abandon us.
The opening salvo in this “war” (as Sebelius calls it) was a lawsuit against Belmont Abbey College by its own feminist professors for not getting contraception in their health plan. But the lawyers and “experts” at Commonweal say there was no need for any Catholic organization to go to court to stop the mandate now, that they could have just sat free and easy for a year after the administration uses ObamaCare authorize to Notre Dame’s professors and other employees of Catholic groups to sue them? Think twice before you accept legal advice from this magazine.
If the timing of the cardinals and bishops takes them to the streets in June, they may find unanticipated Catholic competition. During May, supporters of US religious women have held many vigils, protests, and other activities opposing the CDF and US bishops’ ongoing action against the LCWR. As the LCWR meets this week on developing their response, there is no reason to expect public activity by laity and priests on their behalf to fade away.
http://www.nunjustice.org/
http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/12851917-452/priests-come-to-nuns-defense.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/27/us/vatican-american-nuns/index.html
On May 29, surprisingly, the Papal Nuncio Abp. Vigano invited some protesters into his residence, talked, and received their petition. The significance of that is not clear; his attitude may be atypical among the hierarchy. He was recently sent to the Americas as nuncio in spite of his now-leaked letter to the Pope objecting to the early interruption of his efforts to clean up corruption in Rome.
http://solidaritywithsisters.weebly.com/
Yesterday, I made several comments in the “Fact-checking Cardinal Wuerl and Arcbishop Lori” post pointing out that rather than originating from the HHS Mandate, the issue that the USCCB charaterizes as “not about contraception but about defining our ministry” goes back many years and has a history that is worth knowing
Here’s a quote from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1988 saying, similarly, “the issue is not ‘whether the church should pay taxes.’ The issue is: ‘Who defines the church’s nature and ministry?”‘…
The quote is taken from this Law Review article on the definition of religion. It reviews the changing definition of religion
Edward McGlynn Gaffney Jr., Governmental Definition of Religion: The Rise and Fall of the IRS Regulations on an “Integrated Auxiliary of a Church”, 25 Val. U. L. Rev. 203 (1991).
Available at: http://scholar.valpo.edu/vulr/vol25/iss2/3
What I got out of this exploration is that the issue of whether the government can define religion for the purpose of enforcing laws – and whether religious hospitals, universities, charities, etc should be treated exactly as churches are – goes back many years and has evolved through a series of lawsuits brought primarily by Baptist and Lutheran groups. It is not a new issue that has arisen only as a result of the HHS mandate – except in the sense that it now has a bearing on contraception.
Ironically, the current definition in the iRS code is based on a recommendation made in 1977 by Charles Whelan SJ, who was a law professor at Fordham and an editor of America.
Jimmy Mac
Children are a common good. When you cant work anymore, somebody’s children will produce the food you eat, provide the health care you need, make the clothes you wear, etc. And when you’re dead, somebody’s kids will bury your body.
Contraception is inherently selfish.
Bruce: sorry but you are spewing utter nonsense: contraception is inherently selfish!!!
What a perverted view of the unitive aspect of marital relations – selfish, indeed. Not everyone wants or can have unlimited children based on their biology.
Children CAN be a common good but for many and in many times and places they are far from that.
Jimmy Mac ==
The medieval Vatican was far superior to the current one when it came to encouraging discussison all sides of a theological issue. The medieval Vatican guaranteed medieval theologians accused of heresy a right to be heard by the pope himself, unlike the now when a theologian sometimes doesn’t even know he/she is under review and can be condemned without an opportunity to defend him/herself. The current Vatican is in some important ways quite degenerate compared to the medieval one.
Oops — Sorry, I posted that on the wrong thread.
Will there be a Fortnight for Freedom for the Nuns, Girl Scouts, Women, Snap and Victims of clerical abuse? The other group that needs freedom are all the Bishop enablers.
Will there be a Fortnight for Freedom for the Nuns, Girl Scouts, Women, Snap and Victims of clerical abuse? The other group that needs freedom are all the Bishop enablers.
—-
President Obama’s remarks about Juliet Gordon Low at the Medal of Freedom ceremony yesterday were beautiful. He praised the Girl Scouts for involving girls of every race, creed, etc., from the start.
Al Sharpton talked about the ceremony, too, and the award given the founder of the Girl Scouts. He showed clips of the Republicans who have gone out of their way to revile the organization, saying it “sexualizes” little girls, etc.
One of the girls who got to attend the ceremony and meet the President was Diana Greymountain, who “is about to become the first Native American to receive the Girl Scouts’ Gold Award.”
http://azdailysun.com/news/local/a-chance-of-a-lifetime-for-page-girl-scout/article_b23c0e35-c908-51f4-a0a0-ad13a698bf98.html
“(So far all I’ve seen is preparations for lots of prayers, Masses and the occasional press conference or rally.)”
I think that’s pretty much it. Add a few articles in church bulletins, some bishops’ columns in diocesan papers, and probably a homily here and there, and I think you’ve got about the size of it.
Children CAN be a common good but for many and in many times and places they are far from that.
Jimmy Mac,
I actually misspoke. Children are better than a common good forever and always. They are made in the image and likeness of God, just like you. Tic Tock…
Do not forget the movie which glorifys the Mexican War in in the early 1900s which it is alleged the Mexicans waged war against the anti-Catholic government. Will the bishops bring back Charlemagne ……
If the use of contraception, which is occasionally ineffective, is inherently selfish, because it usually prevents procreation, then what can be said of a vowed and rigorously practiced celibacy, which always fails to produce children? The nerve of these sanctimonious shirkers, expecting other people’s children to see them into their graves! Get with the program, Your Excellencies and Eminences! Increase and multiply!
Then again,…
@Jim Pauwels (5/30, 9:23 pm) Thanks. If that’s the case then, speaking as someone who’s spent a lot of time over the years thinking about these issues (organizing, religion, politics, civil disobedience, strategies, tactics, rhetoric, etc.), it doesn’t bode well for the success of the bishops’ campaign that they’re starting out with such a large gap between their rhetoric and their actions.
Luke: What is your expectation for what the Fortnight for Freedom should consist of?
It is nonsense to try and claim that non-therapeutic use of bc pills and the like are important issues of “womens health”.
To be a libertine is one thing; to be a cheap libertine is quite another matter altogether.
If the use of contraception, which is occasionally ineffective, is inherently selfish
John,
The use of contraception is inherently selfish not because of the lack of children. Its selfish because people are behaving in a certain way (having sexual intercourse) AND actively negating the natural consequences of that behavior. In other words, they are failing to control their behavior. That is what makes it selfish. Practicing celibacy is controlling your behavior and living with the results.
So married people who can’t afford to support a child need to be celibate? I think the use of effective contraception in that instance is not selfish at all and it’s certainly not “libertine”. It’s called being responsible.
I think that if its considered okay to try and prevent contraception through NFP, then it’s also okay to try and prevent it by using a condom/taking the pill. The objection to artificial contraception would make a lot more sense if we also objected to NFP; since we don’t, the only difference I see is that the pill works better.
@Jim Pauwels (5/31, 8:48 am) Good question. I haven’t followed the planning for the Fortnight For Freedom closely. (I have done a bit of poking around online at the USCCB website, as well as the websites of several dioceses and parishes.) However, if I were involved with the planning and organizing for the Fortnight, I’d be concerned about the seemingly large gap between rhetoric and action.
For example, the entire first half of the USCCB’s “Protecting Consciences” nationwide bulletin insert is about Dr. King, the Civil Rights Movement, the “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, and assertions like “Some unjust laws impose such injustices on individuals and organizations that disobeying the laws may be justified”. That’s relatively bold and powerful rhetoric—particularly for our conference of Catholic bishops.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with proceeding from that rhetoric to a call for special intercessory prayers at Sunday Masses, or a call to join the bishop at a special Mass or press conference about the Fortnight For Freedom. It’s just that, in my experience, using rhetoric that far exceeds the actions one is prepared to take often weakens a given campaign…and the organization(s) initiating it.
Such a gap can be (and often is) confusing to one’s followers and allies, as well as to one’s opponents. Perhaps most importantly, it can be confusing and off-putting for the “moderate middle”—the vast majority of people who don’t perceive themselves as having a big stake in the issue or campaign, but whose support or opposition (however active or passive) is often critical in winning on a particular issue or campaign.
@Bruce (5/31, 10:47 am, and earlier) Judging by the growth in population, the last 3-4 generations (including the current one) of humans have done pretty well on the whole “welcoming the gift of children” thing.
Some of us locally are organizing alternative aapproaches to the the “fortnight.” We will post our schedule.
Luke, I’ll make a prediction: if the campaign to protect religious freedom ever evolves to something that involves mass marches or dozens of arrests or something equally television-news-camera-friendly, it won’t have been the USCCB that instigated it. It will be energized from some other locus within the church. Very likely, it will be a lay-initiated movement.
Sorry, Bruce, for my misunderstanding. It was impossible to tell from your post at 05/30/2012 – 7:51 pm that the selfishness arose from anything but a thoughtless burdening of other people because of one’s procreative failure. You meant, I see now, that acting to frustrate the natural consequences of our behavior is selfish.
I wonder then if we should, as some people believe, avoid all vaccinations and other preventive medicine that selfishly prolong our stay. Best perhaps just to besprinkle the earth as liberally and as quickly as we can with little images and likenesses of God and then scram outta here like palaeolithic nomads. As it is, we are peopling the planet thoroughly enough that the Lord might well say, “Whoa, humans! I know I bade you multiply, but leave a little space for the cheetah and the rhino, which are also beloved of me.”
With all its faults and horrors, the modern world has enlarged the scope and enhanced the lives of more people than the arid philosophies and rigidities of the past ever did. Having the means to control our reckless fecundity is an unmixed blessing. No one denies that sex can be corrupted into something selfish and exploitative. But in and of itself, even without the hope or thought of children, it is the perfect expression of the caring, giving, loving oneness of two people.
To return to Eduardo Penalver’s analysis of the Notre Dame Brief:
In April 2010, Sr. Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association, along with Rep Bart Stupak, interpreted the Affordable Care Act as excluding payments for abortions and reaffirming the “conscience protections.” Their interpretation was reinforced in an Executive Order.
Catholic Bishops strongly disagreed. S. Keehan was publically chastised for offering an interpretation contrary to the USCCB interpretation — and Rep Stupak was portrayed as a traitor to the “pro-life” cause.
The Notre Dame Brief at Para 69 reads: “The intent to exclude abortions was instrumental in the Affordable Care Act’s passage, as cemented by an Executive Order without which the Act would not have passed.” Further in Para #70 “The Act was, therefore, passed based on the central premise that all agencies would uphold and follow ‘longstanding Federal laws to protect conscience’ and to prohibit funding of abortion.”
The ND Brief highlights that S Keehan had correctly assessed the impact of ACA–and that the bishops wrongly assessed the law’s impact. Will the bishops now admit their error? Or must S Keehan be satisfied with the words of the Notre Dame Brief for vindication?
– The use of contraception is inherently selfish not because of the lack of children. Its selfish because people are behaving in a certain way (having sexual intercourse) AND actively negating the natural consequences of that behavior. In other words, they are failing to control their behavior. That is what makes it selfish. Practicing celibacy is controlling your behavior and living with the results. –
Shades of the 1950s. Instead of using contraception, maybe the cilice would be more effective. Of a chastity belt.
Bruce, please tell me that you are NOT a marriage counselor.
In Re the bishops comparison of their defense of religious freedom and the civil rights movement –
Granted, they are right that religious freedom rights are as important as the civil rights of black people. But for them to imply that their religious freedom rights are being threatened to the same degree as the civil rights of black people were not only threatened but denied is downright ludicrous.
There are no police dogs threatening demonstrating bishops, nor sheriffs putting them in jail or lynching them for speaking out. This campaign is inspired by hysteria.
Maybe one reason Cardinal George of Chicago is conspicuously absent from this “movement” is because he knows what a civil rights movement like the one in the 60′s really is. He was active in the Mississippi civil rights movement the 60s, so he knows what major threats really are.
“In April 2010, Sr. Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association, along with Rep Bart Stupak, interpreted the Affordable Care Act as excluding payments for abortions and reaffirming the “conscience protections.” ”
j p farry: I agree that Sr. Carol Keehan interpreted the ACA this way. I disagree that Rep Stupak did. Stupak, under the tutelage of the USCCB and perhaps other pro-life organizations, opposed the ACA specifically because he thought the ACA anti-abortion protections were inadequate. It wasn’t until President Obama offered an executive order that contained adequate protections that Stupak agreed to vote for the ACA. Or such is my recollection of those events.
FWIW – I don’t think the comparison of this movement to the Civil Rights movement of the ’60′s is particularly apt. (And perhaps the bishops in their document aren’t hitting a rhetorical bulls-eye by proposing the comparison). I’m very far from a civil rights historian, but maybe a better comparison would be to the civil rights movement from the 1910s or 1920s – when there was some movement, and some intellectual and legal ferment, but long before it had garnered widespread support.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the bishop, by themselves, have the influence and prestige to single-handedly instigate a ’60′s-style movement. My view is that great judges and prophets like Dr. King are more likely to emerge organically, or on the battlefield, than to be appointed.
Jim ( 12:13 pm)
Jim: I agree with your account of 2010 debate over ACA:
What the Notre Dame Brief highlights is that the bishops, in consistently adopting a “hermeneutic of suspicion” in their dealings with the Obama administration, have undermined their credibility as teachers who provide guidance to Catholic voters on political questions.
The Bishops persisted in claiming that the ACA would not only fund abortions but would also undermine “conscience protections.” S Carol Keehan had the temerity to tell the public that the bishops were wrong in their interpretation of ACA. For this she was publically chastised and compelled to keep quiet. When President Obama issued an Executive Order to underscore the applicable legislative provisions, Rep Stupak, who classified himself as a pro-life Democrat, agreed to sign on to the bill. The bishops dismissed the Executive Order as simply a reaffirmation of ACA’s pro-abortion funding provisions. Rep Stupak, for welcoming this Executive Order, was cast as “Obama’s dupe” and defeated in November 2010.
The bishops have not apologized to American Catholics for misleading them and directing them to accept a fundamentally flawed interpretation of the consequences of ACA.
Teachers do make mistakes—but good teachers, who have credibility and integrity, admit mistakes.
jpf: the irony of your point is glaring. Obamacare was passed on the declared understanding that abortion would not be included and conscience would be respected, and this mandate proves both were false: conscience is attacked and drugs causing early abortions compelled in all plans. How, from that, could you argue that the bishops owe Keehan an apology, and not vice versa?
Anitra–
I read your comment as follows: The HHS mandate requiring insurance coverage for contraception proves that the bishops were correct in opposing Obamacare in 2010. The bishops argued that the law would authorize abortion funding and would eliminate “conscience protections.” The 2012 HHS Mandate demonstrates that was indeed the intent of Obamacare.
The Notre Dame Brief takes the opposite position. The Brief states that ACA was
passed based on the central premise that all agencies would uphold and
follow “longstanding Federal laws to protect consciences” and to prohibit
federal funding of abortion.
The lawyers representing Notre Dame underscore this central premise of 2010 ACA so that they can argue that the 2012 HHS Mandate is contrary to the purposes of ACA—not a logical implementation of ACA provisions– as you suggest.
The irony for the bishops is: if they stick by their 2010 interpretation of ACA, they can not raise an important legal challenge to the 2012 HHS mandate.
The Notre Dame Brief stipulates that ACA did prohibit abortion funding and did contain “conscience protections.” Therefore, the 2012 HHS Mandate violates the central premise of the law it is intended to implement.
You are confusing what a law says, with the publicly stated reasons people supported it. The legal brief says “passed pased on the central premise.” There is no such thing as a “central premise” in what a law says. They are saying, it was passed (something that is done by people with reasons, not by the law’s own words) on the publicly asserted reasons (the premise) that abortion would not be required and conscience would be protected. But the bishops’ very objection was, “premises” are not good enough, the law needs to say it or these dangers will come to pass. And liberals said, trust us. Thanks a lot. Now we have compelled early abortion drug coverage and conscience violations. The bishops were right. Premises existed, but premises are not enough.
Anitra-
Your disagreement is with the lawyers of the James Day Law Firm, who prepared the Notre Dame Brief as well as the briefs sumitted by other Catholic organizations.
In the Notre Dame Brief (at Para 67) they quote directly the following section of ACA: “Nothing in this title shall be construed to require qualified health plans to provide [abortion] services.”
The James Day attorneys go on to assert: “The Act [ACA] and accompanying Executive Order reflect a clear intent to exclude abortion-related services from the Act and regulations implementing it.”
In summary, the Notre Dame Brief makes the argument that the 2012 HHS mandate violates the intent of the authorzing legization (ACA), which prohibited funding for abortion and provided “conscience protection.”
In summary, you are confusing multiple issues. Obamacare does indeed have this narrow protection for *abortion* *compulsion* upon *qualified plans.* The bishops never denied that. The bishops denied, and Jones Day doesn’t say otherwise, that other needed clauses were present, namely, that Obamacare excludes abortion itself from the rest of the act, and that Obamacare excludes compulsion of abortion in other contexts, and that Obamacare excludes compulsion of contraception and other things in other contexts. Part of the HHS mandate–the part yeilding early-abortion drugs as a required preventive service–violates the one protection that Obamacare actually has that you quote. That protection was never denied in its existence by the bishops. The HHS mandate also violates other compoments of the “premise” on which the bill was voted for–that these other inclusions of abortion and other kinds of compulsion would not result from Obamacare. That premise was not in the act and the lawsuit doesn’t claim it specifically is, and the bishops were obviously right in saying it wasn’t there, because now the coercion has begun.
Anitra:
As I resd your response, I note that you highlight the distinction the Jones Day lawyers make between the “intent” of ACA and the “central premise” of ACA.
Obviously only the lawyers know why they used these two different phrases in different paragraphs of the Notre Dame Brief.
As I understand your analysis, you interprete the phrase “central premise” to refer to the misleading and inaccurate descriptions of the bill used by its supporters to gain approval.
When the lawyers use the phrase the “intent” of ACA, you state that the lawyers are referring to the narrow prohibitions on abortion that ACA does in fact contain.
I am not pursuaded by your analysis.
Why would the Jones Day lawyers want to call a trial judge’s attention to the phrase “central premise” if that phrase designates misleading and incorrect assertions about the impact of ACA? I understand the Jones Day attorneys as trying to convince the trial judge that the HHS Mandate is in invalid in light of the intent of ACA as adopted.
Until a Jones Day attorney joins this conversation, I would suggest that we agree to disagree.
I think they’re saying, the contraception mandate violates the text of Obamacare to the extent it requires drugs that are embryocidal in qualified plans (text which the bishops admitted was there), and it violates the intent/premise of those who passed Obamacae to the extent the mandate violates conscience more broadly (an issue on which the bishops said text, not mere intent or premise, was needed).