Today, Cardinal Timothy Dolan released a statement outlining the USCCB’s objections to the Obama administration’s revision of the revision of the contraception mandate. The new rule scotches the previous iteration’s much-maligned four-part definition of “religious employer,” and proposes arrangements to make sure religious employers — including colleges, hospitals, and charities — won’t have to pay for or refer for contraception coverage in their employee health plans. In other words, the Department of Health and Human Services listened to its critics and attempted to allay their concerns. As the editors of Commonweal put it, “This will do.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops disagrees. 

First, a word of praise for the tone of Cardinal Dolan’s statement. It avoids the hyperbolic rhetoric that has characterized this debate for far too long. The cardinal states that the bishops are open to further discussion. He acknowledges that the Obama administration “has heard some previously expressed concerns and that it is open to dialogue,” and promises “additional, careful study.” He notes that the new proposal does away with the “exceedingly narrow” definition of “religious employer,” which, the bishops claimed, “created a ‘second class’ of citizenship within our religious community” — subordinating Catholic charities to Catholic parishes. But apparently that’s not enough for the bishops.  Read the rest of this entry »

It’s far from conclusive, but there’s growing evidence that the Affordable Care Act could lead to a significant reduction in the number of abortions performed in the United States.  (If true, it also follows that repealing the Affordable Care Act would result in more, not fewer, abortions than leaving the law in place.)

Writing for The Atlantic, Brian Fung reports, “As the number of insured has gone up in Massachusetts, new state data show a corresponding decline in the number of abortions performed there since 2006.” Since passage of “Romneycare”, Massachusetts’ abortion rate has dropped 17%.

Fung hastens to add, “it’s possible that the decline in the abortion rate had nothing to do with Romneycare”, noting that Massachusetts’ abortion rate has declined steadily since 1991.

Nonetheless, researchers think there’s a link.  Fung quotes Dr. Patrick Whelan, who first identified the trend as saying, “When women have more stable access to medical care, they’re more likely to see doctors, they’re more likely to have somebody inquiring about their sexual health. The fact that you have somebody who cares about you results in people being healthier, and that includes not getting pregnant if they don’t want to be.”

“When I moved to Canada in 2008, I was a die-hard conservative Republican. So when I found out that we were going to be covered by Canada’s Universal Health Care, I was somewhat disgusted. This meant we couldn’t choose our own health coverage, or even opt out if we wanted too. It also meant that abortion was covered by our taxes, something I had always believed was horrible. I believed based on my politics that government mandated health care was a violation of my freedom.”

That’s the opening paragraph of a detailed and thoughtful reflection titled “How I Lost My Fear Of Universal Health Care” by “Melissa”, a young mother of self-described “Protestant Fundamentalist” background, writing about how her experience of Canadian health care has worked on her, and both calmed some of her fears and changed some of her thinking over the past few years.

Despite the fact that Melissa comes at these issues (including abortion) with a different theological and ecclesiological background that most Roman Catholics do, she shares many of the same concerns.  And, despite the fact she share many of those concerns, some of her conclusions most likely aren’t the ones many of us would come to.

But what I like most about her essay—and why I think it’s worth discussing—is that it’s an excellent example of the power of lived experience.

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In a letter to the Catholics of the Diocese of Phoenix, Bishop Thomas Olmsted promises not to obey the “unjust law” requiring certain Catholic institutions to include contraception coverage in their employee health-care plans. “Unless the rule is overturned,” Olmsted writes, “we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer penalties for doing so). The administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.” Olmsted closes by calling on Catholics to “commit ourselves to prayer and fasting that wisdom and justice may prevail” — and to contact their elected representatives “in support of legislation that would reverse the administration’s decision.” (Read the whole letter here.)

Update: The letter, according to USCCB spokeswoman Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, is part of a coordinated effort to inform Catholics about the bishops’ opposition to the mandate. The bishops conference “provided a template [letter],” Walsh told me, “at the request of several bishops.” (Of course, each bishop is free to adapt the letter, or not issue one at all.) Is it the policy of the USCCB to engage in civil disobedience when the contraception mandate goes into effect next year? “At present, no decision on strategy has been reached,” Walsh said.

Olmsted fails to mention that some Catholic institutions are exempt from the mandate — the parishes where his letter will be read, for example. He also asserts that the HHS ruling forces Catholic organizations to pay for “abortion-inducing drugs” — that is, the so-called morning-after pill. That talking point has been made by several critics of the ruling, including Archbishop Dolan, who calls them “abortion drugs.” Is it true? Do morning-after pills really cause abortions? As William Saletan and Ross Douthat have pointed out, while Plan B could theoretically cause an abortion, there is no evidence that it does (here’s one study showing it does not).

This debate isn’t going to get any easier. But it might get less confusing if those involved lowered the rhetorical heat in favor of dealing in actual facts.

Update: Bishop Jenky of Peoria gets into the act. And Archbishop Aymond of New Orleans offers his more measured response. And Bishop Zubik of Pittsburgh offers his less measured response. And Bishop Sheehan of Santa Fe weighs in, sounding a lot like Olmsted (almost word for word), and revealing that Archbishop Dolan has asked “all bishops to address this issue locally.”

Good piece in today’s New York Times.

As recently as July, the bishops’ conference had largely embraced the president’s goals, although with the caveat that any health care overhaul avoid new federal financing of abortions. But in the last two weeks some leaders of the conference, like Cardinal Justin Rigali, have concluded that Democrats’ efforts to carve out abortion coverage are so inadequate that lawmakers should block the entire effort.

Others, echoing the popular alarms about “rationing,” contend that the proposals could put a premium on efficacy that could penalize the chronically ill.

“No health care reform is better than the wrong sort of health care reform,” Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, declared in a recent pastoral letter, urging the faithful to call their members of Congress.

In a diocesan newspaper column this week, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver agreed, saying the proposal was “not only imprudent; it’s also dangerous.”

Here’s Chaput’s column. And you can find Nickless’s right here.

More from Kirkpatrick:

Mr. Obama has said the health care overhaul should preserve the current policy that federal money not pay for elective abortions, and congressional Democrats say they are trying to do that. House health care legislation would allow the secretary of Health and Human Services to decide whether a proposed government insurance program would cover abortions. But any health insurance plan that does cover abortion — whether government-run or private — would be required to segregate its government subsidies from its patients’ premium payments so that no taxpayer money would pay for the procedure. And all patients would have the choice of plans that do and do not cover it.

House Democrats say many states similarly segregate federal money when they cover abortion under Medicaid. But abortion opponents say they take as a model the federal employees benefits program, which excludes health plans that cover abortion.

Kirkpatrick’s kicker is rather astounding:

“The Catholic Church does not teach that government should directly provide health care,” Bishop Nickless of Sioux City wrote, adding, “Any legislation that undermines the vitality of the private sector is suspect.”

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