The Obama administration has made it a requirement that employees of some Catholic owned institutions -- ones that are not primarily religious in their mission, like hospitals and schools -- must be provided with a birth control provision in their employee health insurance policies. It has met with strong resistance from the Roman Catholic Church, as well as anti-regulation conservatives of other faiths -- and let's not forget the opportunistic politicians who just want another dart to throw at Obama.
Their point is best summed up by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable."
I strongly disagree with that characterization of the issue. Cardinal Dolan is conflating apples and oranges.
No American, Catholic or otherwise, is being forced to USE birth control.
In my opinion, the issue is utterly simple. As we say, about another, similar issue: "If you don't approve of gay marriage, don't marry a gay person."
They object because they say it violates their consciences to be forced to pay for others to have access. I suppose they see it as forcing them to contribute to the sin of others.
Some religious groups have made the same argument about being required to serve same-sex couples in adoption agencies, and some agencies have shut down because of it.
They want to have it both ways. They want to benefit from government grants that help them carry out their social service missions, and they want to be excused from the regulations that accompany financial support or that are legally imposed on everyone to benefit the general welfare.
Remember that they have already been exempted from such regulations for their institutions that are primarily religious in nature (churches, religious schools, for example). We're talking here about teachers, administrators, nurses, pharmacists, dieticians, technicians, janitors, etc. in schools and hospitals.
Well, get over it, I say. As a tax payer, I am forced to violate my conscience and my moral principles every time our government starts an unnecessary war, every time they execute a death row inmate, and when House Republicans use $1 million of taxpayer money in a politically-motivatesd sham to defend the moribund Defense of Marriage Act that the Department of Justice has declared unconstitutional -- all of which I oppose on grounds of
my conscience and
my moral beliefs.
Bah humbug !!
Ralph
PS: Of course, the argument about birth control would become moot -- and many other problems solved as well -- if we eliminated employer-based health insurance and went to a single-payer, government-funded health care system, like Medicare-for-All. Enough money would be saved in administrative costs alone to cover all the currently uninsured.
