An Opinion by Brandi Bunch
Contributing writer
President Barack Obama’s biggest legislative accomplishment, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, has faced opposition from just about every group imaginable, a list which now includes the Catholic Church.
This monster bill of over 900 pages would, according to a handy summary by CBS news, expand Medicaid, require all Americans to obtain health insurance, require all employers to offer health insurance and make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage based on previous conditions, among other things.
The act has been decried as everything from a governmental hijacking of the healthcare system to a Medicare killer, and is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court to determine if it is even constitutional.
Additionally, it has recently acquired new opposition from bishops of the Catholic Church and some members of the Republican Party because of its stance on birth control.
Under the new health reform, businesses would be required to offer co-pay free contraceptives through their insurance companies. Since the Catholic Church is against artificial birth control, its bishops are, as one would expect, not pleased with this requirement since it would require contraceptives to be offered to employees of church-affiliated institutions like hospitals and charities.
President Obama attempted a compromise by tweaking the mandate so that employees of religiously affiliated institutions, such as hospitals and charity organizations, could bypass the insurance packages of their employers and go directly through the insurance company to receive oral contraceptives, leaving the businesses free to abstain from offering them.
This did not appease detractors of the policy. Additionally, Americans of other religious affiliations are lashing out against what they claim is a strike against religious freedom, as are many members of the Republican Party.
Rush Limbaugh is perhaps the most notable on this, or at least the mouthiest, for calling a young woman a “prostitute” and a “slut” when she publicly spoke in favor of birth control.
According to USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com, attorneys from Nebraska, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have filed a lawsuit arguing that the healthcare mandate violates First Amendment rights. Additionally, lawmakers in Idaho, Missouri and Arizona have written bills that would allow exemptions to employers that object to covering contraceptives.
I’m not going to spend time on the healthcare bill as a whole, though I will say that I do not like being required to invest in my health against my will. Does that sound childish? Perhaps, but I do not believe that our little nanny state should have the right to force us to buy health insurance under threat of a fine.
If you weren’t aware of that, the text of the ridiculously long H.R.3200 states that for those without health insurance, there will be “imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year, over the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer,” beginning after December 31, 2012.
It feels like I’m being forced to keep myself in good health for the sake of being another taxable citizen.
Anyway, moving on.
I must confess to failing to understand why this birth control issue is problematic. For one, oral contraception is often used for secondary purposes because of the health benefits it provides women.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine reports that oral contraceptives have effects ranging from improving the symptoms of diseases like endometriosis to reducing the risk of ovarian cancer. They also regulate menstrual cycles and minimize the agonizing cramps of said cycles, which I guarantee have never been experienced by a single one of the middle-aged men who are against this medicine being offered.
Irrespective of that, no one is being forced to take this medication, meaning that these men only have to deal with the fact that it is being made available. I have never heard of members of a religious institution refusing to buy gas at a service station that sells prophylactics.
Also, the bishops have conceded that many Catholics do use artificial birth control (gasp).
Interestingly, according to The Catholic Letter, http://www.thecatholicletter.com, there is nothing wrong with using chemicals of a stimulatory nature, such as Cialis or Viagra, providing that it leads to “normal” sex. So… There’s nothing wrong with corking the bat, but only if someone in the outfield is guaranteed to catch the ball?
That metaphor went wrong somewhere. My apologies.
In the interest of fairness to the Catholic Church, the explanation is thus: Natural family planning through the tracking of a woman’s fertility window is perfectly permissible, but artificial methods of preventing birth (including “pulling out”) constitute a mortal sin.
Catholic Truth, http://www.catholic-truth.info, explains the reasoning behind this by saying that artificial methods are actively trying to prevent conception, while natural planning is leaving it up to God by abstaining from sex during the fertility window.
Frankly, I believe that a child whose existence is ordained by God will be conceived regardless of how much latex or synthetic progesterone is in the way. After all, abstinence is supposed to 100 percent effective, but He found a way around that.
While I’m at it, if we’re going with the “ordained by God” thing, have we considered that a guy who can’t get it up without help might not be intended to procreate? Just a thought.
Sarcasm and Viagra jokes aside, I mean no disrespect to Catholics, many of whom are very charitable and genuinely good people. I disagree with their beliefs, but I also believe in many things with which others disagree. It is impossible to truly live without having had a difference of opinion with someone.
That being said, I do not agree that it is a breach of religious liberty for a church-affiliated organization such as a hospital to have to offer birth control on its insurance.
Some of the employees working in these institutions may not share the beliefs of the Church; depriving them of a portion of their health insurance is hardly fair.
It’s easy to say that birth control isn’t a big deal, but consider the precedent. Should an institution affiliated with a religion that rejects modern medicine be allowed to avoid offering anything that runs against the tenets of its religious parent’s belief system?
Furthermore, I have to question why the Republicans speaking on this issue really care about it. Is it about religious freedom? Is it about disliking birth control? If it were an Islamic organization pitching a fit, would you still be out for First Amendment rights or would we be hearing rhetoric to the effect of “This is America and we don’t oppress our women, birth control for all!”?
A Bloomberg national poll taken on March 8-11, 2012 reported that 77 percent of Americans think that birth control should not be a political issue, so forgive me, but the involvement of the Republican Party in this debacle positively reeks of a desperate grab at national attention through the use of fear-mongering rhetoric about Obama’s “disregard” for religious freedom.
The bottom line is that no church should be above the law, irrespective of whether or not the law is necessary. We’re not going to allow someone to fire up a church that condones human sacrifice or car theft.
It is true that religious freedom is an integral part of America, but I believe that this situation mandates the Church respecting its employees enough to let them make their own decisions.
In short, my decision to work at a place with “Saint” in its name should not mean you get a say in what I do with my uterus, especially when you don’t have one of your own.