John Roll, Grand Forks, column: Feds abuse power by forcing birth-control coverage
April 28, 2012 at 7:05 pm in Grand Forks Herald
The Obama administration’s mandate to force the Catholic Church and other organized religions to provide coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortion is wrong and an intrusion into Americans’ religious beliefs.
It should be struck down as unconstitutional. Continue Reading
Catholic hospitals and institutions are not practicing religion; they are employers providing insurance coverage to their non-catholic employees. There are standards for insurance providers. Everybody who provides insurance needs to adhere to these standards. Nobody is suggesting that anybody be forced to accept contraceptive coverage. That is up to the individual. The Catholic church has no trouble accepting tax-exempt status from the government, but that means they need to act just like any employer does when providing insurance to their many employees. Religion is a red herring in this debate. Almost 100% of Catholic women use or have used contraception so it may be best for Catholics to clean their own house before making non-Catholics working for Catholic institutions unable to have contraceptives covered under their insurance. Many of these services are required, not mainly for contraception, but to treat many other women’s health issues like bleeding, pain and regulation of menstral cycles. You want to practice your religion, then do that, but don’t put it on the backs of others who are perfectly happy with having coverage of women health included in their health insurance.
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Oh, and by the way, the first amendment to the Constitution provides that no one religion will be established by the government. Your statement that the Constittion does not mention separation of church and state is wrong. The Catholic bishops have basically said that all of us are to adhere to what they believe regarding contraception and that is a violation of my first amendment right to be free of proscribed religion.
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No where does Obamacare force insurance companies to provide for abortions ( I understand the argument that BCP can prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum, but that is not what we are talking about), & most Catholic hospitals I have worked in provide tubal ligations after a cessarian section or as a stand alone procedure provided a specific protocol is followed.
The healthcare debate is contentious enough without half truths & disinformation.
One question no one has yet to answer. If Catholics are free to not cover birth control – I am comfortable with that, are Jehovah’s Witnesses free to decline coverage for blood transfusions or blood products?
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John Roll averred: “…the federal government has no authority to mandate or force any religious group to participate, pay for or otherwise be party to something that is morally against its religious beliefs.”
Quite right John — but you’ve ignored the central issue — which is the source of the funding. Consider this:
“US tax dollars continue to fund Catholic hospitals, which do not provide the full range of health
services. A 2002 study of over 600 religiously affiliated hospitals found that they received more than
$45 billion in public funds. Approximately half of this revenue was received from Medicare,
Medicaid and other government programs.”
The reality is that the federal government should not, and legally cannot discriminate in the provision of services it provides — whether that provision is direct or indirect.
See what many Catholics think about this: http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/healthcare/documents/CFCMemoontheDirectivesweb.pdf
There’s a simple fix for the Catholic church — don’t take taxpayer funds — then you can discriminate all you want.
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So they should turn away all medicare and medicaid patients?
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…no, they should play by the rules of the source of the funding (our government). Turning away medicare and medicaid patients while still taking the other government funding would just compound the discrimination.
BTW, are you a zealous Catholic? I ask, because I really don’t think that reasonable people with a sense of humanistic ethics would make such suggestions.
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No not catholic, and did you not see the question ????? mark? There it is again!
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Huh? I answered your question.
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Where were you when it was agreed that blood transfusions and organ donations should be covered even though these treatments go against some people’s religious convictions? Oh, I get it. That was OK when it wasn’t *your* beliefs being challenged, but now that women want to enjoy the same consequence-free sex that men enjoy, suddenly we’ve gone too far!
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Just because many Catholics choose to violate church doctrine in no way makes it right to force the church to violate its doctrine. The Catholic Church is a top down organization. The Pope and Cardinals decide what that doctrine is. It is not changed by popular vote of the church members and they have the choice to leave the church if they want. This is not about women’s rights it is about the government requiring a church to do something against their doctrine. Women can still get the services the church is simply saying we are not going to pay for it.
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…did you read that document? The government isn’t requiring the church to go against its doctrine — it’s offering to fund it to provide a service for the government. If the church doesn’t want to provide the service it can politely decline the funding.
The way the bishops are spinning it is that they feel they have an entitlement to use taxpayer funds to impose their doctrine on everybody.
Try imagining “Islamist Hospital” instead of “Catholic Hospital” and see if arguments are so appealing!
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Many friends who are members of the nation of Islam….. nice people. If they want to run a hospital I think they would do a good job of it. As would those who are Wican, Jewish, Buddist, Atheists, Native American beliefs or any other religion.
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… unless, of course, they used taxpayer funds to force their religious beliefs on patients!
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