The Crasstalk political team has been going back and forth about the latest health care controversy: requiring Catholic hospitals, schools and charities to provide their employees with insurance that covers contraception, abortion-inducing medication (like the morning after pill), and sterilization. This expressly goes against the beliefs of the Catholic Church. As much as I believe that these medications and services are necessary, I’m with the Catholic Church on this one.
A key tenet in the Catholic Church is that you treat the person regardless of their faith or beliefs. In other words, one is not required to be a practicing Catholic or to believe in any Catholic teachings to receive assistance from a Catholic charity, care at a Catholic hospital or education at a Catholic school. Additionally, Catholic hospitals, universities, and charities employ people from a variety of faiths and beliefs. Critics of the Catholic uproar claim that the very fact that non-Catholics can work and get benefits from Catholic institutions essentially “secularizes” these institutions. They add that since some of these institutions take tax payer dollars that the Catholic Church has no right to claim a religious exemption.
First of all, since Catholics believe that we treat the need regardless of creed, the fact that our Catholic schools, hospitals, and charities assist those of all faiths doesn’t secularize those institutions; rather, it is actually a direct expression of our faith.
Secondly, the fact that the Catholic organizations recognize the gifts and talents of people of all faiths and hire those who can best fulfill the mission of the organization is a recent progressive move by the Catholic Church. The diversity of the people that Catholic institutions hire helps the organization achieve their mission to provide services to all, regardless of whether or not they believe in the Catholic faith. Again, this diversity is a demonstration of our faith; surely we do not want to go back to a time where only Catholics could work for Catholic organizations?
Lastly, Catholic hospitals and charities do take tax payer money. So what? Medicare and over 300 health insurance plans in the US pay for nursing services given by Christian Scientist nurses and care facilities. In other words, Medicare and other health plans are largely paying someone to pray for a patient. Additionally, Catholic institutions have a well-developed infrastructure and delivery systems to provide education, medical care and charitable aid. Some act as though the government is doing Catholic institutions a ‘favor’ by giving them tax revenues to provide their services. Megan McArdle put it best:
“These people seem to be living in an alternate universe that I don’t have access to, where there’s a positive glut of secular organizations who are just dying to provide top-notch care for the sick, the poor, and the dispossessed.
In the universe where I live, some of the best charity care is provided by religious groups–in part because they have extremely strong fundraising capabilities, in part because they often have access to an extremely deep and motivated pool of volunteers, and in part because they are often able to generate significant returns to scale and longevity.”
One of my Crasstalk Political team members commented that birth control pills are used for conditions other than prevention of pregnancy. The Catholic Church has no problem with their institutions, including hospitals and universities, providing birth control pills for non-reproductive issues. Fordham University, for example, provides the pill to those with PCOS, acne and other medical conditions that taking birth control pills could alleviate.
Ross Douthat, a blogger for the New York Times, sums it up rather nicely: “… the way that government crowds out and co-opts the private sphere, first by making it impossible to run an institution that serves the public without having some sort of entanglement with the state, and then by using that entanglement to pretend that institutions with explicit religious missions and histories are somehow de facto secular instead. Once the state grows large enough, there will always be some theoretical justification available for imposing a governmental norm — or, more aptly, a purely partisan one — on private institutions that seek to go their own way instead. But the mere fact that such justifications can be dreamed up by creative regulators doesn’t make them reasonable or just.”
Below is a list of various articles and op/eds that I have read and found thought provoking:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Ross Douthat at the NYT
- The Atlantic
- Catholic News Agency
- Thanks to Achilles for these two: Wikipedia and The Guardian
Full disclosure on my beliefs: I am a practicing Catholic. Things I have done for my reproductive health that are against Church doctrine: I have taken the birth control pill in my past. I had to undergo fertility treatment for my first child. I had a tubal ligation during my last c-section. Things I have done regarding my reproductive health that are in-line with Catholic beliefs: I refused to terminate my last pregnancy despite the recommendation of my OB/GYN due to concerns about my health.
