Written: 2/6/2012
I have a strange news feed on Facebook. I have a few that sneak through that are rabidly anti-gay and Catholic. So the current kerfuffle about the changes to health care have been causing them some anxiety.
I have seen people argue that it is religious persecution that Catholic employers (aside from Churches, so hospitals, colleges, etc) comply with healthcare guidelines and cover contraception and reproductive health.
Let’s take a step back and realize something:
Some 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women in the United States have used contraceptive methods banned by the church, research published on Wednesday showed. A new report from the Guttmacher Institute, the nonprofit sexual health research organization, shows that only 2 percent of Catholic women, even those who regularly attend church, rely on natural family planning. The latest data shows practices of Catholic women are in line with women of other religious affiliations and adult American women in general.
So right there, we can just stop the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.
And no one is saying they need to be forcing any of these services on employees, the government is just saying that if you are taking tax-payer money, you need to offer a minimum level of care, which includes reproductive health. You know, since it’s a part of health. Mother Jones sums it up beautifully:
I’m tired of religious groups operating secular enterprises (hospitals, schools), hiring people of multiple faiths, serving the general public, taking taxpayer dollars — and then claiming that deeply held religious beliefs should exempt them from public policy. Contra Dionne, it’s precisely religious pluralism that makes this impractical. There are simply too many religions with too many religious beliefs to make this a reasonable approach. If we’d been talking about, say, an Islamic hospital insisting that its employees bind themselves to sharia law, I imagine the “religious community” in the United States would be a wee bit more understanding if the Obama administration refused to condone the practice.
I can understand compromising over a very limited number of hot button issues. Abortion is the obvious one. But in general, if Catholic hospitals don’t want to follow reasonable, 21st century secular rules, they need to make themselves into truly religious enterprises. In particular, they need to stop taking secular taxpayer money. As long as they do, though, they should follow the same rules as anyone else.
I care about these issues because I’m a human being. Because I can care about other people’s health without judging them, and because it always seems like certain groups are always opposed to the march of equality and progress. And maybe it will continue to pay off and we’ll all keep standing up for each other in the face of adversity.
Update: The connection between any minorities rights is clear-cut. So fighting for women’s rights, is a no-brainer. Hopefully it is for you as well.
All my best,
The King of Spades
