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When I was a boy, I noticed that despite being outwardly religious, my Aunt Mary was the only woman in the family to attend mass. The males received a pass once they reached adulthood. I was curious, but sensed it was not appropriate to ask about it.
Sometimes I would hear the women chide Aunt Mary about being a hypocrite for going to church and receiving Holy Communion. Their pointed barbs had something to do with her and Uncle George having only one child. None of the women, except my mother, had more than one child.
When I grew older, I discovered the skeleton in the family closet: All of them practiced birth control even though it was a sin. My Aunt Mary and her husband chose to ignore the sin and regularly went to mass. The other women in the family never went until their child-bearing years were over.
There were always rumors that the church is going to relax its contraception prohibition just as it had about eating fish on Friday. It has never happened — even when a country was poverty-stricken or rife with HIV — not even with the advent of the morning-after pill. Back then, Connecticut, even banned the sale of condoms.
The controversy of whether federal funds should cover abortions overshadowed the same issue surrounding birth control. It was posed as an issue of conscience, even when recipients were in desperate need of controlling population growth or the spread of disease. Today, the fight, which has been framed as religious freedom versus women’s rights, is over the federal health mandate that Catholic hospitals or universities must provide birth control coverage (churches are exempt). It is not that simple.
Studies show about 98 percent of Catholic women today no longer cower in guilt about birth-control use. A majority favor the mandate if an employer provides health-care coverage.
Catholic hospitals and universities also employ non-Catholics, for whom there is no religious issue about using birth control. Still it has become inflammatory and divisive — a political football in a year of a presidential election. I would have no problem with a compromise that protects the religious institution so long as it also protects its female employees’ rights. Anthony Picarello, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops general counsel, indicated last week a desire to go further than just protecting Catholic hospitals and universities from being forced to provide contraception coverage to its own employees.
Published reports indicated Picarello’s organization is fighting to remove the provision altogether from the health care law. He wants to protect “good Catholic business people who can’t in good conscience cooperate with this” contraception coverage mandate. “If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I would be covered by the mandate,” Picarello said. To be clear, Picarello is telling us is his organization wants all employers, Catholic or not, to have the right to deny contraception coverage to their employees.
See all this hyperbole about the attack on religious freedom really comes down to a religion trying to force its dogma on the rest of us. America is a diverse country founded by people who were fleeing religious persecution. We are not a theocracy, despite what Rick Santorum might believe. We provide organized religion with tax exempt status, and that is fine. But there is a grand bargain here — you don’t force your beliefs on the rest of us who also have rights, like freedom of religion. You may believe a fetus has an immortal soul at conception, homosexuality is a sin or using contraception is a question of morality. Many more of us do not.
I believe you can make a case for a practical compromise. First off, because a benefit may be included in insurance plans doesn’t mean employees are required to avail themselves of the benefits as a matter of conscience. Allow Catholic institutions to exclude contraception coverage, but require them to make that known during the hiring process. In addition, all should have the option to pay for this coverage if the employer plan doesn’t provide it. That way, a prospective employee can make a conscious decision as to whether to accept employment given the benefit plan offered. It appears, according to Picarello, the church’s real plan is to deny coverage to employees at other workplaces.
The church argument is greatly weakened when most of its own followers practice contraception. Maybe it is time to start worrying about the pernicious effect that not practicing birth control has had in Latin America and Africa.
Then maybe we can reach a meaningful compromise to protect everyone’s religious freedom.
Note: A compromise was reached on Friday that may resolve the dispute and allow the church to afford employees contraceptive coverage without involving direct payment by the church.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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