Some arguments have no winner. When the facts have been weighed, who is right and who is wrong is irrelevant, because someone’s feelings are going to be hurt. Especially when the topic at hand is brewed from the volatile mix of religion and politics, hurt feelings result in a lot more trouble than any of it is really worth. Such is the case of the Catholic Church vs. The Affordable Care Act.
In the attempt to ensure that all Americans have adequate healthcare, the issue of what exactly gets covered ran into a roadblock with the issue of contraception. It came to pass that employers’ health plans would have to cover birth control; the Catholic Church, however, famously forbids contraceptives, and this is where the unstoppable force meets the immovable object. The law has an exemption for religious bodies, but does not cover religiously affiliated institutions with secular purposes, specifically, those that hire people of other faiths. Churches are off the hook, but charities, hospitals and universities are not. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did not take lightly to this, declaring full out rhetorical “war” on Obama, vowing to fight his oppression of their faith.
War? Oppression? Hold on. What is actually at stake here? Are Catholics being forced to do something against their will? Not really. The law only applies to institutions with non-religious purposes, many of which already cover contraception in their health plans, and only institutions that also hire non-Catholics. More than anything, this is about their rights as employees. A comprehensive health plan is just an important as proper workplace safety, something owed to all workers, regardless of religion. Furthermore, as Jonathan Cohn in “The New Republic” points out, employer health plans pay for healthcare through withheld wages. The women getting birth control are technically paying for it with their own money. The only objection that really matters is their own.
Even beyond the outsiders, this means little for most Catholics anyway. Joan Walsh, a Catholic herself, at Salon.com writes, “This battle is over a Catholic Church teaching that even Catholics ignore almost unanimously.” Researchers at the Guttmacher Institute have found that upwards of 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used or are using birth control. Even within the margin of error, a significant amount of the “persecuted” demographic won’t even be adversely affected by this decision — something probably lost on the all-male conference of bishops.
While nobody can say whose ethical beliefs are “wrong,” sometimes they might not stand up against the relevant science. The Institute of Medicine, within the National Academy of Sciences, supported this rule on research that shows birth control to be an essential part of women’s health and family planning, leading to reduced infant and maternal mortality rates. The experts agree: this is part of a comprehensive health plan, and for the non-Catholics who work in those institutions, they’re entitled to a plan that includes birth control in its coverage.
As a man, I usually don’t take stands on issues pertaining solely to women. However, this is bigger than gender — bigger even than healthcare. This is about how religion interacts with society. For too long, when some aspect of politics or society changes, rather than respectfully disagree and move on, the Church’s response has been to throw a fit. This is not the way to make inroads with anyone outside of your own belief system in a pluralistic world.
Despite all kinds of rational justification, the truth remains that offended people don’t reason well, and I can’t see this ending amicably. What will be lost in the firestorm over these “attacks” on belief is a chance to reevaluate what it means to be a religious institution in a secular world: something equally relevant to our own school. Protestant Pepperdine may not have to deal with this the way Notre Dame will, but there is no reason not to learn about how to respond when religion and reality collide. Nobody should deny anyone the right to believe what they do, but when disagreements occur, a rational response must be preferable to demagoguery, and hopefully that’s something people of all religions can figure out for the future.
