With exquisite timing–two days before the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and three days before the March for Life descends on Washington–the Obama administration’s secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has released a long-awaited statement confirming her department’s rule, first proposed several months ago, that under Obamacare almost all health insurers in the nation will have to cover sterilization and contraception, including those “contraceptives” so classed by the FDA but known to be abortifacients. (The policy’s effect is suspended for a year, until after the 2012 election. But surely there was no political calculation in this . . .) To this policy, unjust in itself as applied to anyone with moral scruples (which is to say, nearly anyone who would not choose to provide or purchase such coverage voluntarily), HHS offers only a ridiculously narrow “religious exemption,” described as follows by my colleagues on the Witherspoon Institute’s Task Force on Conscience Protection:
Houses of worship are almost certainly protected, but all other religious ministries and institutions are almost certainly not. The exemption covers only: a “religious employer” that has the “inculcation of religious values” as its purpose; “primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets”; and primarily “serves persons who share its religious tenets.” Further, the employer must qualify as a church organization under two narrow provisions of the tax code. Religious institutions such as colleges and universities, as well as hospitals and charitable institutions that employ and serve the public (versus only co-believers) will be ineligible. Individuals, and religiously affiliated health insurers are also outside of the scope of the exemption.
You think the putative commerce clause violation of the ”individual mandate,” currently being litigated before the Supreme Court, is bad enough? Try this on for size: the Obama-Sebelius HHS rule forces countless Americans to purchase health insurance that violates their religious beliefs. And it forces religious organizations that seek to do good in the world–universities and schools, hospitals and clinics, adoption and social-service agencies, soup kitchens and clothing banks–to violate the consciences of their religious communities if they want to continue to do all these good things. Cover abortifacients and sterilizations in your employee health plan, the little Christian school down the road from you will be told. The choices will be a) violate your conscience, b) drop your health coverage and propel your employees into the government-run “exchanges” awaiting them with all the tender mercy of federal bureaucrats, or c) close up shop. Some choices.
Last week I wrote here at First Things that the Hosanna-Tabor precedent might bode well for the struggle against this injustice, because the unanimous Supreme Court in that case endorsed the proposition that in the internal governance of religious organizations, the First Amendment permitted no government interference. Is there anything more important to the internal affairs of a church, or a church-run organization than the moral choice to honor the sanctity of life in all the organization’s dealings with its own members–its employees, students, and clients?
The Obama Justice Department went for broke in Hosanna-Tabor, attacking the “ministerial exception” to federal anti-discrimination laws, as though the religion clauses of the First Amendment didn’t even exist. For its troubles, it had a unanimous Court call its view “remarkable,” “untenable,” and “extreme.” Now that HHS has similarly gone for broke on the “contraception” mandate, we can pray its extremism will meet a similar fate, either from Congress or from the courts.
January 20th, 2012 | 3:32 pm
[...] Obama HHS Goes for Broke, Matthew J. Franck, First [...]
January 20th, 2012 | 3:33 pm
[...] 1/20/2012, Obama HHS Goes for Broke, Matthew J. Franck, First Things [...]
January 20th, 2012 | 3:46 pm
One small cavil: The contraceptive mandate policy will not be deferred a year. It will apply this year, as originally planned, to the vast majority of individuals and organizations (except for the very narrow group of “religious employers” who hire and serve chiefly only people of their own faith, etc.). But specifically religious organizations that do not qualify for this narrow exemption may apply for deferred compliance for a year, only if they do not cover such services now. (Some of these organizations have recently discovered, to their chagrin, that their insurance does include these things, having investigated this because of the current controversy. They are out in the cold now, even if they had begun taking steps to exclude the coverage.) Since the mandate will be fully enforced on everyone else in the meantime, the question is whether even the religious groups with the one-year deferral will actually find any health insurer willing to write them a policy.
January 20th, 2012 | 4:30 pm
Some of these organizations have recently discovered, to their chagrin, that their insurance does include these things, having investigated this because of the current controversy. They are out in the cold now, even if they had begun taking steps to exclude the coverage.
It is my understanding that, because the laws of 28 states already mandate coverage of contraception (some with no religious exemptions, others with narrow religious exemptions, and still others with broad exemptions), many Catholic (and other religious) organizations are in a position where they already decided to comply with a state mandate, and hence the federal mandate will not change their situation significantly.
If indeed some religious organizations were providing coverage of contraception without knowing it, I wonder how important this was to them previously, and why it suddenly became such an issue.
January 20th, 2012 | 4:49 pm
[...] January 20, 2012, 4:48 PM Matthew Schmitz In the comments, Richard Doerflinger offers an addition to Matt Franck’s coverage of the Obama contraceptive mandate: One small cavil: The [...]
January 20th, 2012 | 6:51 pm
How does this force people to violate their religious beliefs? What religious beliefs in particular are we talking about?
January 20th, 2012 | 7:08 pm
Re:”It is my understanding that, because the laws of 28 states already mandate coverage of contraception…”
So…because a few religious groups have had their First Amendment rights trampled upon and have been strong armed by the State to violate their conscience, your suggestion is to just accept the injustice? Just shrug and move on? What a curious attitude. Would you say the same thing to the press? To voters? To victims of other forms if discrimination or oppression?
To then imply that these groups probably don’t care anyway is truly rich. Think. Please.
January 20th, 2012 | 7:57 pm
[...] 1-20-2012, Obama HHS Goes for Broke, Matthew J. Franck, First Things [...]
January 20th, 2012 | 9:14 pm
The meme “The government is forcing us to cover contraception! Religious liberty is under attack! Get to the polls and vote!” may be useful to a few primary candidates for the duration of the primary season. But it’s likely to turn into a bomb in the general election. After the election, both sides may lose all interest in it.
I bet that’s what the Obama campaign is thinking.
January 20th, 2012 | 10:36 pm
[...] Obama HHS Goes for Broke – Matthew J. Franck, First Things/First Thoughts [...]
January 21st, 2012 | 9:31 am
The choices will be a) violate your conscience, b) drop your health coverage and propel your employees into the government-run “exchanges” awaiting them with all the tender mercy of federal bureaucrats, or c) close up shop.
Or: d) Openly defy a manifestly unjust law by offering health care coverage not in compliance with this evil madate. The equivalent of the lunch-counter sit-ins in the segregationist South.
What was it that St. Thomas Aquinas said? That a man-made law not in compliance with the natural law was no law at all, and no one had an obligation to obey it.
@Bill S: How does this force people to violate their religious beliefs? What religious beliefs in particular are we talking about?
We will not pay our own money to have babies executed without trial. That’s what we’re talking about.
January 21st, 2012 | 10:24 am
HV Observer, I’m still not sure I understand the religious problem here. Is it that you think someone will do something immoral with the money you must pay into health insurance? Is it like having to pay your own money in federal taxes to execute people in Pakistan or Yemen without trial?
January 21st, 2012 | 10:49 am
For all those who wonder why this has “suddenly” become a big issue with some, we can only say that as big brother (and little feminist sister) reach more and more into coercion for their culture of choice, more will be denied their conscience and liberty. Some were slow to appreciate the truth, written years ago, that the culture of death (abortion and “contraception” inextricably linked) is not stationery – it moves! We will either lay all our laws at its feet or we will eradicate it. Sound familiar?
January 21st, 2012 | 11:03 am
Jehovah’s Witnesses are opposed to blood transfusions on religious grounds. Should health insurers therefore not be required to cover blood transfusions?
Some of my taxes help to fund preventive wars. I am religiously opposed to preventive wars. Should the U.S. therefore be prohibited from engaging in preventive wars? Should I be exempted from paying federal taxes?
January 21st, 2012 | 11:48 am
“Or: d) Openly defy a manifestly unjust law by offering health care coverage not in compliance with this evil madate. The equivalent of the lunch-counter sit-ins in the segregationist South.”
The problem is that you can’t just “offer health care coverage” — you have to get someone to write it for you. And no insurance company is going to write such a policy. Self-insuring is probably beyond the means of most of these groups.
January 21st, 2012 | 12:03 pm
” it forces religious organizations that seek to do good in the world–universities and schools, hospitals and clinics, adoption and social-service agencies, soup kitchens and clothing banks–to violate the consciences of their religious communities…” This the problem: This is an administrative rule by an Obama appointee abridging religious rights. This Obama appointee claims to be a Catholic! The USCCB needs to publicaly excommunicate her.
January 21st, 2012 | 1:46 pm
Jehovah’s Witnesses are opposed to blood transfusions on religious grounds. Should health insurers therefore not be required to cover blood transfusions?
Contraceptives are not medicine.
They are a lifestyle choice. They are not required to maintain bodily integrity, and they do not treat a disease.
Abortion is also not medicine. Removing a child from its mothers womb might be medically necessary, but anyone who honors the “first, do no harm” vow of the true medical practitioner should try to bring the child out alive if possible.
Lifestyle choices – including not only contraceptives and abortion, but also circumcision, non-reconstructive cosmetic surgery (breast implants, nose jobs, Botox, etc), “sex change” operations, tattoos, etc. – all these things might require someone with special medical knowledge to be practiced safely, and they might be something that ought to be legal. But that doesn’t mean they are in the same category as medicine. They are not required to maintain bodily integrity, and therefore the arguments that justify rules that apply to real medical practices do not apply in the same way. They can’t be viewed as critical, urgent, or something that taxpayers ought to support. They are optional – choices – whereas medicine is not.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed to withhold blood because the right to life is a more fundamental right than the right to conscience.
January 21st, 2012 | 2:02 pm
The HHS mandate prohibits the free exercise of charity, a religious virtue, by imposing a vice. @HV Observer:”We will not pay our own money to have babies executed without trial.” bears repeating.
January 21st, 2012 | 4:12 pm
Let’s remember we’re talking about zygotes here folks, or very early stage embryos. We’re talking about bloodless, brainless, heartless entities that have never had any emotions, thoughts, or feelings. These are not “babies” in the normal sense of the word. So let’s cut the drama and sensationalism.
January 22nd, 2012 | 11:42 am
Let’s remember we’re talking about zygotes here folks, or very early stage embryos. We’re talking about bloodless, brainless, heartless entities that have never had any emotions, thoughts, or feelings. These are not “babies” in the normal sense of the word. So let’s cut the drama and sensationalism.
You are welcome to your beliefs, but you should respect that other people are welcome to theirs too.
Whether or not contraception or very early abortion is or is not good or bad is irrelevant. The real question is whether people have the right to their own beliefs, or whether the government is going to establish what we are all legally obligated to believe.
Is that what you want? For the government to tell us we have no right to our own religious beliefs because the government will establish what we ought to believe, based on ITS criteria?
January 22nd, 2012 | 12:37 pm
The real question is whether people have the right to their own beliefs, or whether the government is going to establish what we are all legally obligated to believe.
Blake,
The answer to that question is that everyone in America has the inalienable right to believe whatever he or she chooses to believe. Catholics have a right to believe contraception is evil, and the government cannot require them to believe otherwise. But the contraceptive mandate is not about what Catholics are required to believe. It is about what employer-privided health-care insurance is required to cover. Catholic employers may choose to provide contraceptive coverage in the health-care insurance they provide and still maintain that contraception is evil, or they may choose to provide no health-care insurance at all. Nobody is forcing them to do anything at all, let alone believe something they don’t want to.
Dissident Mormon men have a perfect right to believe that God commands polygamy. They just don’t have a right to marry more than one woman. Would you like that to change?
January 22nd, 2012 | 10:14 pm
The answer to that question is that everyone in America has the inalienable right to believe whatever he or she chooses to believe. Catholics have a right to believe contraception is evil, and the government cannot require them to believe otherwise. But the contraceptive mandate is not about what Catholics are required to believe. It is about what employer-privided health-care insurance is required to cover.
And the dispute is over whether your beliefs about contraception are so urgent and compelling that it gives you the right to force your beliefs on Catholics.
Contraception mandates exist for one reason only: because humanists are using authoritarian force to “win” arguments they can’t win through legitimate means. There is no medical need to justify the contraception mandate. There is no justification at all for the contraception mandate, except that people like you want to force Catholics and others into repudiating beliefs you can’t coexist with.
January 22nd, 2012 | 10:16 pm
Dissident Mormon men have a perfect right to believe that God commands polygamy. They just don’t have a right to marry more than one woman. Would you like that to change?
If the majority decides democratically to legalize polygamy, then I have the choice of either accepting this – or using legitimate dissent mechanisms to change public opinion.
Because I value the distinction between legitimate vs. abusive/authoritarian uses of power. Especially when it comes to determining fragile boundaries, such as the boundary between freedom of belief vs. obligation to society.
But, of course, if Mormons start using authoritarian force to coerce the majority into accepting polygamy, then I would not accept that as legitimate.
January 23rd, 2012 | 8:56 am
“These are not “babies” in the normal sense of the word. ”
Except in the sense that they are the very young biological offspring of humans, which is the actual meaning of the word. Something doesn’t have to fit all the connotations associated with it, to fit the actual definition of the word, and therefore properly be called by that word.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/baby
January 25th, 2012 | 7:22 am
[...] piece in First Things give yet more color to the issue: “…the Obama-Sebelius HHS rule forces countless [...]
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