Keeping Our Consciences Awake

On Saturday, this site ran my “On the Square” essay, ” Anaesthetizing America’s Conscience ,” in which I faulted two university presidents, Fr. John Jenkins of Notre Dame and John Garvey of Catholic University, for a missed opportunity to speak the whole truth to power about the proposed new HHS mandate that would force all health insurers to cover abortifacient drugs under the rubric of “contraceptives” in “preventive” health coverage for women.  (See also Stephen P. White’s essay on the same day.)

Yesterday my friend Rick Garnett, who teaches law at Notre Dame and blogs at Mirror of Justice, took issue with my article (and White’s).  I don’t think Rick and I are all that far apart.  He agreed with me about the “basic immorality of the administration’s rule”—that to whomever it applied (i.e., all the not-exempted), it would put the legal authority of the federal government behind the mandatory provision of early-stage pharmaceutical abortions.  He remarks that Fr. Jenkins and President Garvey would surely agree with us both about this, and I am sure he’s right—I was sure from the beginning, and only disappointed that neither of them said so when appealing to the administration for a broader exemption than the rule contemplates.

Rick is nonetheless persuaded that my criticism was misplaced because Jenkins and Garvey “proceed[ed] on the basis of the (sound) assumptions that the mandate itself is not going to be dislodged unless the next election dislodges it and that this Administration is not open” to allowing any exemption a great deal broader than one that would fit their institutions within its four corners.  Thus, as a matter of “tactics,” the two university presidents did the prudent thing, Rick suggests.

Here my friend and I just have to disagree.  I am not enamored of the now unfortunately hackneyed phrase “speak truth to power” (yes, I know I used it above), but it has its place here.  Shaming the Obama administration for being anti-life, as well as for its trampling on the rights of conscience, could not have been a mistake in this case.  The real problem with the Obama HHS mandate goes all the way down—it is not the inadequate religious exemption to the rule that is the essence of the injustice, but the rule itself.  Would it anger the Obama administration to be told the truth about this?  Perhaps.  Would it actually be counterproductive for the attainment of a broader exemption to the mandate, for the sake of Catholic universities and other institutions?  I don’t think so.  It could even help.

Rick has now followed up by posting a copy of an advertisement placed in today’s print editions of Politico and The Hill .  I note that Fr. Jenkins and President Garvey are both signers of the statement in the ad, along with eighteen other Catholic leaders, including Archbishop Dolan of New York, the president of the USCCB.  Rick rightly characterizes the ad’s text this way: “Fr. Jenkins and Pres. Garvey endorse clearly the proposition that the mandate burdens unjustifiably the consciences of individuals as well as religious-institution employers like the ones they lead.”  The best line in the ad is that the HHS mandate “harms society as a whole by undermining a long American tradition of respect for religious liberty and freedom of conscience.”  Hear, hear!  I’m glad to see this sentiment expressed, and I applaud all the signers of the ad.

But let us not forget the evil at the bottom of this whole contretemps, and the cause of the Obama administration’s disregard (so far) for the rights of conscience.  This administration is dedicated to abortion and indifferent to the sanctity of life—and that is why it is also indifferent to religious liberty.