Why Now

HHS, Contraception and the Church

  Everyone loves or should babies and want as many as they can have or afford (not the same thing).
Everyone should want to hold them, kiss them, sing lullabies to them, rock them to sleep, teach them, pay for their college and clothes. Everyone doesn't.
Catholic Priests for example don't.  That's why they sign on to an employment regime where they can't have any of their own.  In fact the catholic world bizarrely demonizes any priest who has a natural child as if that were a greater sin than fondling an altar boy. They take care possibly in other ways of other people's kids. So do a lot of other people- aunts and uncles and godparents and friends.

     There are many states now which already have for years without issue mandated FDA approved contraceptive coverage of religious institutions (not churches/houses of worship) According to a 
NATION CONFERENCE OF STATE LEGISLATURES REPORT  in August 2011, at least 26 states by law require insurers that cover prescription drugs to also provide coverage for any Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved contraceptive, including: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.  click here.

     No one has sued these states to my knowledge.

There is now a moral objection on the part of a few Archdioceses and their corporate non profit schools
to doing so on conscience grounds (as if corporations had actual 'consciences' as opposed to the people on their boards, etc. who are not personally named anywhere in the suits).

However, they routinely insure against other things that are clearly morally objectionable- like the child abuse, child rape, molestation issues/charges. That comes out of self-insurance reserves for self-insured Dioceses. These are intentional crimes and torts and so apparently the 'self-insured reserves' don't have 'intentional conduct' exclusions. That is an admission that the Archdiocese does not view insurance as a religious liberty issue or they wouldn't be allowed to cover voluntarily morally objectionable behaviors.

     What is so offensive about this legal assault - and the misplaced moral indignation about it- is that
it infringes on the freedom of religion of people who wish to use contraception (85% of their own flock) to avoid abortion which is viewed by those people as a greater harm and evil.   Those people use it on moral grounds. They may be married and know that having more kids would jeopardize keeping a roof over the ones that they have for example. These sorts of family planning issues totally evade priestly hierarchy because they don't family plan like this. They have no family budget. They have no nuclear family they are responsible singularly for.  If they do they get kicked out, demonized and scandalized like it is a greater sin than raping a child. Too weird for words.

    Even the Pope has conceded that contraception can be used in a morally justified way as a lesser evil to prevent disease and clearly latex condoms do. Is the Cardinal trying to be more Pope than the Pope?
That will really impress him.

This stuff appears to the lay person as more than ridiculous- but a total waste of resources as the mounting legal bills threaten to be more than the increased health costs very soon. No one is mandating anyone avail of the insurance, just that the insurance companies make it accessible. No one is infringing on the teaching capacity of the Archdiocese to preach against the use of contraception or the wise better path in their view.

     When you talk about Religious Liberty- it is not the same as Institutional budgeting or insurance.
Just because social security exists for disabled people doesn't mean people are going to intentionally break their legs to get it. Nor does the fact that insurance covers the possible eventuality of surgery after
a car crash mean that people will start playing bumper cars on 1-95. The fact that surgery after car crashes may be covered does not mean that there cannot also be a law mandating seat belts to avoid it.

 
Were I watching the money at the Vatican I would be ticked off at the colossal waste of resources on this fight. Likely to lose.