Just in case it wasn't clear:
If anyone's religious freedom is affected by the rule requiring employers—except for a very narrowly defined class of religious organizations—to include coverage for family planning in their employees' health insurance, it is not America's Catholics, but a much smaller class of people, the CEOs of Catholic hospitals, colleges, and charitable foundations.
I think of them, rightly or wrongly, as America's Catholic bishops; that is, as a relatively small number of elderly and largely virginal men who have never had and will never have a reason to ask their doctors for birth control pills themselves and have extremely little experience of those who have (let alone of a girlfriend missing a period). It is their tender consciences that revolt at the thought of paying for insurance that pays for family planning for others, including Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and nonbelieving employees, not to mention those Catholic employees who defy the papal edict, which is virtually all of those who are or ever have been sexually active women (yesterday I said 99%; today's Times says 98%).
In New York State since the effective date of the Women's Health and Wellness Act in 2003, every health care plan that covers any prescription drugs must also cover family planning, by law. Catholic Charities sued against the provision and lost every round of appeals, up to the US Supreme Court, which declined to hear it. Thus it is settled law that such provisions do not offend religious freedom.
Worrying about those tender consciences is 1% thinking; these people are not exactly martyring themselves for a cause. They haven't shut down Catholic Charities yet, or Fordham University, on account of the New York State Women's Health and Wellness Act. Do you know why? Because they don't really care that much. So forget about it.
If anyone's religious freedom is affected by the rule requiring employers—except for a very narrowly defined class of religious organizations—to include coverage for family planning in their employees' health insurance, it is not America's Catholics, but a much smaller class of people, the CEOs of Catholic hospitals, colleges, and charitable foundations.
I think of them, rightly or wrongly, as America's Catholic bishops; that is, as a relatively small number of elderly and largely virginal men who have never had and will never have a reason to ask their doctors for birth control pills themselves and have extremely little experience of those who have (let alone of a girlfriend missing a period). It is their tender consciences that revolt at the thought of paying for insurance that pays for family planning for others, including Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and nonbelieving employees, not to mention those Catholic employees who defy the papal edict, which is virtually all of those who are or ever have been sexually active women (yesterday I said 99%; today's Times says 98%).
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| A pompier Temptation of Saint Hilarion, by Dominique Louis Fléréol Papety (1815-1849) from Ze Last Chance Garage du 78. |
Worrying about those tender consciences is 1% thinking; these people are not exactly martyring themselves for a cause. They haven't shut down Catholic Charities yet, or Fordham University, on account of the New York State Women's Health and Wellness Act. Do you know why? Because they don't really care that much. So forget about it.
