The irrepressible WSJ troll William McGurn is at it again (‘When
Nuns Fight Back’, p. A13, Dec. 23) , this time going after Obamacare and plaintives
in NJ and Pennsylvania, writing:
“After
two defeats at the Supreme Court, you would think even the dullest lower-court
judge would get the message: Stop messing with the Little Sisters of the Poor.
But for 12 years state and federal authorities have dragged this religious
community through the courts because they deem it essential that Catholic nuns
be forced to provide contraceptives to their employees. In 2016 and 2020 the
Supreme Court came down on the sisters’ side: Enough already.
That should
have been the end of it. But Pennsylvania and New Jersey won’t take no for an
answer. On Aug. 13, U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in
Philadelphia obliged these plaintiff states by tossing the Trump administration
rule that allowed the Little Sisters an exemption. The rule, she wrote, is
“arbitrary and capricious.”
But given that artificial contraception is the optimal way to family plan, and
also avoid unnecessary abortions, if you then cut out affordable access to the first you will have to expect the second. You can't have it both ways: No
contraception and no abortion. To me and many others, if abortion is the last
thing we want then we must permit family planning via artificial
contraception. It is deliriously unrealistic to expect poor or even moderate
income families to simply make 'baby roulette' bets with their lives. Yet that
is what these Catholic false dogmatists expect.
Recall that contraception is among a range of preventive services that
must be provided at no extra charge under the ACA health care law. (It is
also a basic matter of human dignity in enabling poorer women, families to
control the number of mouths to feed and clothe.) At the time, the Obama
administration pointed to research showing that the high cost of some methods
of contraception discourages women from using them. (A very effective means of
birth control, the intrauterine device, can cost up to $1,000.)
Birth control pills are also not exactly cheap and to be effective they have to
be taken over a lengthy period, not stopped on weekends, for example. It
is estimated currently that Trump's new order will cost poor women - who need
family planning the most - an added $1,000 a year. Some may sneer at that amount
but consider what it may mean for a single mom earning barely $22,000 a year at
Walmart to support 2 or 3 kids - and risk having another.
The Little Sisters' argument that their religious convictions and
rights are being violated by providing contraception for SECULAR employees is
totally bogus. If indeed, they’re all about preventing SECULAR employees
– say atheists like me – from accessing artificial birth control-
then they are indeed imposing their faith. It also demolishes the
WSJ editorial argument yesterday that the ACA contraceptive mandate us an
"infamous regulation". It also rips the added WSJ claim that
the Little Sisters "still need relief in court". No, they do not. They
need to get their heads screwed on straight as to what's being required of them
vis-a -vis secular employees.
Hence, in the latter case the withholding of the ACA- allowed measures violates
secular workers' rights as taxpayers! The point missed by the WSJ
editors and others is that given the Church is funded by default via MY
taxpayer dollars (since they don't have to pay taxes that I must) then
I have to expect that if my wife or myself attends THEIR hospitals they will
deliver the services WE need, not forbid us access to some
subset they prohibit for their own flock! (And note, these
religious groups are perfectly free to prevent their own members from
obtaining the contraceptives, or abortions.)
This is also why an array of organizations have argued in the courts that the Dotard -mandated changes in policy unfairly imposes
employers' beliefs on their workers. Which it does. A worker's
contraceptive coverage ought not depend on her employer's beliefs. An
additional argument brought by three states' attorneys general is that the
Dotard ruling amounts to sexual discrimination, as well as religious
discrimination. In the words of Hal Lawrence, chief executive of the
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:
"To take this away from women does nothing to improve the health of the
United States and actually increases the risk of maternal mortality and some
kinds of cancers."
As a senior staff attorney at the ACLU has put it in the first Supreme Court face off:
"This is an affront to women's rights and women's
health and we are prepared to see the government in court."
When one gets right down to it this whole brouhaha is a
cultural storm in a teacup that originates because the Catholic religious
extremists either: a) don't understand their own basic principles or doctrines
or b) do understand but wish to exploit public ignorance of them to get their
way in the courts.
As pointed out by Theologian Hans Kung ('Infallible?') the birth control
proscription comes from the Church's TEACHING OFFICE or Magisterium, not ex
cathedra or "from the chair of St. Peter".
If a ruling comes from the Magisterium or teaching office, then it
isn't binding! It isn't binding on Catholics and it isn't binding on
those they would serve, say in their hospitals (patients who need
contraceptives) or institutions (workers there, who aren't even Catholics!).
There are even more suspect moral overtones on this than meet the eye. For
example, the majority of Catholics are probably totally unaware that the
Church DID ALLOW abortions to be performed up until the third
trimester, and until 1869. John Connery, S.J. a leading historian of the
Church’s teaching on abortion, has been quoted as citing a long standing
collection of Canon Law that “it was not until 1869 that abortion for any
reason became grounds for excommunication” (See, e.g. Druyan and
Sagan, PARADE, April 22, 1990). At the time the lack of dogmatic
ruling created such furore that conservatives in the Church pushed for a higher
dogma that would transcend the wishy-washy Magisterium ruling. They thereby
succeeded in foisting the very late (1870) doctrine of
"infallibility" which was more a rear guard action -addition to
protect the Church from any possible subsequent alterations of moral teaching
Thus, if a ruling came "ex cathedra" and applied to faith
or morals, the Pope couldn't make a mistake. (Of course, as the “papal
infallibility” doctrine was only first proclaimed in 1870, it conveniently
didn't apply to rulings made earlier such as the ones on abortions allowed up
to the 3rd trimester). But the larger point here is that clearly, the fact
the Church already changed its doctrine on abortion shows its moral
positions are malleable and not set in stone!
What this means is that the Church itself cannot be free of errors in
faith or morals if it has already made one that was since covered up.
Obviously, if you can alter a position, it is hardly "absolute". In
his marvelous book, Infallible?, Hans Kung observes (p. 143):
" no one, neither Vatican I, nor Vatican II, nor the textbook
theologians, has shown that the Church - its leadership or its theology - is
able to put forward propositions which inherently cannot be erroneous."
This is a serious statement which basically shows the "dogmas" being
cited by the religious extremists like the Little Sisters have no gravitas or
genuine spiritual import. If propositions posed as dogmas inherently "cannot
be erroneous" then ultimately they rest on relative foundations. If
the latter is the case, then employers and their employees can choose to ignore
them. The Little Sisters and their ilk aren't even being asked to do that
- by way of the Obama original exemption. Merely to allow their insurance
company to pay for them.
As I've posted before if these religious zealots are truly against the scourge
of abortion then they should have no qualms about allowing the most effective
means of contraception (note: the Catholics 'rhythm method' doesn't count). The
fact they oppose effective contraception paid for by their insurance companies
tells me they are okay with a tide of abortions- which will become the default
method of birth control now for most poor women.
See Also:
And:
'Little Sisters of the Poor' Need an Education In Artificial Birth Control
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