Prohibition of HHS Contraception
Mandate
HHS Wine Mandate
On January
twentieth of this year, Secretary Sebelius of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) revealed an interim final rule that will require many
religious institutions, including Catholic hospitals and universities, to
provide free Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved contraceptives and abortifacient
birth control in their employees’ health plans.
This federal rule
predictably angered many of the Catholic hierarchy since they teach that the
use of all artificial contraception is a violation of natural and divine law.
This imposition of the federal government’s power against the free exercise of
religion, to be forced to provide substances that would lead them into direct
material cooperation with evil, was perceived as a violation of their constitutional
rights and rightly-formed consciences.
This whole episode
reminded me of Ken Burns’ Prohibition
that was premiered on PBS last year. In fact, in cultural debates, the
historically dismal failure of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U. S.
Constitution powerfully plays into the hands of those who want to keep abortion
legal, extend legal marriage rights to same-sex couples, and make all drugs
legal.
We don’t want to legislate morals was
the overall theme expressly portrayed throughout the documentary series. Many
historical and contemporary commentators vociferously came to the same
conclusion. The documented visual footage to that end was as strong as the axes
and sledgehammers that destroyed all the beer barrels and wine bottles
throughout the country during the prohibition of intoxicating beverages.
In one segment of Prohibition, there was a documentary on
making the documentary. Burns explicitly said during this subsequent making of documentary that his Prohibition was meant to speak to those
involved in contemporary issues of immigration, abortion, and a plethora of
others. Again, we can’t legislate morals
because it doesn’t work, just look at prohibition. So, stop.
However, doesn’t
the HHS rule legislate morality? Effecting the actions of people by law de facto imposes morality. Of course,
the difference between Prohibition
and the HHS contraception rule is that alcoholic beverages were outlawed while
birth control is proscribed. With the imposition of a contraceptive mandate on all
Catholic affiliated religious employers, the U.S. government is practically
sprinkling the popular culture’s worldview on them that will slowly dissolve
their Catholic identity and ultimately their religious freedom.
What’s next? Will
the Obama administration go after the home run of them all? Will elective
abortion coverage be compulsory? “Might as well,” they might ponder if the
final rule is upheld in court. The plethora of self-identified Catholics who
are laissez-faire about the religious conscious rights of other Catholics
probably won’t fight alongside the hierarchy against an abortion mandate. It’s
also true that many self-labeled Catholic hospitals perform abortions and
prescribe contraception on non-hospital script pads while hiding abortifacient drug
placards behind cupboard doors.
What many
commentators have missed, though, is one of the cited reasons why HHS ultimately
imposed the rule. According to part of the HHS statement, “Scientists have
abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women
and their families”.
This clause made
me think of something else that scientists have consistently found to improve
health that Prohibition explicitly outlawed.
Some alcoholic beverages taken in small quantities such as red wine and even beer
have reportedly been beneficial for the heart and other body organs. Since
health increases, health costs decrease. However, physicians still do not
recommend that drinking should be undertaken in excess for various reasons,
liver damage being a common one.
Just imagine if
HHS issued a rule to mandate the coverage of red wine in health plans. They
could say that it improved health as a justification. What would happen? A few
things would predictably happen from increased access to mandated free alcohol.
Many protestant groups, Mormons, Muslims, and others would protest. There would
be more domestic violence. The main reason for passing the Prohibition
Constitutional Amendment was to curb the beatings of married women by drunk
husbands and from married men from drinking the family savings into oblivion.
There would be more arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI),
and car crash fatalities would skyrocket.
Bringing it back
to contraception, what will happen when contraception use increases? Will it
increase abortion rates? First, abortifacient birth control will certainly
increase abortions. Second, non- abortifacient contraceptives may increase the
abortion rate. In the January 2011 issue of Contraception,
it was shown that in Spain for 2,000 women aged 15 to 49 from 1997 to 2007,
contraceptive use increased from 49.1% to 79.9%. Spain’s abortion rate increased
from 5.52 per 1,000 women to 11.49. How will the abortion rate of the United
States change? The evidence indicates an increase in the number of elective
abortions, especially if the Catholic Church in the U.S. cannot practically
resist its free coverage.
Since the Catholic
Church teaches that all human life is to be protected in law just like other
more developed living humans (CCC 2273), the Church hierarchy and its members have
the constitutional right, at minimum, to refuse compliance with any future
abortion mandates and compulsory payments for contraceptives in their own
institutions. This includes Catholic hospitals, universities, and any Catholic
employer who refuses to provide them under guidance from their properly-formed
conscience. Just because a product is purportedly beneficial to someone doesn’t
mean that others must be mandated to supply it to them, especially if the use
of the product-in-question and its secondary effects are morally reprehensible
to the provider.
© 2012 Wondering Zygote Emeritus
Written: February 2012
