10 Most Cited Arguments in Favor of the HHS Mandate

Published Monday, March 5, 2012 A.D. | By Michael Denton [ed note: This is a helpful write-up of some brief arguments against the HHS mandate that a friend of mine wrote up. She allowed me to share it with you, so enjoy!] I am a Catholic, unmarried, left-leaning centrist, female, 20-something, law student. Not only does this mean that I enjoy those oft-avoided subjects of religion and politics, it also means that no matter what the topic is, I am sure to be able to point you to an entire circle of my friends that will argue with me to the death. Very enthusiastically, in fact. The Obama/HHS Mandate is the perfect example. Within my various circles, and across the nation, this mandate has simultaneously sparked debate about religious beliefs, Constitutional freedom, political party divides, and the issue of womens rights, to name a few. These discussions result in recurring arguments made in support of the mandate which have a tendency to surface regardless of which issue was the catalyst of that particular debate. And so, in light of that fact, I present to you the un-official list of the ten most cited arguments made in support of the mandate, and why every one of them fails. 10. The Church is just opposed to universal healthcare! Ive got news for you: the Catholic Church actively advocates for universal health care. In fact, the Church teaches that health care is a right, not merely a privilege, as articulated by Pope John XXIII in Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) in 1963. At an international Papal conference on health care in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI stated that it is the moral responsibility of nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status or their ability to pay. Want more evidence? Look no further than the Catholic Catechism (n. 2288), or the U. S. Bishops pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All (1986) (nn. 86, 90, 103, 191, 212, 230, 247, and 286.) The examples are countless, and the Churchs official teaching is clear. The issue is not that the Obama administration seeks to provide access to healthcare, the issue is that it wants to compel religiously-affiliated employers to provide health care coverage that runs counter to core doctrinal beliefs. 9. Contraception is used for purposes other than avoiding pregnancy, and sterilizing procedure are sometimes necessary to treat medical illness; therefore the Church has no reason to refuse to provide health care that includes contraception and sterilization for those purposes! It is true that the birth control pill can serve the secondary purpose of treating the symptoms of poly cystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, and even moderate to severe acne. However, there are many medical alternatives to the pill. The Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction specializes in such alternative treatments. The Church is happy to provide health care coverage for these. As for sterilization, suppose a woman had a hysterectomy to remove a cancerous uterus. The intention of the operation was to remove the cancer, not to sterilize her. The sterilization was an unfortunate but intended consequence. As Pope Paul VI said in Humanae

Vitae, The Church does not at all consider illicit the use of those therapeutic means truly necessary to cure diseases of the organism, even if an impediment to procreation, which may be foreseen, should result therefrom, provided such impediment is not, for whatever motive, directly willed. Unfortunately, the HHS Mandate does not allow religiously affiliated businesses and organizations to provide these procedures only in these limited circumstances of medical necessity. If it did, this conversation might be different. In fact, Catholic universities that exist in states where coverage is mandatory, such as the Franciscan University of Steubenville, University of Dallas, and University of Notre Dame, provide that coverage only when medically necessary. The HHS mandate makes no exception to allow for the Church to freely exercise its religious beliefs by making this distinction.

8. This is more of a category of arguments that all basically say the same thing: the Church is trying to trump the Constitution. Most often phrased: You Catholics are trying to tear down the wall between church and state again! THAT is the Constitutional violation we should be concerned about. -ORThe Church is trying to force its belief system on everyone in the US and effectively establish Catholicism as the religion of the nation. So much for Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion First of all, lets clarify something. The phrase separation of church and state does not exist in the Constitution or in any of the nations founding documents. Rather it originated in a letter from Thomas Jefferson in response to the Danbury Baptist Association, which was concerned about the implications of the 1st Amendment on religious freedom. Reassuring the Baptist Association, Jefferson explained that the 1st Amendment effectuated a separation between church and state in order to protect religious groups from interference by the government. This foundational purpose of the Religion Clauses of the Constitution continues to be reaffirmed by the courts. In fact, the Supreme Court unanimously echoed this respect for religious autonomy less than a month ago in Hosanna-Tabor v. E.E.O.C.. In their concurring opinion, Justices Alito and Kagan noted that [t]o safeguard this crucial autonomy, we have long recognized that the Religion Clauses protect a private sphere within which religious bodies are free to govern themselves in accordance with their own beliefs. The Constitution guarantees religious bodies independence from secular control or manipulationin short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine. With that said, the Church is not seeking to abolish this separation of church and state. In fact, in an essay written in First Things in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, he recognized the importance of this dual autonomy. He notes that the United States, formed on the basis of free churches, adopts a separation between church and state and hails this as being what the early church had in mind.

The Church is not seeking to eliminate the rights granted by the 1st Amendment or somehow attempting to override the Constitution and establish Catholicism as some sort of national religion. Far from it. The Church simply opposes the governments attempt to cross that line by forcing the Church to chose between obeying the law and violating her conscious. The 1st Amendment prevents the government from forcing citizens to make this choice. Plain and simple. 7. Universal, free access to birth control will mean fewer unwanted pregnancies, and thus fewer abortions. The Church should be happy! First, birth control pills are potentially abortive in-and-of themselves because one function of several varieties of the Pill is to thin and shrivel the lining of the uterus so that it is unable or less able to facilitate the implantation of the newly fertilized egg. Because life begins at conception, pills that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting on the uterine wall in effect cause the abortion of that life. But, secondly, even if we discount the unknowable number of lives lost in that manner, there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that an increase in the use of birth control decreases the frequency of abortions. In fact, studies show just the opposite. 58% of all abortion patients were using contraception during the month when they became pregnant. Only 11% of abortion patients have never used a method of contraception. Moreover, studies have shown that once contraception is more widely available, abortion rates may actually rise. In Maryland, for example, the first state to enact a contraceptive mandate, the number of abortions rose by 1,226 the year after the mandate took effect. This holds true in several other countries as well. A study in Spain analyzed data from 1997-2007. During the study period the overall use of contraceptive methods increased from 49.1% to 79.9%. The elective abortion rate increased from 5.52 to 11.49 per 1000 women. By the way, this isnt some kind of secret. Several professionals who promote and administer abortion freely acknowledge this link. As merely one example, take these statements made by Malcom Potts, former director of Planned Parenthood of England: 1. As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate Cambridge Evening News, 7 February 1973 2. those who use contraception are more likely than those who do not to resort to induced abortion Abortion p. 491. 3. No society has controlled its fertilitywithout recourse to a significant number of abortions. Fertility Rights, The Guardian, 25 April 1979 So in reality, there is a link between the use of contraception and the abortion rate. When the first increases, so does the latter. 6. The government regulates religion all the time, such as when it outlaws religious practices such as ___________. (polygamy, ceremonial human sacrifice, honor killings, etc.) This is the same thing!

Actually, the government does not regulate religion all the time. It actually continuously upholds religious autonomy. In order for the federal government to step in, there is an extremely high standard that must be met: the infringement on the religion must serve a compelling government interest and must implement a means that is least restrictive to religious freedom in order to achieve that interest. So looking at the examples in the argument, the Constitution guarantees American citizens the right to life itself. That easily explains how the government can prohibit human sacrifice and honor killings. As for polygamous communities, the courts have recognized indisputable links between polygamous communities and substantial, repeated harms to women and children such as incest, statutory rape and sexual assault. These harms are so egregious that the government is permitted to step in to prevent these physical harms to human life. 5. If Obama amends the mandate to provide a religious exemption, that will mean that an employer who is a Jehovahs Witness could refuse to provide health care coverage for lifesaving blood transfusions because doing so would run counter to his religious beliefs. That is absurd. Two points. First, blood-transfusions and contraception are not interchangeable. The difference here is that a blood-transfusion is a life-saving procedure, while contraception is not. The Supreme Court has continually upheld the right of the government to step in when it is necessary to preserve life (see #2 below). Obviously, contraception does not fall within this category. Not only does contraception fail to qualify as life-saving, it is an elective intervention that interferes with the functioning of healthy womens reproductive systems. Additionally, contraceptives have numerous side-effects and risks of serious complications. The side-effects of the pill include headaches, depression, decreased libido and weight gain, and serious documented complications such as heart attacks, cervical cancer and blood clots. An ongoing a class-action lawsuit against three pharmaceutical companies alleges that a form of the pill has caused death, strokes and lifethreatening blood clots. Second, even if the courts were to say blood-transfusions and contraception were equitable, no one is talking about prohibiting/outlawing these things. The Church advocates for a religious exemption from the mandate for religiously-affiliated employers. When applying for jobs, we weigh several factors to determine which job we want. What are the hours? What is the salary? Where is the job located? What does the benefits package look like? No one is being forced to work for a religiously-affiliated employer. We, as American citizens, have every right to either (1) work for a religiously-affiliated business, and supplement our insurance if we so choose, or (2) chose to work for an employer that provides as comprehensive of a health care plan as we desire. 4. The controversy over the HHS Mandate is about contraception, not religious freedom. The Bishops have gathered in very vocal resistance to this mandate, and in doing so brought to light the Churchs opposition to contraception, sterilization and abortifaceints in order to explain how this mandate would violate the religious freedom of the Catholic Church. So while the issue of contraception itself remains at center of the headlines, the issue really is religious freedom. This is not a matter of whether contraception may be prohibited [or] supported by the governmentIt is not a matter of repackaging or framing this as a religious freedom dispute. It

is a matter of acknowledging the basic fact that government is forcing religious people and groups to do something that violates their consciences, (Bishop Lori of Bridgeport, CT). In fact, that this truly is an issue of religious freedom is evidenced by the fact that many many noncatholic, pro-contraception groups and individuals have spoken out against this mandate because of the risk it poses to religious freedom across the board. This list includes, among others, Democrats, a self-defined conservative with libertarian leanings,orthodox Jews, Lutherans, Baptists, evangelical Protestants, Anglicans, andnondenominational organizations. 3. Religiously-affiliated businesses receive millions of dollars in Federal funding, therefore the government has every right to impose regulations on those businesses. If the Church doesnt want to be regulated, it should stay out of the business-sector altogether. Bishop Lori responded to this argument best in saying: We dont get a handout. We have a contract for services, and we deliver them. We bring the generosity of the Catholic people, and we bring volunteers. When you contract with the Church, you get a bang for your buck. If religious organizations, particularly Catholic organizations, were forced to shut down due to regulations such as the HHS mandate, this country would be astounded by the results. The Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students every day, at a cost of $10 billion a year to parents and parishes. If there were no Catholic schools, these same students would have to be educated in public schools, which would cost $18 billion to American taxpayers. In secondary education alone, the Church has more than 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. with an enrollment of 700,000 students. In terms of health care, the Church has a non-profit hospital system comprising of 637 hospitals which treat one in five patients in the United States every day. Every city and town benefits from Catholic organizations. In Chicago alone, there are hundreds of Catholic organizations that serve the needs of that city. One of those is Catholic Charities which provides 2.2 million free meals to the hungry and needy each year. That is 6,027 meals a day, in one city. Does anyone really have any desire to see what our nation (and our taxes) would look like without these businesses and the services they provide? 2. The church is trying to interfere with womens rights!

As Cardinal Dolan has noted, the Church hardly needs to be lectured about health care for women. Thanks mostly to our Sisters, the Church is the largest private provider of health care for women and their babies in the country. [I]n New York State, Fidelis, the Medicare/Medicaid insurance provider, owned by the Church, consistently receives top ratings for its quality of service to women and children. When right are granted to you by your governing nation, you expect them to provide it. Your children have a right to an education, and thus the right to attend public school at no additional cost. You do not march up to the main office at a private school and demand that they let your child in, free of charge, because they have a right to an education. Similarly, if you cannot afford to put food on your table, you have a right to ask the government to provide for you through welfare, but you dont have the right to walk into a restaurant and demand that they feed you. The government can and should provide access to health care for all citizens, but that requires actually

providing it, not shifting the responsibility to private employers. The Obama Administration has decided that women employees have the right to health care coverage that provides contraception. The problem with the government forcing business-owners to provide that right to society is that the scope of governmental authority is limited by the rights and freedoms that protect individual business owners. If the administration really wants to provide comprehensive, universal health care, it needs to do so itself without involving private entities. 1. 98% of Catholics dont abide by this core doctrine of the Catholic faith; therefore, it should not be entitled to First Amendment protection. First and foremost, that statistic is absurd. Seriously, 98%? I am with Glenn Back on this one, I mean, when your poll looks like the results from a Saddam Hussein election, you know you have problems. Among other issues, the study that touts this statistic doesnt include: anyone who isnt a Catholic woman between the ages of 14-44, anyone who is pregnant, anyone who gave birth recently, anyone who hadnt had sex in the past three months, anyone trying to get pregnant or was indifferent to getting pregnant, anyone having sex and trying to avoid pregnancy without implementing a specific contraception method. It did, however, include self-identified Catholics who listed their church attendance rate as less than once a month, or never. Actually, 2 in every 5 of those polled fell into this category. But I digress. Even if 98% of Catholics used contraception, that fact would have no bearing whatsoever on the fact that the doctrinal beliefs and teachings of the Catholic faith have never wavered on this issue, a fact that illustrates the strength and conviction of the Church. As one Evangelical Lutheran put it, That a Roman Pontiff would lead the opposition often painfully alone to contraception at the end of the twentieth century is no small irony. Perhaps the Catholic hierarchy model, reserving final decisions on matters of faith and morals to a bishop whom Catholics believe is the successor of Peter, has proved more resilient in the face of modernity than the Protestant reliance on individual conscious and democratic church governance. The Churchs beliefs are clear. Whether or not individuals choose to disobey the Churchs directives does not change the fact that the First Amendment stands tightly closed against any governmental regulation of religious beliefs. (Stated in the Supreme Courts 8-1 Johnson v. Robisondecision.)