Obama Tries To Force Catholic Institutions To Provide Contraceptives

[Strike For The South]

The free excise clause come to mind.

You cant force them to do this. As much as I love the tyrinical power of the state, you cant force them to cover this

Contraceptives are extremely important but the government cant not force the church to fund them

However I would love to see how much the catholic institutions are being subsidised by momma gov't then we could talk turkey

[Tuuvi]

I agree, the Catholic Church, or any other church, shouldn't be forced to insure contraceptives or anything else that goes against their conscience. If you decide to get a job with a religious organization, you shouldn't expect to be provided something that goes against their moral code.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Baloney. You can't disallow preventative medicine on the grounds that it might encourage behavior. It's morally incoherent. They have no more right to not provide it than they do to not provide vaccines:

Some conservative U.S. Christian groups oppose mandatory vaccination for diseases typically spread via sexual contact, arguing that the possibility of disease deters risky sexual contact. For example, the Family Research Council opposes mandatory use of vaccines against the human papillomavirus, writing, "Our primary concern is with the message that would be delivered to nine- to 12-year-olds with the administration of the vaccines. Care must be taken not to communicate that such an intervention makes all sex 'safe'."

Though they are in nice company:

In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban have issued fatwas opposing vaccination as an attempt to avert Allah's will, and as an American plot to sterilize Muslims. The Taliban have kidnapped, beaten, and assassinated vaccination officials, including assassinating the head of Pakistan's vaccination campaign in Bajaur Agency.[9]

BAN SEAT BELTS, THEY ENCOURAGE SPEEDING

[PanzerJaeger]

Baloney. You can't disallow preventative medicine on the grounds that it might encourage behavior.

Is contraception really preventative medicine?

[Strike For The South]

Baloney. You can't disallow preventative medicine on the grounds that it might encourage behavior. It's morally incoherent. They have no more right to not provide it than they do to not provide vaccines:

A catholic hospital/institution should be able to run itself as it sees fit as long as it takes no monies from the gov't. What is being prevented isnt the issue wether its having to wear blue on tuesday or contraceptives.

[Subotan]

WHEYYYYYYY

I get such a chuckle when [questions about sex] come out. Here we have millions of our fellow Americans unemployed, we have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about, and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex. I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are. And this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s such inexpensive. Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.

[Strike For The South]

It's not about sex. It's about catholics being able to excise there rights as per the constitution. If they take no money and give no money, leave the institutions alone

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Is contraception really preventative medicine?

Morally speaking. How do you feel about the vaccines? What percentage of catholics use contraception?

A catholic hospital/institution should be able to run itself as it sees fit as long as it takes no monies from the gov't. What is being prevented isnt the issue wether its having to wear blue on tuesday or contraceptives.

It's no different than forcing a hypothetical car company who had a thousands year old ban on seat belts* to put seat belts in their cars. They have a strong stance on speeding being immoral? Fine, preach directly. But you can't make speeding more dangerous to discourage it.

*hypothetical car company

[Strike For The South]

Morally speaking. How do you feel about the vaccines? What percentage of catholics use contraception?



It's no different than forcing a hypothetical car company who had a thousands year old ban on seat belts* to put seat belts in their cars. They have a strong stance on speeding being immoral? Fine, preach directly. But you can't make speeding more dangerous to discourage it.

*hypothetical car company

There is no law requrieing cars to have seatbelts, just that you wear one on the road

[Sasaki Kojiro]

There is no law requrieing cars to have seatbelts, just that you wear one on the road

"Most seat belt legislation in the United States is left to the states. However, the first seat belt law was a federal law which took effect on January 1, 1968 that required all vehicles (except buses) to be fitted with seat belts in all designated seating positions."

[Fisherking]

Regardless, government dose not have the right to mandate services that private or religious institutions must provide.

Are we a totalitarian state?

Has the constitution stopped being a factor?

Government has no business ordering what charities and non-government facilities should or should not provide.

[PanzerJaeger]

Morally speaking. How do you feel about the vaccines? What percentage of catholics use contraception?

Pregnancy isn't a disease, and you cannot randomly catch it.

I have no problem with contraception. My problem is that the administration is claiming that this is a women’s health issue that trumps religious freedom. I could buy that for, say, an expensive breast cancer vaccine, but this isn’t equivalent. Why is free contraception for all a women’s rights issue?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Baloney. You can't disallow preventative medicine on the grounds that it might encourage behavior. It's morally incoherent. They have no more right to not provide it than they do to not provide vaccines:

BAN SEAT BELTS, THEY ENCOURAGE SPEEDING

Analogies are always unhelpful, because there's a subtle difference from the original case. Otherwise people would never raise them, they would just study the original case itself.

First off, as far as I am aware it is government agencies themselves that are responsible for promoting road safety to the public, which is completely different from forcing non-governmental institutions to toe their line. And while obviously there is government legislation that forces car manufacturers to include seat belts in their design, these private companies have a direct role in ensuring decent levels of road safety. Safety is an inherent feature of their product, the same cannot be said for the church and its relationship with contraceptives and sexual disease. The comparison doesn't work - unless you feel the government has a right to dictate the role of the church in society.

And as for vaccines you could cause an epidemic just by virtue of being around to catch a disease. Whereas to affect other people with your STD's you have to be a bit more active in catching and spreading them. The existence of people demands the use of vaccines to protect against certain diseases, the same cannot be said for contraceptives and STD's.

Also, since its cool to be as vague as possible without providing any links so people know what is actually being discussed, I'm going to be all emo and counter-cultural and throw a link out there. This is what I got with my first google.

[PanzerJaeger]

Does anyone know if condoms are covered?

[Papewaio]

If a insitution is getting government money or a tax break (which is effectively the same thing) then the government can attach whatever conditions it requires. This applied to stem cell research so it is fair to apply that thinking across the board. Separation of church and state doesn't mean the state writes the church a blank check or that it's members can ignore the rule of law.

If a church is totally self sufficient with no government handouts or tax breaks then it's should be able to freely spend its money on any lawful activity or choose where not to spend its money.

=][=

Not all diseases have a single vector. And the larger the pool of diseased individuals the higher the chance the disease will have a more virulent variation. So you can either choose to wipe out a disease like polio or you can do a half arsed job on it like TB. Just don't assume because it spreads by bodily fluids today that it can't be sneezed out tomorrow. Oh look someone sneezed and on the train and the whole carriage now has herpes.

[Xiahou]

Baloney. You can't disallow preventative medicine on the grounds that it might encourage behavior. It's morally incoherent. They have no more right to not provide it than they do to not provide vaccines:



Though they are in nice company:




BAN SEAT BELTS, THEY ENCOURAGE SPEEDING

You obviously don't understand the reasons for Catholic opposition to birth control....

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Pregnancy isn't a disease, and you cannot randomly catch it.

I have no problem with contraception. My problem is that the administration is claiming that this is a women’s health issue that trumps religious freedom. I could buy that for, say, an expensive breast cancer vaccine, but this isn’t equivalent. Why is free contraception for all a women’s rights issue?

I don't know why they call it a women's rights issue.

There are lots of things that you can't randomly catch that are covered. And I mean, I know medicine has improved since the old days when women often died giving birth, but they still do.

First off, as far as I am aware it is government agencies themselves that are responsible for promoting road safety to the public, which is completely different from forcing non-governmental institutions to toe their line. And while obviously there is government legislation that forces car manufacturers to include seat belts in their design, these private companies have a direct role in ensuring decent levels of road safety. Safety is an inherent feature of their product, the same cannot be said for the church and its relationship with contraceptives and sexual disease. The comparison doesn't work - unless you feel the government has a right to dictate the role of the church in society.

I can't follow you at all here.

Car companies have many unsafe features in their cars, features that are designed for entertainment or enjoyment. Sometimes they make the cars safer to sell well, sometimes not. There are certain things that the government mandates for safety. Seat belts are not an inherent feature of the product because maximum safety is not an inherent feature of the product. For many cars the opposite is true.

Religious people can be morally against sex. But that has nothing at all to do with contraception. So why doesn't the comparison work--you can be morally against speeding, but not seatbelts, and you can be morally against certain kinds of sex, but not vaccines for std's, condoms, and birth control?

And as for vaccines you could cause an epidemic just by virtue of being around to catch a disease. Whereas to affect other people with your STD's you have to be a bit more active in catching and spreading them. The existence of people demands the use of vaccines to protect against certain diseases, the same cannot be said for contraceptives and STD's.

Yes. Freedom of religion does not include the right to be immoral. We often let religions do things that are wrong, but it's not inherently wrong to step in. A religion saying "an essential tenet of our religion is that all vaccines are wrong even though lacking them could cause epidemics" would not be protected by religious freedom.

Pregnancy prevention and disease prevention are not different with regards to what's morally important here. They would still have to cover vaccines for non-communicable diseases, don't you think?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

You obviously don't understand the reasons for Catholic opposition to birth control....

Regular Catholics, or the church hierarchy? Real reasons or stated reasons?

[Myrddraal]

There are certain things that the government mandates for safety.

Just because I can't resist getting caught up in an analogy argument:

If you wanted to compare seat-belts to this situation, the seat belt situation would have to be something like this:

a) It is not a legal requirement to wear a seatbelt.
b) Some car companies offer a free seat belt option, some don't offer seat belts at all.
c) The government is now forcing all car companies to provide the option of free seat belts, even though seat belts are not a legal requirement.

After all, the government does not mandate the use of condoms. If they did, we'd have to lock up all the parents... So in brief, the seat belt analogy completely misses the point.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Just because I can't resist getting caught up in an analogy argument:

If you wanted to compare seat-belts to this situation, the seat belt situation would have to be something like this:

a) It is not a legal requirement to wear a seatbelt.
b) Some car companies offer a free seat belt option, some don't offer seat belts at all.
c) The government is now forcing all car companies to provide the option of free seat belts, even though seat belts are not a legal requirement.

After all, the government does not mandate the use of condoms. If they did, we'd have to lock up all the parents... So in brief, the seat belt analogy completely misses the point.

Why are these differences relevant? Why would the seat belt situation have to be like that?


The hypothetical christian car manufacturer would be wrong to oppose seatbelts because regardless of their opposition to speeding, it is immoral to ban something life saving because it might encourage people to speed. That moral belief is not respected by law, religious by not, as many other moral beliefs are not respected by law, religious or not.

Some with the hypothetical christian health care provider--an opposition to certain kinds of sex* does not make a ban on contraception legitimate. Do you think the taliban's opposition to all vaccination is legitimate? If there was a government funded program for it do you that would be wrong cause it took there tax dollars? Besides the point that everyone in our country pays taxes despite the fact that their money is used for something or other that they think is immoral.

Economic and legal trivia are not relevant to the analogy. It's an analogy about moral reasoning and when it's legitimate.

*in whatever strange theological way it is expressed

[Myrddraal]

Why would the seat belt situation have to be like that?

Because that would make it a direct analogy:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

a) It is not a legal requirement to wear a condom.
b) Some medical institutions offer free condoms, some don't offer condoms at all.
c) The government is now forcing all medical institutions to provide the free condoms, even though wearing a condom is not a legal requirement.

Why are these differences relevant?

There no law enforcing the use of condoms. There are several laws enforcing the use of seat belts. Surely that makes the legal arguments for enforcing the provision of condoms and seat belts quite different?

I have a question (not rhetorical): In the US, does the government legally require a medical institution to provide any other form of 'treatment'? To be clear, I'm not talking about life saving or health restoring treatments, I'm talking about preventative treatments such as vaccines.

Edit: clarifying question above

[Sasaki Kojiro]

It's not "Since we have seat belt laws, we must have this law, to be consistent". That's one kind of analogy. It's "If you understand why the seatbelt law is wrong (figuring you already do) then you should understand why this law is wrong". This is another kind of analogy, the kind people almost always use. And then the person they say it to generally spends a lot of time arguing that it isn't the first kind, qed.

[Xiahou]

Regular Catholics, or the church hierarchy? Real reasons or stated reasons?

That wasn't an ambiguous statement. Catholic opposition to birth control is doctrine and the real reasons are the same as the stated reasons. Birth control encouraging sex is not that reason. In marriage, sex is encouraged- in fact it's required for a marriage to be considered valid. Yet, married couples are also told not to use birth control.

It has to do with the nature of sexuality. Simply, sex is for enjoyment and as an expression of love, but it's also an act of procreation. Birth control removes half of the purpose of sex and corrupts its nature. This is why the Church opposes it. Incidentally, it's also why the Church will never recognize gay marriage.

I'm certainly not a model Catholic, but I do remember some things from religion class.

[CountArach]

This is old news now.

The near-unified front led by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to oppose a mandate for employers to cover birth control has now crumbled amid the compromise plan that the Obama administration offered last week to accommodate religious institutions.

The leaders of several large Catholic organizations that work directly on poverty, health care and education have welcomed the president’s plan as a workable compromise that has the potential to protect religious freedom while allowing employees who request it to have contraceptives covered by their insurance plans.

The bishops, however, have continued to voice strong objections to the White House plan. And they have taken it one step further, arguing that individual Catholics who own businesses should not have to provide birth control to their employees in their health insurance coverage.

Oh and this new policy is immensely popular. Unfathomably so.

[PanzerJaeger]

Oh and this new policy is immensely popular. Unfathomably so.

Of course it is. It's free stuff. I'm sure a policy that covered everyone's car payments would also be very popular.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Reality of the situation is that churches are more than happy to play in the political game when they want government to stop something. Now they want their moral indignation to protect them against government actions they dislike. Can't have it both ways.

Call me when the Mormon Church in Utah is punished for spamming Prop 8 ads all over California and then I will agree that the law shouldn't be passed.

[CBR]

If they are at such odds with the real rest of the world, maybe religiously-affiliated organisations should just focus on the spiritual health of their own followers?

[a completely inoffensive name]

The Church is the Church. They can scream and yell and cuss all they want, but that's all it is. When you use the Church's use of Free Speech as an excuse to give the government more powers of imposition, we all lose--whether you're a fan of the church or not.

If you want a separation of church and state, it must be a complete separation. You can't have religions able to talk and lobby government all they want with complete immunity.

They are either part of society or they are not. If they want their hands in everything, then they need to pay taxes and face up to the fact that sometimes government does things we don't like. I find war on middle eastern countries disgusting and possibly morally wrong depending on which country we are talking about. But my moral indignation doesn't protect my money from paying for such wars.

[Xiahou]

The Church is the Church. They can scream and yell and cuss all they want, but that's all it is. When you use the Church's use of Free Speech as an excuse to give the government more powers of imposition, we all lose--whether you're a fan of the church or not.

That's alot more succinct then what I was typing- let's go with that.

The "compromise" Obama offered is bunk. There are no free lunches. If insurers are still forced to cover contraceptives even when the employer's plans don't cover it, what happens? Rates will go up to cover the costs. There is virtually no distinction between that and the organizations directly offering the coverage.

If you want a separation of church and state, it must be a complete separation. You can't have religions able to talk and lobby government all they want with complete immunity.

They are either part of society or they are not. If they want their hands in everything, then they need to pay taxes and face up to the fact that sometimes government does things we don't like. I find war on middle eastern countries disgusting and possibly morally wrong depending on which country we are talking about. But my moral indignation doesn't protect my money from paying for such wars.

Wait, what? Tax exempt status is an entirely separate issue- that's not in the Constitution.

[Strike For The South]

2 wrongs dont make a right

And in any case this is just another example of why we should have a single payer secular health system