Eastbayri.com

The Obama Administration made a mistake in drafting health care policy that forced Catholic institutions to finance contraception as part of an overall staff health insurance package under the Affordable Care Act.   Despite the fact that Catholic universities and hospitals employ thousands of non Catholics, it makes no sense to force these religious institutions to violate an essential tenet of their teachings by forcing them to pay for contraception. This type of government intrusion only serves to feed the anti-big government hysteria that has enveloped the political right and it diminishes support among Catholic leaders who were, in large part, supportive of the President’s efforts to attain universal health care for Americans as a moral imperative and a basic human right.

The Catholic institutions who request an exemption should receive one and their non-Catholic employees should be afforded the opportunity to receive contraception in a way that releases the religious institution from the obligation to finance it. The Obama Administration should have been astute enough to realize that the backlash generated by such a policy would be fodder for those who propose to repeal the president’s health care plan.  Many Catholic universities and hospitals already provide health insurance that includes birth control and 28 states have similar mandates, but the larger principle of religious liberty outweighs the preponderance of evidence that Catholics actually do not fall in line with their Church on this particular issue.

Surveys suggest that over 90 percent of Catholic women do not abide by the Church’s teachings on birth control and it is clear that Catholic universities and hospitals could not survive without the efforts and talents of their many non-Catholic employees who deserve to have access to basic health care that includes contraception. With that said, it is an unreasonable imposition to require the Catholic Church to finance contraception when they are steadfast in their moral opposition to it. The 1st Amendment’s protection of religious freedom demands that this opposition be respected.

The Obama Administration appears callous and opens itself up to even more criticism of the president’s health care initiatives which, by a large measure, do more good than harm and are more closely aligned with the Catholic Church’s teachings than the two Catholic presidential candidates, (Santorum and Gingrich) who criticize them, would care to admit. It allows Mitt Romney, who had a similar mandate in his Massachusetts health care law, and Newt Gingrich who has had trouble with one of the Ten Commandments in particular, to criticize him for conducting a so called “war” on Christianity. 

Catholic Charities and Catholic hospitals in particular, do a tremendous amount of good for those in society, no matter their religious affiliation, who are the most vulnerable among us. The Obama Administration has actually had a productive relationship with Catholic Charities and the administration’s narrative of equality, fairness, and propping up the middle class and poor has, at least for this news cycle, been drowned out by a policy that, had it remained unchanged, would have diminished both the administration and the Constitution’s protection of religious liberty. 

The President seems to have solved the problem with an acceptable compromise position, but it comes three weeks too late and that delay has breathed new life into the culture war politics that Republicans tend to enjoy. 

Mr. Amore has been a US History and American Government teacher at East Providence High School for the past 23 years. He holds a BA in History from Providence College and an MA in Public Policy from New England College.  He is a lifelong resident of East Providence where he lives with his wife and two daughters who both attend the city's public schools.