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The Bishops Respond to Joe Biden
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A still from last week’s vice presidential debate (source, ABC News archive).
In the Vice Presidential debate last week, Vice President Joe Biden said that the HHS Mandate that is currently the object of 33 suits for violation of religious freedom would not require any religious institution to include or pay for contraception in its insurance plans, or refer for contraception. The next day, in an unusual step, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a press release rebutting this claim. Here is the text in full:
Last night, the following statement was made during the Vice Presidential debate regarding the decision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to force virtually all employers to include sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion, in the health insurance coverage they provide their employees:
“With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.”
This is not a fact. The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain “religious employers.” That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to “Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital,” or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.
HHS has proposed an additional “accommodation” for religious organizations like these, which HHS itself describes as “non-exempt.” That proposal does not even potentially relieve these organizations from the obligation “to pay for contraception” and “to be a vehicle to get contraception.” They will have to serve as a vehicle, because they will still be forced to provide their employees with health coverage, and that coverage will still have to include sterilization, contraception, and abortifacients. They will have to pay for these things, because the premiums that the organizations (and their employees) are required to pay will still be applied, along with other funds, to cover the cost of these drugs and surgeries.
USCCB continues to urge HHS, in the strongest possible terms, actually to eliminate the various infringements on religious freedom imposed by the mandate.
For more details, please see USCCB’s regulatory comments filed on May 15 regarding the proposed “accommodation.”
For The Catholic Beat’s Religious Freedom resources page, click here.
Actually, the bishops have it wrong. Claims that the health law violates religious liberty are based on a “big lie”–a gross falsification constantly repeated and embellished to lend credibility. Notwithstanding claims to the contrary, the health care law does not force employers to act contrary to their consciences.
Employers may comply with the law by choosing either of two options: (1) provide qualifying health insurance plans or (2) do not provide such plans and instead pay assessments to the government. Unless one supposes that the employers’ religions forbid payments of money to the government, the law does not compel them to act contrary to their beliefs.
The second choice does not amount to “violating” the law and paying a “fine,” as some suppose. As the law “does not explicitly mandate an employer to offer employees acceptable health insurance” (http://www.ncsl.org/documents/health/EmployerPenalties.pdf), there is no such “mandate” to “violate.” Rather, the law affords employers two options, either of which is as lawful as the other.
Nor are the assessments set so high that paying them would drive employers out of business, as some speculate. The law provides that if a “large employer” (i.e., one with at least 50 employees) chooses not to provide health insurance, it must pay assessments of $2,000 per year per employee after the first 30 employees. That is much less than an employer typically would pay for health insurance. Small employers would pay no assessments at all. Because of this potential saving and because the law affords individuals realistic opportunities to obtain insurance on their own, many employers are considering this option–for reasons entirely unrelated to religion. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443437504577545770682810842.html)
In recently issued commentary on the various options of employers, the National Catholic Bioethics Center acknowledges, albeit grudgingly, that the option of not providing health insurance and instead paying assessments is “morally sound.” While also considering this option “unfortunate” in that the insurance employees would find on their own would include coverage the Center deems objectionable, the Center concludes that the employers’ “moral connection” to that coverage would be “remote.” https://ncbcenter.org/document.doc?id=450&erid=194821
Bottom line: Employers are not forced by the law to act contrary to their consciences. Rather, as recognized by even those who object to some aspects of the insurance the law makes available, the law affords employers with similar objections the morally sound option of not providing such insurance and paying assessments instead.
Dough, the bishops are right to stand up against the HHS mandate. The bottom line is that contraception. Catholics cannot in anyway pay into a system which is used to distribute contraception. All of those logistics on who is going to pay a penalty are confusing. I am not a lawyer with the full time job to figure out the labryinth of obama care. This bill seems intentionally long and confusing so that it is difficult to disagree with. It is not surprising that one would catch the bishops on a technicality as they navigate the convolution of obamacare. At the end of the day Catholics are being pushed into a system which provides contraception. Contracepting is something one may free choose to do but you can’t require everyone to help you pay for it.
This is not a “no sexual pleasure for you campaign”! No one should try to take away God’s gift of free will, and for this reason I shouldn’t have to help you distribute contraception when I believe it is wrong.
The contraceptive mentality is wrong because in the quest for pleasure it robs individuals of their human dignity and destroys marriages. Marriage is the proper house for sexual pleasure because within marriage the spouses commit themselves totally to the other as they give entirely of themselves. Each of the marriage partners intensifies the beauty of the other person as the two function as one in harmony. This total selfless love is the love which mirrors the love God has for us, his children. It is therefore fitting that spousal love expressed in the sexual act bring children into the world. It is in an environment in which the love is characterized by being: total, free, faithful and fruitful which the family prospers.
From this understanding of marriage we can see why contraception is wrong. The contraceptive mentality is a disordered appetite which seeks one’s own pleasure at the expense of the other. In contracepting the partner is no longer giving of oneself, but causes one to see the other person as an object or tool to be used for your own pleasure. Instead of increasing the dignity of the other person it uses the other person as a tool for one’s own pleasure.
The contraceptive mentality is never satisfied and if pursued it will only give shallow pleasure before returning even hungrier the next time. Not only will the pursuit of one’s own pleasure take ownership of the person it causes problems with those around us. The contraceptive mentality causes one to try and use those around us as we move into an egocentric world which tries to take advantage of others. As a result of this egocentric withholding of love the marriage breaks down. Divorce soon follows which rips families apart.
Giving totally of oneself is the proper way to achieve happiness. When we forget another person’s human dignity and then use contraception in pursuit of pleasure we create a lot of problems for ourselves and those around us. If we want to solve the issues of our country we have to start from the bottom. It is from strong families that we will have a strong societies and it is from a strong society that we will have a strong country.
Building strong families is not easy, it begins with each of us. Each one of us must make sacrifices for each other and it is these sacrifices which become acts of love which lead to healthy relationships and truly happy people. The surest way to keep ourselves on this path is to follow the model that Christ gave for us when he came down to earth and lovingly gave everything of himself as he died on the cross for his sinful children.
Hmm. So the fine that the government says is a tax is now an “assessment”? Interesting… I doubt most human beings who are not also lawyers would be swayed by your contention that the law does not “explicitly mandate an employer to offer employees acceptable health insurance” simply because it offers them the option of paying an “assessment” instead. That is like saying that speed limits do not explicitily mandate that people drive below a certain speed because they have the option to drive faster and pay an “assessment” for doing so.
Confronted by questions about the government requiring or prohibiting something that conflicts with someone’s faith, the courts have generally ruled that under the Constitution the government cannot enact laws specifically aimed at a particular religion (which would be regarded a constraint on religious liberty contrary to the First Amendment), but can enact laws generally applicable to everyone or at least broad classes of people (e.g., laws concerning pollution, contracts, torts, crimes, discrimination, employment, etc.) and can require everyone, including those who may object on religious grounds, to abide by them. (E.g., http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/872/case.html)
When the legislature anticipates that application of such laws may put some individuals in moral binds, the legislature may, as a matter of grace (not constitutional compulsion), provide exemptions or otherwise accommodate conscientious objectors. In doing so, the legislature need not offer the objector a free pass. It may require them to pay or do something instead. For instance, in years past, we have not allowed conscientious objectors simply to skip military service for “free”; rather, we have required them to provide alternative service in noncombatant roles or useful civilian work.
The real question here then is not so much whether the First Amendment precludes the government from enacting and enforcing the generally applicable laws regarding availability of health insurance (it does not), but rather whether there is any need to exempt some employers in order to avoid forcing them to act contrary to their consciences. Since the law already affords employers choices by which they can avoid acting contrary to their consciences, there is no need for an exemption.
They may not like paying money to the government and they may not like what the government does with the money, but those are garden variety gripes common to most taxpayers. Such gripes hardly amount to being forced to act contrary to one’s conscience. Should each of us be exempted from paying some portion(s) of our taxes so we aren’t thereby “forced” to pay for making war, providing health care, teaching evolution, or whatever else each of us may consider wrong or even immoral? If each of us could opt out of this or that law or tax with the excuse that our religion requires or allows it, the government and the rule of law could hardly operate.
The United States Consitution guarantees freedom of religion and expression of religion. The government may not force employers (or anyone) to act against in a way that violates their religion. Giving someone the option of paying a fine rather than to do so is still a violation of religious freedom, no matter what you prefer to call it.
Say, for instance, the US Department of Health and Human Services hired a panel of experts who said that people are healthier if they go to church, and another panel determined that the United Methodist Church had the healthiest members, and so everyone now had to attend a Methodist Church. This would violate freedom of religion. Now, suppose they turned around and said, “If you choose not to go you can pay us $100 a week instead.” This would violate freedom of religion just as much as saying people had to go to the United Methodist Church — so you would have TWO violations of religious freedom rather than one. And the amount of money is immaterial — it would still be a violation even it was only a dime. The United Stated government simply does not have this power.
Gail,
You are right that your hypothetical law would run afoul of the First Amendment for the simple reason that it directly aims to control individuals’ exercise of religion, indeed that is its very purpose. And you are right that adding an exemption, free or not, would not save it.
Your hypothetical, though, is not analogous the the ACA. It establishes a general policy on access to health insurance generally applicable to all employers without regard to religion. Its very purpose is not to control individuals’ exercise of their religions. To be sure, some may object to one or more aspects of the law on religious grounds, but that does not mean that the law is specifically aimed at their exercise of religion. So the ACA does not violate the First Amendment on that ground.
The question then is whether, as a matter of grace, to exempt or otherwise accommodate those with religious objections to this constitutional law. That is where this claim that the law “forces” employers to violate their consciences comes in. That is the reason offered by those advocating for such an exemption. The problem is that their assertion just ain’t true. As explained above, the law does no such thing.
Doug: That’s a meaningless distinction. A law is not unconstitutional because its purpose is to control individuals’ exercise of religion, it is unconstitutional because it DOES control individuals’ exercise of religion, whatever its intent. This clearly does. I would also argue that it is intended to to so, but whether it is or not is beside the point.