To the Catholic Bishops. I would point out that many times people pay for expenses with which they are not in total agreement. Think, for example, of the many donors to the Catholic Church who really did not intend for their contributions to go to the settlement of law suits related to sexual assault and child molestation, law suits whose damages grew exponentially due to years of official cover-up.
Contraception is, unfortunately, still largely a women’s issue. The government has mandated its coverage not because they are pushing a pro-sexual freedom agenda or an anti=Christian agenda, but because birth control is, for many young women, their major medical expense. Historically, medical expenses that were largely women’s were not covered nearly to the extent of expenses relating to men. (Anything related to women received short shrift.) New laws are, to some degree, trying to right that.
If one were to listen to the current debate, some might get the impression that the government is forcing contraception down people’s throats, i.e. actually taking the little wheels of pills and shoving them down. That the government just wants to beat up on churches.
In fact, it seems to me to have started as a matter of equal protection of women employees. The government has said insurance provided by secular employers (we are not actually talking churches here) that receive federal funds should provide insurance that allows for full health care to women. The institutions are not obligated to accept the funding; the women are not obligated to use the health care.
In this political year, it is likely that some compromise will be reached. And I do understand that some in the Catholic Church feel outraged. (The Church has not always been particularly supportive of women; and feelings about contraception quickly mount to a crazy pitch.)
But in the media (at least talk radio), it seems that the high ground is immediately granted to the churches, the government is vilified–and issues of equal protection for women workers get lost.
(PS – just want to note here I’m not anti-Catholic, or even against the Catholic Church. I just hate the whole bandwagon that gets started about these things–as if there’s a huge anti-religious plot in the country. This started over an attempt to give women’s needs some equal attention.)
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