WASHINGTON — Imagine if you went to work tomorrow and your boss announced that your health-care plan would no longer cover surgery. He had become a Jehovah’s Witness and could no longer in good conscience support any procedure that might involve a blood transfusion. Even though you’re not a member of that faith, you’d have to go along with that.
Ridiculous, right? Not really. There are people in Washington working right now to pass legislation that would allow your boss to tailor your workplace’s health-care plan to his religious beliefs. And worse yet, they’re doing it in the name of “religious freedom.”
How did this come about? The new health-care law seeks to ensure a basic level of care for everyone by mandating that certain services and procedures be covered. Among them is contraceptive care. Houses of worship are totally exempt from this requirement, but religiously affiliated institutions are dealt with differently.
These institutions — mainly hospitals, colleges and social service agencies — receive massive amounts of tax funding, serve the public and often hire people from many different religions.
President Barack Obama has proposed a rule that would require insurance companies to pick up the cost of birth control and offer it to the employees, sparing church-related institutions from doing it directly.
This is not good enough for some on the right. Despite the fact that birth control is widely used in America — 98 percent of people will rely on it at some point in their lives — and despite the fact that the pill has other uses such as shrinking ovarian cysts and reducing menstrual cramps, some religious leaders have stubbornly resisted allowing it to even be made available to their employees.
According to the right, big, religiously affiliated universities and hospitals have some sort of “corporate conscience” that must be protected — even if it tramples an individual’s rights.
Furthermore, conservatives are now arguing that this so-called “right” to tailor health care to religious demands must be extended to private employers. Thus, if your boss becomes a fundamentalist Christian and decides that childhood vaccines demonstrate a lack of faith in God, he can deny vaccination coverage to all of his workers.
This is not “religious freedom.” It is control of others. The government has no obligation to assist an employer in imposing his religious beliefs on others.
A factory owner has the right to believe what he wants about God and run his own life according to those beliefs. He has no right to interject his theology into the personal relationship between you and your doctor.
From a legal standpoint, courts in both New York and California have already upheld rules like the one the Obama originally proposed. Religious freedom is important, but courts have never allowed it to become an excuse to run roughshod over the rights of others or engage in actions that cause harm to society.
Obama’s compromise is reasonable and hardly amounts to a “war on religion.” As a minister, I know that religious groups get plenty of special breaks. Tax exemption is just one.
According to The New York Times, between 1989 and 2006, religious organizations received more than 200 exemptions from laws governing things like immigration, pensions and land use, courtesy of Congress
Religious groups also get a lot of taxpayer support. Catholic Charities received $753 million in taxpayer funds last year. Since we’re paying the tab, we can ask the group to respect others’ rights.
I celebrate religious freedom in America and give thanks for it every day. What I’m not for is using that precious concept to wage war on women’s health and your rights as an employee.
Chief among those rights is your ability to make your own decisions about birth control — without interference from a band of bishops, a church pastor or your supervisor down at the factory.
• Lynn is executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Comments (27)
Add commentMeatball pitch
1. Reverend, spare me the numbers. This is about principle;
2. Birth control is not advocated by a number of Christian domininations. Since the Roman Catholic Church has drawn a hard line in the sand, I'll focus on it: Benedict XVI: "Life is a gift of the Creator";
3. Institutions thru-out the global that are affiliated with the Catholic Church must adopt this fundamental precept or they are not aligned with Catholicism;
4. If the Obama administration wants to include contraceptive services as part of the package, they should have considered the ramifications of mandating it to include faith-based organizations that are doctrinally opposed (1st Amendment);
5. Instead the administration rammed it, pulled back with an "Oops," then found another oriface or loophole to get the job done;
6. My bottom line: why is it so shocking that a pro-life institution balks at providing an "entitlement" it is diametrically opposed to? Want birth control? go to the Rx.
Home run!
Lynn nailed it.
And you can see from Grendel's evasive response above that the Christian Taliban can't defend themselves.
What if the church organization doesn't believe in blood transfusions, X-rays, organ transplants, or you name it? Can they impose those 'principles' on their employees?
If the catholic hospital will ONLY hire catholic employees, and accept no tax dollars, then maybe they have a case. But that's not how they roll.
Grendel
Um, you do have to go to the pharmacist to get a prescription. Catholic churches aren't being handed boxes of pills, IUDs, diaphragms, sponges, and condoms to hand out as needed.
Maybe you Catholics should be secure enough in your faith to understand that the "real" believers among you will choose not to utilize birth control. The other 98% are not your concern.
yeah, but--
I suppose you could what-if this problem forever. Problems have solutions and the root of the problem is federal government entanglement in health services they probably should not have tangled with in the first place (again, First Amendment).
(ps - Lat58, I think I'm starting to like you)
@pp
did I mention that numbers add up to nothing? And I would caution you about the "you Catholics" tone. Russian Orthodox are also in cahoots with Bendict XVI on this one.
This bit of legislation is
This bit of legislation is getting too much air time for the small number of opponents it has. A HUGE majority of Americans -- over 85% -- and the huge majority of Catholics -- believe it's not a problem to have birth control covered in their health plans. Why?
Because it's NOT mandated that it be used. It is an option, and gives Americans PERSONAL FREEDOM, which most Americans are big fans of.
My wife and I chose (like most Catholics in the United States) to use birth control, but we have friends (with larger families) who did not. We CHOSE our paths based on what was right for our family and our individual interpretations of God's will. We have the blessings of our priest and our church and even our friends who chose otherwise.
This "protest" is nothing more than trumped-up yelling by a few extremists who don't respect a person's right to have his own relationship with God. Since the (huge) majority of Americans use birth control, the majority should prevail.
Offering something doesn't mean it has to be used.
If this ever went to a vote, Republican and Democrat politicians would see an overwhelming wave of support for offering birth control in health plans with only a few fringe people saying no.
Guaranteed
That under the guise of religious freedom many employers will have a religious conversion to cut insurance cost. For when you are dealing with a truly intangible criteria such as religious beliefs it becomes imposable to separate the phonies from the honest. There is no shortage of charlatans bilking folks out of their goods in the name of religion. Opening the door that would allow the creation of an entire set of new religions with some fundamental beliefs that all medical treatments are evil will be the next wave of salvation for these employers who need to provide insurance.
The issue then becomes how does one establish if an employer is in fact following a tenant of faith or simply beating the system.
Face the facts folks when was the last time any court ruled some religion is not a true religion.
the bottom line
If faith based charities or organizations take even $1 from American taxpayers (which I am opposed to), they MUST abide with the rules that accompany those dollars!
If they can't, or won't, they should give the money back.
The Catholic church is over the top with this. They should center more attention on reparations for the suffering they caused for thousands of children at the hands of their pedophile priests. Here's just one example of their atrocities here in Alaska:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-silence/
This is only about getting
This is only about getting churches to pay for abortions eventually. Probably sex change operations and anal lube at some point too.
Ever notice how it's only the
Ever notice how it's only the religious conservatives who bring up things like sex change operations and anal lube?
principle: (noun):
1. an important underlying law or assumption required in a system of thought
It would be presumptive to criticize another person's choices; however, this hangup about the 98%ers is a red herring. Just like we all know speeding is against the law, but who hasn't sped? I know lots of good people who have sped at some point in their lives (might've been young, caught up in the moment, I know -- I'VE sped), but that doesn't make them bad drivers. We still have speed limits. The Church still has principles.
That's because we understand
That's because we understand the agenda. The lefties know it too but they know they would sound like the kooks they are if they just spilled the beans right off the bat.
The Catholic church also opposes...
...the death penalty. Republicans have no problem with that. The Catholic church also has a problem with torture, (oops!) "enhanced interrogation." Republicans have no problem with that.
If religious institutions want to work in the public sphere, they must abide by the rules of the public sphere.
“To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”
Justice Antonin Scalia, devout Catholic, in the majority opinion in the 1990 Majority decision from Employment Division v. Smith.
Grendel, that's not an accurate analogy
You would have to demonstrate that people who speed also believe that the speed limit laws themselves are wrong.
And your conclusion that the church has principles is a strawman. No one is saying the church doesn't have principles.
The error is thinking that the 98% of Catholics using contraception respect the anti-contraception laws in the first place.
Mike
Nor should the secularists
Nor should the secularists impose their predjudices on the religious community. It cuts both ways. The federal government should stay out of what is constitutuonally the states realm.
@Mike
not so fast...(in 2 lines or less). If the Church is wrong, leave it; if you don't believe in speed limits quit driving or pay for the tickets.
seamate50, that does not make sense.
There are Catholic secularists, agnostic secularists, Jewish secularists, Christian secularists, Muslim secularists, atheist secularists, Sikh secularists, Pagan secularists, etc. In short, there are religious secularists.
Secularism is one thing: the acknowledgement that Church and State be separate. That's it. Hint: Rick Santorum made a definitional mistake calling secularism a theology. That's bonkers.
The USA is a secular country by constitutional mandate. I'm not sure what you wanted to get across, but it does not make sense to pit secularists against people of faith or even no faith.
Secularism provides the environment of freedom for both ideologies.
Mike
grendel
So, according to you, the federal government should stay out of health care - should it also stay out of my marraige? My bedroom? My visit with my Gynocologist?
I need hip waders AND a boat for the hypocricy of the church on this one!
swimmergirl
I'd recommend a lifeline too.
The real issue.
The problem with the entire conversation is that NO one is referencing "obama" is mandating the coverage! When did we lose a president and aquire a king? At what point did the man stop governing and begin ruling? This is NOT his job!
king?
Don't you mean president for life ie dictator
We've had a dictator for
We've had a dictator for quite sometime now. Different faces and accents but pretty much the same policies.....
Americans United for
Americans United for Separation of Church and State - leftist organization promoting a progressive agenda under the guise of religion.
And this 'piece of work' has the gall to call himself a Reverend. I'd put him on the same plane as The Reeeeverend Jesse Jackson or Sharpton.
By the way, this organization receives funding from the Tides Foundation - Van Jones' progressive laundering machine.
Also, the 98% number is inaccurate. But it figures since Pelosi was quoting it.
"Mollie Hemingway suggested the 98-percent claim was a garbage number, and should have been dumped like bad garbage.
So I guess we could say that among women aged 15-44 who had sex in the last three months but aren’t pregnant, post-partum or trying to get pregnant, 87 percent of women who identify as Catholic used contraception. It’s worth pondering just who is left out of this 87 percent, other than, you know, everyone who doesn’t use contraception. Great stat, team journalist! I mean, the study was designed to find only women who would be most likely to use contraception. And it did."
Read more at newsbusters.org, if anyone cares.
Jehovah's Witnesses blood transfusion confusion
**NEWS** Jehovah's Witnesses take blood (now).
They take all fractions of blood. This includes hemoglobin, albumin, clotting factors, cryosupernatant and cryopoor too, and many, many, others.
If one adds up all the blood fractions the JWs takes, it equals a whole unit of blood. Any, many of these fractions are made from thousands upon thousands of units of donated blood.
Jehovah's Witnesses can take Bovine *cows blood* as long as it is euphemistically called synthetic Hemopure.Jehovah's Witnesses also take whole blood, as long as it's called "current therapy." This is something not found in medical literature, per se. But, it is described by the religion as a taking of blood from a person, mixing it with compounds in a lab, and later retransfusing the blood back into the patient.
So, it appears that JWs can have their blood separated from their body and later reuse it too.If this doesn't sound *bloodless* to any of you reading it, it's not. And, the result is that the JWs are questioning their religion's requirement that they not take a blood transfusion.
JWs face being shunned if they do take whole blood, red blood, white blood, or plasma. This shunning is severe and is a complete cutting off from their super close community of friends and relatives.
JWs have to choose between this life or the next, and meander through a religion's not very straightforward blood ban.
www.ajwrb.org is a great resource for doctors and hospitals.
--Danny Haszard
Wa. Post fact checker re: the
Wa. Post fact checker re: the 98% of catholics BS from the far-left.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-claim-that-98-...
madison -
the fact remains that the VAST majority of women use some form of contraception when they are actively having sex and do not wish to become pregnant. It seems to me reading the article that 98% is still accurate, as it does not indicate frequency, only if a woman has ever used a contraceptive. Even if the woman only had sex once, and used contraceptive once, the figure is still acurate.
Look - here's the thing: It's not about the specifics of one religion vs another in terms of what medicine they do and do not choose to use. It's also not about the percentage of women who use a contraception. It's also not about where the money comes from - whether a church organization has an insurance company who includes contraception, or whether that organization pays insurance premiums which will be higher to offset those costs for everyone - what's the difference if they pay a person a salary who then uses that money to buy contraception, or porn, for that matter.
The issue here is PERSONAL FREEDOM from religion, particularly for women. The Republicans shout up and down all day long about how terrible government intrusion into our personal lives is - but somehow have no trouble at all with government intrusion into our bedrooms, or how about a law being signed in Virginia that would FORCE women, even rape victims, to undergo an internal, vaginal ultrasound, prior to obtaining an abortion. The government isn't being intrusive by telling me I have to have a forced ultrasound?
Again, the hypocricy here is simply unbelievable. The truth is that if this issue came to light because a Muslim organization was denying some health care to a Catholic employee, we'd be having an entirely different conversation, and that, in a nutshell, is why the Catholic bishops, all men who've never had sex, cramps, a period, or feared a pregnancy - have NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER telling me when and how I can access health care.
Just try to legislate Viagra for the same reason (If you can't get it up, GOD must not want you to) and see where we are.
It makes me sick that we are even having this conversation in this day and age.
Swimmer
Why are you attempting to have a discussion with madison (or clapso, or blackdog, or grindel or any of the other trolls here)? These people aren't interested in reason or enlightenment...they're just out to score troll points. Hit the ignore button and move on.
There are people, even conservatives, who occasionally frequent this board and are interested in honest, open dialogue. Show them your respect.
It's you, Mister 58, that's
It's you, Mister 58, that's not "interested in reason or enlightenment".
Name calling is all you've got left.
Sheesh, that swimmer has a, shall we say, delicate way with words for a girl...yikes.