The religious freedom of an organization to dominate or control the religious freedom of choice of individuals - which freedom should prevail; The organization's religious freedom or the individual's personal right of religious freedom?
The US Conference of Catholic bishops (USCCB) are incensed at the decision by the Obama administration to guarantee that the women's health care benefit package in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes contraceptive care. Beginning in August 2012, all of the services in this benefit package will be available in new insurance plans without any out-of-pocket costs to women.
The rule specifically exempts pervasively religious institutions like houses of worship from offering their employees birth control coverage as part of their health insurance. Even so, in a USCCB video, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, the former Archbishop of Milwaukee, angrily invokes religious freedom, protected by the “very first amendment,” in castigating the policy that private insurance must provide reproductive health care to women. Archbishop Dolan calls upon his flock to contact their elected officials and let them know that “religious liberty must be restored.”
Under a cloak of reverence for religious freedom, the bishops say reproductive health care must be denied to women and men of other religious faiths, and even to American Catholics – most of whom disagree with the archbishop.
There are already approximately 335,000 churches and houses of worship that are not required to provide reproductive health care services for their employees because of religious exemption. Now the Bishops claim that their religion also exempts them from providing preventive health care services to the millions of employees -- many of whom are not even Catholic -- at Catholic owned businesses, like hospitals and Universities!
Add to those direct employees of Catholic owned businesses the families of workers who are covered under the employee insurance program, too.
Statistics show that most insurance plans already cover birth control and 28 states require it. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in announcing the Administration's decision, explained that birth control is the most commonly taken drug in the U.S. by young and middle-aged women -- and that holds true of women across the religious spectrum. Ninety-eight percent of all American women, Catholic and otherwise, report using birth control during their lifetime.
The lobbying against reproductive health care for women by the Catholic bishops has been widely publicized. What hasn't gotten as much attention is that many faith-based groups, including the National Council of Jewish Women weighed in on the other side.
NCJW says that this is an issue of religious liberty -- although there are differing religious views on the use of contraception, it should be up to women to decide on whether and when to use contraception based on their own beliefs and needs. On this most-personal decision, no woman should be forced to abide by the religious views of her bosses at work or those of her insured spouse's employer.
Many people do not remember that the purchase and use of birth control products and literature about birth control options, even by married couples, was against the law in many states until 1965. There are those who, for the last 46 years, have worked to reverse the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court finding that Americans have a fundamental right of privacy. That right includes making family planning decisions and the right to learn about and use birth control contraceptives. Among those who have worked to reverse Griswold v. Connecticut is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops may be one of the quietest, yet most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill, with political allies that have enabled them to roll back decades of law and precedent in reproductive rights for women. Among those political allies are the 2012 GOP presidential candidates and Republicans who currently control the U.S. House of Representatives. This group of men, blessed with a strong personal interest in women’s bodies, have quietly influenced all of the major legislation on reproductive health care over the past several years.
