Last week, thanks to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal government took a giant leap toward encroaching on the religious liberty of Catholics. Reuben Daniels Jr., director of the EEOC District Office in Charlotte, N.C, ruled that a small Catholic college discriminated against female employees by refusing to cover prescription contraceptives in its health insurance plan. With health-care reform looming before the country, this ruling is a bad omen for people of faith.
In 2007, eight faculty members filed a complaint against Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., claiming that the school’s decision to exclude prescription contraceptives from its health-care plan was discriminatory against women. “As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church,” said the college’s president, William Thierfelder, at the time.
In March the commission informed the college that the investigation of its employee health insurance plan had been closed with no finding of wrongdoing. Inexplicably, the case was reopened, and now the college is charged with violating federal law. If Belmont Abbey doesn’t back down, the EEOC will recommend court remedies.
(1) The plan does not discriminate against women generically. It discriminates against risky conduct that violates church teaching.
(2) Planned Parenthood will be happy to provide prescriptions and even pills (if there’s a financial need).
Why involve Big Government in matters like this affecting religious freedom and private choices?
w.w.
Getting Big Government involved is their point w.w.
Can’t have those pesky orthodox church types trying to live their faith. It is a brave new post-modern world.
It is an attack aimed at driving religion, in particular Christianity, from the public sector.
From the comments:
[blockquote]please note that Belmont Abbey College was in court a few years back arguing their best that they were not a religious organization in order to get state funding. They won that case and got state funding. Now when they have to pay for benefits if they are not religious they claim to be religious.[/blockquote]
It is true that if you take the King’s coin you do the King’s bidding. This also illustrates what I think is government overreaching. Government should be prohibited from attaching strings to government funds that force people to do what government couldn’t force them to do directly.
I agree with Br Michael above. However, in the USA the “King’s Coin” is the people’s coin. I think it would be good if several such cases were to come up in the next while just to open the discussion that would necessarily lead to the conclusion that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religious expression which, in the modern age, includes the right of religious institutions to refuse to fund or insure things that are morally repugnant. My family doctor, a devout RC, will not prescribe contraceptives or refer women for abortions, and he’s just been made chief of staff in the regional health authority– and this is Canada, the land of gov’t-run healthcare! So all you Americans need to step up to the microphone!
Odd. In all of my years of working for secular companies, contraception was never covered by our insurance policies. I needed the pills for a medical condition (endometriosis), and they still weren’t covered. I also had to fight with them to cover my annual “well-woman” checkup and tests.
Some insurance companies do seem to balk about women’s care and this does need to be corrected, but not at the expense of the right to follow one’s religious beliefs. As a former RC, though, I will point out that the RCC can go overboard. One priest told me I was sinning by taking BCPs for my medical condition because their action of preventing a pregnancy could lead me to wrongful behavior. That was almost as delightful as an insurance company previously refusing to pay for my Pap smear, citing a “pre-existing condition.” There was no “condition” at that time, except for the fact that I was a woman.