A new federal regulation that would require employer insurance plans to provide contraceptives that some consider abortifacient and voluntary sterilization among cost-free preventive care measures such as inoculations and Pap smears is being greeted with varying levels of dismay in Catholic dioceses across the country.
The regulation provides a narrow religious exemption for an employer that “(1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a nonprofit organization” under specific sections of the Internal Revenue Code.
This definition is “a direct infringement on our ability to do ministry,” said George Wesolek, communications director for the Archdiocese of San Francisco. “It’s part of a larger issue,” he said. “The room for religious liberty is getting narrower and narrower” in the United States.
Ha ha. I’ve been watching this post all afternoon to see if any Anglicans would dare to comment on it, since we’ve been so wishy-washy on contraception for 80+ years. It’s so entangled with all other aspects of the sexual revolution that a lot of folks are afraid to speak on it lest they step on toes by implying that certain other “advances” in the revolution might have been bad mistakes.
I thought this was the “money quote”:
[blockquote]”It’s part of a larger issue,” he said. “The room for religious liberty is getting narrower and narrower” in the United States.[/blockquote]
RE: “I’ve been watching this post all afternoon to see if any Anglicans would dare to comment on it, since we’ve been so wishy-washy on contraception for 80+ years.”
Not certain why Anglicans would be nervous about commenting on it — I didn’t because the larger issue with regards to health insurance isn’t about abortifacient “contraceptives” but about the fact that the State has forced insurance plans to lard up insurance with all sorts of stuff that many don’t need and don’t want to pay for. We should “let a thousand flowers bloom” and have insurance plans that are customized for the groups that decide to buy them, based on those groups criteria — without the attempts by the State to enforce their central planning edicts — than the RC Dioceses wouldn’t have a problem anyway, regardless of their religious beliefs.
That’s the first thing I thought when reading the headline and so I passed over the topic, and only became interested enough to look at the comments — only to see an odd comment from Ian+ which makes little sense.
Of course, I’m aware that Anglicans and RCs differ with regards to contraception. I’ve always found it humorous that RC teaching is just fine with separating sex from the possibility of procreation [i]with regards to their NFP[/i], but not with regards to chemical contraceptions. The glaring inconsistency has just caused me to shrug my shoulders.
Indifference isn’t fear, though. It’s just indifference.
And *all* “progress” may lead to bad things — even air conditioning, which has caused all of us to leave our front porches and distance ourselves from neighbors and community.
Air conditioning, it may be argued, was “the slippery slope” that led to fracture and fragmentation in our society. But you sure won’t hear me saying that air conditioning was a “bad mistake.”
Nevertheless, I feel bad for the RCs that they’re caught up in the dreadful schemes by the State to force insurance companies to lard up policies with things the buyers don’t want. It’s why the government should not be involved in healthcare at all — they have eliminated the free market and the central planners are now forcing RCs to buy plans with contraceptive “benefits” that the RCs don’t want and that violate the RCs beliefs.
Just awful.
Can’t wait until November of 2012.
I think Ian+ is referring to the fact that the 1930 Lambeth meeting was the first time any Christian church (in this case, the Anglicans) allowed artificial contraception to be legitimate and reversed millenia of church teaching and understanding. This opened the floodgate in many ways to legitimize all forms of birth control, ultimately leading (in my opinion), to abortion. After all, if you’re taking birth control to keep from becoming pregnant, it’s not really your fault if it doesn’t work, so what do you do?
The decision to allow artificial contraception also helped lead to the separation of sex from childbearing, the results of which are all around us. Now, of course, the Lambeth conference didn’t cause this, it just once again illustrated the pull of the secular culture on that religious institution.
Hi Branford — I’m well aware of the 1930 Lambeth decision.
It’s a bit rich stating that it reversed millenia of church teaching when reliable chemical contraception only began to exist in the 1800s and not even in pill form.
But regardless, I don’t believe that separating sex from childbearing is intrinsically immoral [not to mention, of course, that NFP attempts to do precisely the same thing only “naturally” which is also rich, considering that the rhythm method wasn’t developed until the earl 20th century] and therefore the Lambeth decision of 1930 was a sound one and to be happily applauded.
Once again, the claim that the allowance of something that is not intrinsically sinful — the separation of sex from procreation — leads to something that *is* intrinsically sinful may be made about any number of literally millions of activities and doesn’t really say much about the original allowance.
But, Sarah, you regarding separating sex from childbearing not intrinsically immoral doesn’t necessarily make it so, especially according to the RC Church. So we each choose our own definitions of immoral and happily go to our own churches. The RC Church holds that NFP is still open to life in ways that artificial or chemical contraception is not, and that NFP doesn’t alter the fertility of the woman–these reasons might not resonate with you, but they do make sense to others.
But now the government is telling us that this reasoning is not allowed in the secular world, and making the RC Church participate in that which she holds intrinsically immoral.
To further clarify — we have three issues under discussion here.
1) Acts separating sex from the possibility of childbearing are intrinsically immoral — I disagree with that assertion.
2) NFP is consistent with the belief that acts separating sex from the possibility of childbearing are intrinsically immoral. I disagree as well with that — NFP is clearly “unnatural,” based on very modern science [prior to the 1800s people didn’t know about the influence of hormones on fertilization and most certainly didn’t understand that only during certain times of a month were women fertile, much less did they not have complicated charts for determining such things] — so the practice of NFP violates the principle that acts separating sex from the possibility of childbearing are intrinsically immoral and the distinction between NFP and chemical contraception that the RCs make is obviously deeply strained.
3) Finally, the allowance of not-immoral acts which often lead to *immoral acts* doesn’t say much at all about the allowance of the not-immoral act, unless the thesis is that the not-immoral act is actually intrinsically immmoral. History reveals that millions of moral acts may lead to all sorts of consequences that nobody expected, some good, some bad. All one can do is to do the *right thing* and let the chips fall where they may. The allowance of chemical contraception by the Lambeth Conference was a good thing, and I’m pleased that the 1930 LC did so. The fact that any number of factors — from scores to hundreds of factors — led to intrinsically immoral acts like legalized abortion [since of course abortion was practiced centuries before we had chemical contraception — so I assume it was the legalization and acceptance of such a practice that is the perceived end-result of the chemical contraception] is neither here nor there. As I said, air conditioning, in conjunction with various other trends and factors — led to any number of dreadful consequences for our society, but air conditioning in and of itself was not intrinsically immoral.
Sadly the three issues mentioned above take away from the real issue concerning health insurance policies in the US — and that is the government’s insistence on creating the contracts *they* want rather than allowing free contracts to be created between the purchaser and the seller. If the latter were done, our health insurance would be far cheaper and far more useful. But alas, that does not fit in with the values and worldview of our central planners, who wish to inflict their values and worldview on all Americans.
RE: “But, Sarah, you regarding separating sex from childbearing not intrinsically immoral doesn’t necessarily make it so, especially according to the RC Church.”
Right — I understand that you and I are merely trading assertions of belief for clarity’s sake — I’m not trying to convince you of anything and as I believe I’ve made clear I certainly believe that the RCs should be allowed to form whatever health insurance policy fits in with their beliefs and needs — the State has larded up our health insurance with *masses* of things that most of us don’t need, not merely chemical contraceptives.
Keep in mind that I commented here solely because — again — of the very strange comment of Ian+ which seemed to imply that Anglicans would not “dare” to comment on it because of some sort of assumed fear of stepping on toes or secret belief that somehow our decision in 1930 was a matter of shame or embarrassment.
I think I’ve demonstrated otherwise.
Can’t wait till November of 2012.
#7: Your arguments are consistent except for point 2. The point that NFP was developed recently is wholly irrelevant to the question of whether it is natural or whether it intrinsically frustrates natural mechanisms.
Most scientists would want to say that what they are doing is discovering things about the natural world, not constructing an unnatural one – and this irrespective of the date of their research or the publication of their findings.