Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Forced to Provide Contraceptive Coverage, Sins Not

May 29, 2013 By 34 Comments

Negligence.  Ignorance.  Inertia.

These are some of the reasons why Catholic dioceses might offer employees’ health insurance plans which include coverage for contraception which violates Church teaching, according to Dr. Janet Smith.

Dr. Smith, who holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, was Al Kresta’s guest on “Kresta in the Afternoon” May 28.  She was responding to a New York Times article which reported that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, is providing contraception coverage to his own employees, while campaigning against such coverage on the national level.

Dr. Janet Smith

Is the Archdiocese of New York, as the article implies, being disingenuous or less than transparent by providing contraceptive coverage while opposing the HHS Mandate?  No, explained Smith.

  • For one thing, state law in New York mandated that employers provide the coverage; and many U.S. bishops have assumed control of dioceses in which longstanding insurance policies include birth control and abortion coverage.
  • Secondly, some in the Church during the years following the Second Vatican Council may have expected that canon law on the subject of contraception would eventually change; and insurance policies which anticipated that change by offering contraceptive care may not have raised concern at the time.
  • A third explanation which Smith cited is that Cardinal Dolan’s and the USCCB’s resistance to the HHS Mandate has caused some to review their existing health care policies.  As a result, many Catholic dioceses may only recently have “discovered” that the standard group insurance package which they purchased for their employees includes coverage for contraceptive services.
  • And Cardinal Dolan may simply be directing his energies where he feels they can have the most impact.  As head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Dolan has decided to fight the HHS Mandate on the national level.  If he wins at that level, it will be easier to win at the state level, not only in New York but around the country.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

In the Archdiocese of New York, the late Cardinal John J. O’Connor did, in fact, resist the state’s requirement that all employers provide insurance which included contraceptive services.  After efforts in the early ‘90s to eliminate birth control coverage from the archdiocese’s medical plan, he eventually decided that there was no other option, if the Catholic Church was to continue to provide health care to its union-affiliated employees in the city of New York.

Not all the staff employed by the Archdiocese of New York currently have contraceptive coverage.  However, workers in the Catholic Health Care System, also known as ArchCare, do receive coverage for contraception and abortions because they are members of SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a healthcare workers’ union.   ArchCare belongs to the League of Voluntary Hospitals and Homes; that organization negotiates a joint labor contract with the union.

Of the 3,000 unionized full-time workers in ArchCare, it is not known how many have chosen to avail themselves of the contraception benefit.

One last question raised by Al Kresta concerned the issue of intrinsic evil.  Is the Church cooperating with evil if it affiliates with hospitals whose health care plan for unionized employees includes contraceptive coverage?

Dr. Smith laughed, noting that God gave us everything we have, even while knowing that some humans would do some terrible things:  God provided Adam and Eve with the tree and the apple, and He gave them the possibility of eating the apple from the tree.  God was not, however, complicit in their sin.  Similarly, if a thief puts a gun to your head and demands that you drive him to the airport, you are under duress and are not guilty of material cooperation for driving him.  Likewise the Catholic Church, if required to include birth control and abortion in their insurance coverage, is not culpable if the insured then utilizes that coverage.

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This article appears concurrently on the Kresta in the Afternoon blog.  Check it out here.

 

Filed Under: Cardinal Dolan, Catholic Tagged With: , , 34 Comments

In Michigan, Pro-Lifers Surge Forward to Resist the HHS Abortion Mandate

May 24, 2013 By Leave a Comment

“People don’t want to pay for other people’s abortions.” 

That’s Barbara Listing, president of Right To Life of Michigan, explaining to reporters why the pro-life organization is sponsoring an initiative which would require health insurance companies to offer elective abortion coverage in an optional rider, not in the basic health insurance policy.  Individuals and businesses would be able to select abortion coverage under all private and public insurance plans, but would not be required to purchase it as part of an overall health package.

The restriction on abortion coverage was first proposed in Michigan last year, as part of the Blue Cross health overhaul.  The measure was vetoed by Michigan’s Republican Governor Rick Snyder, who called it “too cruel” to women who had become pregnant by rape or who had a medical condition which made a pregnancy risky for the mother’s health.  After the governor’s veto, the state legislature presented a revised version of the legislation which did not contain the abortion restriction.

Michigan pro-life organizations did not give up on the idea, however.  As implementation of the Affordable Care Act nears, Right To Life of Michigan drafted a petition which would ban Michigan health insurance plans from covering abortions without a supplemental policy.

And on Wednesday, May 22, the four-person Michigan State Board of Canvassers ruled that the petition form started by a group called No Taxes for Abortion Insurance complies with state law, thus clearing the way for Right To Life of Michigan to embark on a statewide petition drive.  If by next spring the group collects at least 258,000 valid signatures (8 percent of voters who voted in the last gubernatorial election), it will move forward—and the Legislature will have 40 days to either pass or reject the proposal before it’s placed on the ballot.

The odds of passage look pretty good:  If the Legislature doesn’t act, the proposal will automatically appear on the November ballot.  If the Legislature opposes the proposal, it will still appear on the ballot, although legislators could also post a separate, competing proposal.  But since the Michigan Legislature had voted for the legislation once before, it’s likely that they will approve it once again and it will be adopted by a majority vote of the State House and Senate, immune to gubernatorial veto.

Right To Life of Michigan has a strong track record as promoter of voter-initiated legislation.

  • In 1987, RTL-M successfully pushed through a ban on Medicaid funding for abortions.
  • In 1990, they initiated parental consent legislation which was signed into law.
  • In 2004, Right To Life of Michigan was successful in their campaign to outlaw partial-birth abortion in the state.

Asked by reporters why people should have to purchase supplemental insurance coverage in case they are raped, Barbara Listing explained, “Nobody plans to have … a car accident, nobody plans to have their homes flooded.  They have to buy extra insurance for those things too.”

If the measure is put in place before the federal Affordable Health Care Act takes effect, Michigan will be the 22nd state to implement such a policy.

Filed Under: Abortion Tagged With: , Leave a Comment

Peter Singer: “Just Close Your Doors, and All Will Be Well”

June 22, 2012 By 7 Comments

Only the second day of the Fortnight for Freedom, and already, there emerges a new idea from a new corner for resolving that pesky old religious liberty problem!

OR NOT.

You remember Peter Singer, that colorful and controversial bioethicist from Princeton University who thinks that animals are people, too, and who advocates for child-killing up until the age of two? 

Singer contends that there’s no real difference between the child in the womb and the newborn.  So far, so good!  However, he then takes a leap so preposterous that everyone—from the lawyers to the politicians to the mother and father out in there in small-town America—recoils in horror at the natural extension of abortion-on-demand:  Singer suggests that since we permit abortion, we should likewise permit parents to kill their infants and toddlers if they choose, for any reason, since they are not yet rational persons worthy of protection.

Now, demonstrating the same propensity for embracing the abhorrent, Singer proposes a solution to the conflict between the Obama Administration and the Catholic Church regarding the HHS Mandate:  

Just close your institutions. 

In a column published June 17, 2012 in the progressive journal Cap Times, Singer asserts that “the Obama administration’s requirement to provide health insurance that covers contraception does not prevent Catholics from practicing their religion. Catholicism does not oblige its adherents to run hospitals and universities.” 

Actually, Dr. Singer, you’re wrong.  The Bible does offer quite a bit of evidence that adherents of the Catholic faith—and Christians in general—must serve the sick and the poor. 

The Golden Rule pops up in Matthew 7:12:  “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” And in Luke 6:31:  “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.”

James 2:14-18 is even more explicit in requiring that faith be demonstrated by works of mercy: 

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?  Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.”

At the last judgment, Jesus explains in Matthew 25, the Lord will separate the “sheep and the goats”—those who have done his will and those who have not: 

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;   naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’  Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?  And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?  When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’  The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘ Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not [a]take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

In his article, Singer speculates (wrongly) that Catholics would give up their precious beliefs before they would surrender their expensive institutions. 

“Of course,” Singer writes, “the Catholic Church would be understandably reluctant to give up its extensive networks of hospitals and universities. My guess is that, before doing so, they would come to see the provision of health-insurance coverage for contraception as compatible with their religious teachings.”

He goes on to recommend that the Catholics could simply give away their institutions, abandon their mission to serve the poor and the sick and to educate their young people, and all will be fine. 

“But, if the church made the opposite decision,” Singer writes, “and handed over its hospitals and universities to bodies that were willing to provide the coverage, Catholics would still be free to worship and follow their religion’s teachings.”

Finally, a way to respectfully and effectively use the words of Michigan State Representative Lisa Brown:  Sorry, Dr. Singer, but No means No.

Filed Under: Religious Liberty Tagged With: , 7 Comments