Birth control is sinful? That's religious craziness.

A week after I wrote "Contraception should be covered by religious organizations," I'm still amazed that providing birth control benefits to women via a health insurance plan is controversial in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

This isn't the Dark Ages. The Catholic Church doesn't run the western world. Few people, and certainly not the United States Constitution, believe the Pope is infallible when he makes moral pronouncements. 

So why should the Obama administration, or anyone else, take seriously the freak-out of religious fundamentalists over its decision to require faith-based organizations which employ members of the general public to cover a standard set of preventive services, including contraception, in their health insurance plans?

This already is required by 28 states. Lots of Catholic institutions already pay for birth control. Ninety-eight percent of Catholic women have used birth control, while only 2% use the ineffective rhythm method. 

Contraceptive use by Catholics and Evangelicals—including those who attend religious services most frequently—is the norm, according to a new Guttmacher report. This finding confirms that policies making contraceptives more affordable and easier to use reflect the needs and desires of the vast majority of U.S. women and their partners, regardless of their religious beliefs.

“In real-life America, contraceptive use and strong religious beliefs are highly compatible,” says Rachel K. Jones, the report’s lead author. “Most sexually active women who do not want to become pregnant practice contraception, and most use highly effective methods like sterilization, the pill, or the IUD. This is true for Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants, and it is true for Catholics, despite the Catholic hierarchy’s strenuous opposition to contraception.”

It's an absurd controversy. The only reason it's being taken at all seriously is because a bunch of crazies have grouped together under a religious banner, which supposedly makes their craziness more credible.

Actually, it doesn't.

Being out of touch with reality is crazy whether one person or a million are doing it. There's nothing wrong with using birth control. In fact, there's a lot right with contraception. The Institute of Medicine has recommended that it be included among the preventive services available to women in the Affordable Care Act without deductibles or co-payments. 

I don't know anyone who thinks using birth control is wrong. I bet even most religious people don't know anyone who thinks contraception is sinful. But the Pope does. As do the (male) leaders of the Catholic church.

Who cares? I sure don't.

People believe all kinds of weird things. Some religious crazies don't believe in blood transfusions. Others don't believe in using any sort of medical care. If I'm employed by an organization that serves the general public and gets government support, why should I be controlled by religious craziness that I don't believe in?

Gail Collins gets it right in her New York Times opinion piece.

This new rule on contraceptive coverage is part of the health care reform law, which was designed to finally turn the United States into a country where everyone has basic health coverage. In a sane world, the government would be running the whole health care plan, the employers would be off the hook entirely and we would not be having this fight at all. But members of Congress — including many of the very same people who are howling and rending their garments over the bishops’ plight — deemed the current patchwork system untouchable.

The churches themselves don’t have to provide contraceptive coverage. Neither do organizations that are closely tied to a religion’s doctrinal mission. We are talking about places like hospitals and universities that rely heavily on government money and hire people from outside the faith.

We are arguing about whether women who do not agree with the church position, or who are often not even Catholic, should be denied health care coverage that everyone else gets because their employer has a religious objection to it. If so, what happens if an employer belongs to a religion that forbids certain types of blood transfusions? Or disapproves of any medical intervention to interfere with the working of God on the human body?

Organized religion thrives in this country, so the system we’ve worked out seems to be serving it pretty well. Religions don’t get to force their particular dogma on the larger public. The government, in return, protects the right of every religion to make its case heard.

Comments

[tucson]

Blogger Brian wrote: "So why should the Obama administration, or anyone else, take seriously the freak-out of religious fundamentalists over its decision to require faith-based organizations which employ members of the general public to cover a standard set of preventive services, including contraception, in their health insurance plans?"

--Because they take it seriously whether we do or not. Religious freedom is a Constitutional right.

To me, most religion is unbelievable. The Pope and Catholic ritual appear absurd, comical, even bizarre. When it comes to religion, I even find myself agreeing with Bill Mahr who I disagree with on the majority other things.

But, I think privately owned faith-based organizations should be able to set the standards and policies they want within their own businesses or management. If you don't want to accept their insurance coverage and views on contraception, don't work for them.

The government shouldn't be meddling in this stuff.Why do people want government controlling every facet of their lives? This is the way tyranny sets in.

I want to be left alone.

[Brian Hines]

tucson, I'm fine with people, or religious organizations, wanting to be left alone. But here's the problem:

Society is interconnected. If a Catholic hospital, college, or whatever accepts taxpayer funding, and has tax-exempt status, and employs people of all sorts of faiths, then it needs to be bound by laws that apply to everybody else.

What a church does privately is, mostly, up to the church. Once it takes taxpayer money though (Medicare, Medicaid, college loans, etc.) it should be bound by laws that apply to everybody else.

Should I be able to reduce my taxes by the amount I don't want to pay for the military budget? Wouldn't it be absurd if every individual could invoke his/her own "conscience clause" and say, "This law doesn't apply to me because it offends my moral sensibilities."

Take a look at this Mother Jones piece. The guy makes some great points on this subject:

http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/why-im-so-hardnosed-over-contraception-affair

[Rain]

I wrote on this today too and said what I'd say here but it'd turn this into a blog http://rainydaythings.blogspot.com/2012/02/social-issues-to-determine-election.html Naturally I agree with you. This is nuts! but it's how it's going in this country right now. Ironic is all I can say.

[Jim Jones]

So ... the lying ass politicians are all for supporting the Catholic position on birth control? But not the Catholic position on executions? Can you say 'hypocrisy'?

[Brian Hines]

Jim, you're right: hopefully the Republicans now will embrace doing away with the death penalty. This post lists some other social issues on the Catholic agenda that the GOP isn't big on.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/08/1062959/-The-GOP-s-war-on-religion-or-two-can-play-that-game-

[tucson]

Blogger Brian wrote: "What a church does privately is, mostly, up to the church. Once it takes taxpayer money though (Medicare, Medicaid, college loans, etc.) it should be bound by laws that apply to everybody else."

--Yep. This is true. You can't accept public money and not expect to play by their rules.

Re: Death Penalty... There are some people that are too dangerous to be kept alive. Hannibal Lecter is a fiction in name only.

[Richard van Pelt]

Free exercise of one's faith requires the state to maintain its distance and not overtly favor one set of sectarian values over another. Freedom of religion is a coin with two sides: free exercise and separation of church and state. The bonking repugs want to split that coin; which to do so would make a mockery of the provision.

This entire debate is the best argument I can think of for a single payer system.

You go into the Salem Clinic. Your physician is a devout Roman Catholic. You ask her for a prescription for birth control or a morning after pill. Let's say you attend the same church and you are RC. She has to prescribe the contraceptive.

Now, imagine that you work at the University of Portland. You are not RC. Your insurance is provided by your employer, the UofP. You go into (1) Salem clinic, and though you can get the prescription, it is not covered by your insurance, or (2) you go into a clinic run by the Church and they refuse to give you the prescription.

However you slice it, your wish for contraception will be denied or cost you in order to insure some have their concept of the free exercise of religion.

[Richard van Pelt]

I once wrote that this issue was one side of a two sided coin. Now I think it is the same side of the same coin. Let me explain:

The Church opposes how contraception is paid for. They argue that their faith is being compromised by such a decision. YET: they argue that birth control should be banned as a matter of public policy.

The tenet they see being trampled is the same tenet they choose to impose on the rest of us.

I have no argument with the standards they impose on their communicants; I do when they seek to impose that tenet on me.