by Ken Burrows
For many months now, in the wake of the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for employers’ insurance policies to cover contraceptive drugs and services, the Catholic Church has taken vehement exception to this requirement. Churches themselves are exempt from the mandate, but the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) insists the requirement forces certain Catholic-affiliated entities (e.g., hospitals, universities, social service agencies) to violate their conscience, apparently on the assumption such entities share (or should share) the same religious objection as the church to contraception.
A February 2012 pastoral letter from Cardinal Timothy Dolan on the topic spoke of concern for “the reverence for conscience.” The following month another letter from Cardinal Dolan referred to the right “of any faith to define its own teaching” and the right of every person of faith to not be forced to “violate their conscience.” The April Statement on Religious Liberty issued by the USCCB asserted that religious freedom goes beyond freedom to worship and must also guarantee “respect for freedom of conscience.” The day after the presidential election, Cardinal Dolan wrote a letter to President Obama congratulating him on his victory while also reminding him, “We will continue to stand in defense of … our first, most cherished liberty, religious freedom [emphasis in original],” which presumably also includes, as the USCCB said, freedom of conscience.
Competing consciences?
So it’s clear that the Catholic hierarchy, in pressing this issue, is claiming a deep and enduring moral certitude in its opposition to contraception. That’s what it means to say something is a matter of conscience. It seems equally clear the church is insisting there is both a personal and an institutional conscience to be safeguarded. For even though the church’s language frequently refers to the contraception mandate violating a person’s conscience, the Affordable Care Act certainly does not mandate any contraception usage by an individual. It merely requires only that contraceptives be made generally available by an institution. Yet this is what the church adamantly opposes, thereby ascribing conscience to the institution as well. One might even interpret that to mean the church believes institutional conscience overrides personal conscience, because the church’s position makes no exception to allow for contraception insurance to be provided to individuals in these institutions whose personal consciences would not be violated by it.
On the basis of claiming this institutional, conscientious opposition to contraception, the church now seeks to withhold contraceptive insurance coverage to persons who live beyond its own congregation walls. That’s an extraordinary contraction of individual freedom for the church to try to impose, so it is fair to ask: Is the church’s position here substantive and genuine enough to warrant that? Just how deeply conscientious is the church’s opposition to contraception? How morally urgent is it? Or to ask it in a more pointed way: Is this opposition more about conscience or about control?
A walk through history serves to confirm these are valid questions to ask. Continue reading
