In the 02.09.12 edition of The Miscellany News, Juan Thompson penned a column arguing against the Obama administration's decision to make it mandatory that all health insurance plans—including those offered by Catholic universities and charities—provide birth control to women without any co-pay ("HHS order violates nation's right to freedom of religion"). Thompson took the position that the verdict reached by the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) violated our Constitution's freedom of religion, stating that "no bureaucrat at HHS should be ordering America's churches what to do," and even ending his piece with a Jeffersonian flourish.
While I appreciate that Thompson, along with others of his persuasion, clearly wants to respect the religious pluralism in our country and honor the rights that Jefferson sought to preserve, I believe he has put forward a misguided interpretation of the effects of this requirement.
To begin, it would be convenient to review what the law actually does. Thompson used the umbrella-term "religious institutions" rather liberally, but it is important to understand the nuanced and somewhat opaque distinctions that the HHS has made. Under the conscience clause, an employer would be considered religiously affiliated (and, thus, granted exemption from the mandate) if its main purpose is to spread religious beliefs and if a large proportion of its employees are of the same faith.
In fact, in the time since last week's publication, the White House has scaled the law back even further, enabling any non-exempt employers to outsource coverage to a private insurer if they remain morally opposed to providing birth control. But it is worth revisiting the specific circumstances which Thompson was addressing, because they invite an intriguing discussion on the meaning of religious freedoms.
Under the provisions outlined by the HHS, a Catholic parish would meet the standard for exemption but, much to Thompson's lament, a church-run soup kitchen or Georgetown University would more likely be forced to comply with the law. Is this a radical infringement of their freedoms? Absolutely not.
The government is neither obligating churchgoers to use contraceptives nor asking Catholic hospitals to distribute Plan B in their lobbies; rather, the regulation stipulates that these institutions must indirectly subsidize birth control for their employees, which some faiths see as forced participation in evil.
The issue here is that these enterprises are only nominally religious entities, unlike churches, and they have chosen to venture into the broader market for employment, where private actions are to be governed by public rules.
Thompson's retort in his column is that "anyone who chooses to be employed at such a place knows what the church's dogma is," and "no one is forced to work" at these institutions. This is a lazy non sequitur that implies neglect for the very individual freedoms Thompson is trying to defend. Why must a woman "choosing" to be employed at a Jesuit hospital surrender her individual rights to the institution's dogma?
If this were fair, then why should a Randian executive observe minimum-wage laws, or why should these same Catholic associations offer paid maternity leave to homosexual employees? These businesses are partially funded by public, secular, taxpayer money, so it is incumbent upon them to play by the same public, secular rules to which our society has consented.
If it is the freedom to believe and act upon whatever one wants that Thompson is seeking to protect, then these non-exempt institutions should duly honor the individual freedoms of those whom they employ—especially one as significant as the right to choose when to start a family.
To reframe this argument in more empirical terms, a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 58 percent of Catholics support the mandate, and, despite the church's teachings, 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception. This decision will have no binding effect on the slim margin of Catholics who opt not to use the pill.
As for those 98 percent, as well as women of all different faiths across the United States, access to free birth control—either from employer-sponsored or private insurance companies—represents not an assault on freedom, but an ascent toward liberty.
—Jack Mullan '14 is a political science major.
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