Over the course of the weekend, I was immersed into the current argument being fostered by the Catholic Church and its Bishops. This argument goes something like this, because the Affordable Care Act includes provisions that allow for women to access a wide range of birth control and church teachings are against birth control of any form, the Church as an employer of people of many faiths at their universities and hospitals should not be required to provide insurance that covers birth control in any form to these employees regardless of who has to pay for these treatments.
President Obama's administration had hope to side step this issue in the rule writing process by HHS saying that the institution of the Church would not be required to pay for these benefits, that these treatment would be paid for by the insurance provider and not the Church, of course this became problematic in the cases of self insuring institutions. The administration has said that it would work with these entities to resolve this matter. But the Bishops and the Church are currently expressing that they believe the administration may not necessarily be trustworthy on these points in the rules, not withstanding the fact that the administration is trying to resolve these problems working with the Church. The Church is advancing the argument that this provision in the law impinges on the religious freedom of the Church and it's members to live their faith. By this standard every Catholic in a position of power in any company should be working to prevent these legal medical treatments from being provided to any women irrespective of the woman's faith.
In the case where the Church is the employer in venues that are not religious by nature, such as universities and hospitals, the Bishops have failed to understand that religious freedom is an individual's right. The relationship between employer and employee is an inherently unequal one and to have the employer determine benefit based solely on the employer faith is oppressive to those employees that live by a different faith or no faith at all. It is the nature of this relationship that should be used as the determining factor here and not in the favor of the employer. There is a doctrine of fairness when entering into a contract in our legal system, that being the person writing the contract cannot be the sole beneficiary of items that maybe vague in the contract. In this case the point that every employee of an organization under a religious umbrella regardless of the nature of the business will have to live by the religious precepts of the employer was never spelled out to prospective employee. No one who is not a Catholic would knowing enter into a contract where the result is to live as a Catholic but this point was never articulated to the employee at the time they were hired by the Church. But, this is exactly the point that the Bishops are arguing, their faith as employer trumps that of the employee.
If we are to take the Catholic Church and the Bishops at face value with this argument, then what happens to those institutions that do not believe in medical care of any kind (and there are some), will they be allowed to tell their employees to pray for good health as their medical benefits? Of course this might negatively impact the bottom line at those hospitals run by the Church which may claim not-for-profit status but are run as for-profit entities. The advancement of this argument by the Catholic Church and the Bishops seem completely alien to a person raised and weened on the doctrine of social justice that has been espoused for decades by the Church. If the Church really wanted to live by its doctrine then they would pay a living wage that includes the necessary salary for the employee to buy their own health insurance coverage regardless of health status. The only reason that heath insurance is part of employment benefit in the United States stems from an effort to minimize inflation after WWII. If we are to take the Church seriously about social justice then they would have called for a single payer system just as loudly as they are calling for religious freedom today. Alas, all we heard was silence from the Church as 50 million Americans went without health insurance coverage because employer did not offer coverage or they were denied coverage because of preexisting conditions. The Church should have been leading the demonstration against insurance companies and employer executing these practices and policy for us to take them seriously now regarding healthcare reform and living their faith.
