Nobody is denying birth control to women. Period.
The Obama administration’s insistence on forcing the Catholic Church and its affiliated charities to provide insurance coverage for birth control isn’t a women’s health issue. It’s a matter of freedom of religion.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The Catholic Church doesn’t believe in birth control. It believes the creation of human life is God’s design, and contraception deliberately violates God’s design. As the Lord’s Prayer states, “Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.”
Until 1930, all Protestant denominations shared the Catholic teaching of contraception as sinful, according to Catholic Answers. But in 1930, the Anglican Church caved to social pressure and allowed contraception. Other churches followed.
Then, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Roe vs. Wade that the Constitution contains a right to privacy, so women could legally terminate pregnancies.
Even as a teenager, I was adamantly pro-life. I remember having a conversation with my mother, suggesting the Catholic Church should allow birth control as a way to curtail the number of abortions. She responded, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
People are free to disagree with the church’s stance. But the government has no right to force the church to violate its own teachings by providing insurance coverage for birth control.
And the so-called compromise, shifting the cost of contraceptives, is a sham. It still requires religious institutions to provide coverage for something that violates the tenets of their faith, whether they pay for it or not.
It’s a women’s health issue, advocates cry. But pregnancy isn’t a disease.
And I’m sure that if a woman needed hormonal medication for a physical ailment, all insurance companies would provide it, even those serving Catholic charities. But requiring coverage of all birth control violates the church’s “free exercise” of its religious freedom. You might as well require all Jewish synagogues and Muslim mosques to keep ham, bacon, and pork chops on hand — just in case anyone wants it.
Liberal women are so quick to say it’s a woman’s “choice” to terminate a pregnancy. Women also have the “choice” to attend Catholic universities or work in Catholic hospitals. If they don’t like the insurance offered by Catholic institutions, they should feel free go somewhere else (or stay and pay for their contraceptives). It’s a free country—at least it’s supposed to be.
Contrary to what some may believe, women are not dumb animals unable to curtail sexual urges. Women who use their brains, rather than their bodies, will think through the consequences of actions before engaging in them. If they don’t want to become pregnant, they’ll take precautions—either avoiding sexual intercourse or practicing birth control (whether their insurance covers the cost or not). It’s called personal responsibility.
Although I would never call her nasty names, I find it hard to sympathize with Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who testified before Congress urging lawmakers to require Catholic institutions to provide birth control coverage. The requirements of Obamacare pushed my family’s insurance premiums so high we can’t afford any prescription coverage—not even antibiotics.
Although you may have no problem with the government stomping on Catholic religious freedoms, consider this: If the government can violate one part of the Constitution or Bill of Rights, what’s to stop it from violating other sections—perhaps your right to keep and bear arms?
Finally, for people so insistent that women have some sort of “right to privacy,” liberals seem quick to air their private bedroom matters in the public arena.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com
