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PDF versionProminent RCs Write To Sebelius on Conscience Protections
by Michael Sean Winters on Aug. 26, 2011
At noon Friday, a group of prominent Catholics released a letter to Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recommending that she amend the proposed rule on mandated health care coverage to provide for more expansive conscience protections for religious organizations. The letter is signed by some of the same academics who penned a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner in advance of his commencement address at Catholic University in May, calling on him to support policies that reflect Catholic social teaching. The main organizer of both letters is Professor Stephen Schneck, Director of CUA’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies.
In addition to academics such as Schneck, Georgetown’s Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J., Lisa Sowle Cahill of Boston College, Margaret Steinfels of Fordham and Duquesne University law professor Nicholas Cafardi, the letter is signed by former Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper, one of the pro-life Democrats unseated in last year’s midterm elections as well as Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life, and Sr. Simone Campbell of the social justice group NETWORK. These are the kinds of Catholics that the Obama administration has reached out to in the past, especially during the battle over health care reform, and so the impact of their call for more expansive conscience protections is likely to be heard in the White House. Indeed, the full list reads like a "Who's Who" of prominent Catholics whose politics tilt to the left.
The letter will be delivered to Secretary Sebelius formally and will be submitted under the guidelines governing public comment on the new rule, which was announced August 1 with a 60-day comment period. The full text of the letter follows.
Dear Secretary Sebelius,
We are an ad hoc group of Catholic leaders and professors, many of whom were associated with the letter addressing Speaker Boehner’s legislative commitment to the poor ahead of his commencement address at The Catholic University of America in May. We write to you, however, to advocate enlarging conscience protections in the mandated insurance programs of the Affordable Care Act.
The Institute of Medicine’s recent determination that insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act must extend contraception coverage in all plans—to include even post-fertilization drugs and sterilization—raised conscience protection concerns for a number of religious organizations. In response to those concerns, Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed interim final rules that do provide limited exemptions to religious organizations. However, those exemptions as currently proposed would not extend to many important religious organizations.
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The current language limits conscience protection to organizations that 1) have the inculcation of religious values as their purpose; 2) primarily employ those that share their religious tenets; 3) primarily serve persons who share their religious tenets; and 4) are a non-profit organizations. This language is too restrictive.
Catholic charities and Catholic hospitals do not fit the rule’s definition of religious organization. Catholic schools, colleges, and universities also might not fit the current definition. In light of the First Amendment’s protection of religious practice and of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s forbidding of discrimination for religious belief and insistence on accommodation of religion in the workplace, we propose expanding the definition of religious organization in the final rule to extend conscience protection to religious charities, religious hospitals, and religious schools in regards to mandated health insurance coverage.
Title 26 of the United States Code offers appropriate guidance for defining religious organizations. The HHS interim rule references Title 26 for such consideration. Accordingly, we propose defining a religious organization as one meeting the following criteria:
If it 1) is non-profit religious, educational, or charitable organization; 2) if it engages its religious, charitable, or educational activities for bona fide religious purposes or reasons; and if 3) it holds itself out to the public as a religious organization.
Courts have applied a similar set of criteria in various contexts and have found that organizations should be exempt as "religious" because their charitable or educational activities were deeply religiously motivated, even though those activities did not primarily involve explicit proselytizing or teaching of religion and were not limited to members of the faith community in question. See, e.g., Spencer v. World Vision, Inc., 633 F.3d 723 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc) ("religious organization" exempt under Title VII; evangelical Protestant humanitarian relief agency); LeBoon v. Lancaster Jewish Community Center Assn., 503 F.2d 217 (3d Cir. 2007) (same Title VII exemption for Jewish-oriented community organization); University of Great Falls v. NLRB, 278 F.3d 1335 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (ecumenically oriented Catholic college protected from NLRB jurisdiction over faculty); Universidad Cent. de Bayamon v. NLRB, 793 F.2d 383 (1st Cir. 1985) (Breyer, J.) (Catholic college; NLRB jurisdiction over faculty). As the court stated in Great Falls, 278 F.3d at 1346, limiting "exemption to religious institutions with hard-nosed proselytizing, that limit their enrollment to members of their religion, . . . is an unnecessarily stunted view of the law, and perhaps even itself a violation of the most basic command of the Establishment Clause-not to prefer some religions (and thereby some approaches to indoctrinating religion) to others."
Secretary Sebelius, the language of Title 26 more fully reflects the intentions of the First Amendment and the Civil Rights Act as they pertain to matters of religious conscience. In regard to the mandated insurance coverage of the Affordable Care Act, the language of Title 26 would extend conscience protections to religious organizations on the front lines of the Catholic Church’s ancient mission to the poor and the sick.
Regarding: " The HHS interim
Regarding: " The HHS interim rule references Title 26 for such consideration."
- That Secretary Sebelius did not ground the proposed rules more thoroughly in the definitions of Title 26 causes wonder.
Hi Mike, Could you please
Hi Mike,
Could you please provide a copy of the list of signatories, as was previously provided for the Boehner letter?
Did the leadership of the
Did the leadership of the LCWR sign?
Why the need to point out
Why the need to point out that they were the same people who objected to Boehner at CUA?
That is an odd way to start a letter.
This is not unlike the issue
This is not unlike the issue of archdioceses wanting to deliberately flaunt civil law regarding foster/adoption placements. Want to discriminate? Feel free. But don't take federal or state monies and self-finance EVERYTHING.
Likewise, it's absolutely fine if Catholics want to restrict the healthcare services they provide in their institutions to those which they conscientiously approve. However -- and this is the BIG however -- they can't take state or federal monies if they want to do this. It's pretty basic.
I'd go a step further, which step I've suggested before: for Catholic hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, there should be large, public disclaimers in prominent places of entrance (emergency rooms, admission offices, etc.) which state: WARNING: THIS INSTITUTION IS NOT A FULL-SERVICE HEALTHCARE FACILITY. Then list ALL the services which will be refused, including all the particulars of end-of-life care that will have the Catholic hospital's values override the patient's expressed wishes. It'll be a long list (from "don't expect accurate information here about HIV/AIDS prevention and STDs" to "we'll keep you alive with machines until your heart stops naturally, and continue nutrition and hydration despite patient's or family's wishes, even if it takes years" to "we won't save your wife's life over a zygote's or embryo's, even in the case of a rupturing ectopic pregnancy that may require a therapeutic abortion").
Susan Lersch
susan.lersch@yahoo.com
Fine, have the church
Fine, have the church adoption and foster care agencies dispense with state money. But what do you do when the state takes away your license to perform adoptions or place children into foster care as happened in Massachusetts? That may also be the case in Illinois, I am not sure. BTW, what do zygotes and embryos (note that you do not use apostrophes to write the plural of either) have to do with ectopic pregnancies? Also, your last sentence grossly misstates the Church's position on the issue. Sad to see how some (many, most?) among the Reporter's readership have strayed from the faith.
A smaller, purer Church is a
A smaller, purer Church is a smaller, poorer Church. Less money, less influence. Expect a polite brush-off.
This letter to the Obama
This letter to the Obama Administration's Health and Human Services is Classic CYA (Cover Your ...) The uncomfortable but inevitable truth is that the battle to save the Catholic healthcare system was already fought and determined when the Obamacare Health Bill was passed. 2000 thousand pages, the establishment of layers of new agencies, and thousands of new regulations
all expand the role of a secular Government in opposition to Catholic Values in Healthcare. The fact that this pleading Letter was even necessary means a victory for entrenched secular interests such as Planned Parenthood. This trend will mean that Catholic Values and indeed the very system itself will be on the defensive in the years to come.
So, whose conscience is being
So, whose conscience is being protected? And, when is “conscience protection” of one a denial of the rights of conscience to another? There is no issue if each person agreed with the other and there would be no need for the government to set rules if there was not a struggle between different points of view.
So, it is also an issue of power. For the moment, think of this as an issue of employers and employees. What the Church wants is the power of an employer to enforce a viewpoint on those he employs. It is not about what the employer requires of that person in terms of how the work is done or how the person dresses when at work. It is not about the conduct of the work of the employer at all. What we are talking about here is the access to contraceptives and sterilization in health insurance. Not about whether or not someone actually chooses either one – only about whether or not someone is allowed the opportunity to choose.
And, whether or not the employer should be able to limit the choices of his employees in areas that are not part of their work. Like their sex lives and whether or not they have children, how many they have, and when they have them. Can you imagine IBM or General Motors being involved in those decisions?
If the Church owned farms, restaurants, factories, and IBM, would it be reasonable for the Church to impose limits on contraceptives and sterilization of the employees of those businesses? How far should be definition of the religious employer be extended?
Certainly the Church makes requirements of priests, nuns, and members of religious orders regarding celibacy - and obedience. These are employees of a religious employer, protected in the regulations from being required to offer contraceptives and sterilization in their health insurance. (Ironic, since if they live by what they have promised they will never need either for purposes of birth control.)
But, the rest of us are not so sworn to absolute obedience. We seek guidance, we pray, we make choices. Frankly, I don’t think it is the role of the government to enforce religious teachings on teachers, doctors, nurses, secretaries, lab workers, custodians, Catholic or non-Catholic who make choices of conscience, too.
Obama is so far to the left
Obama is so far to the left he's even pushing these people to the center.
When over 90% of Catholic
When over 90% of Catholic women use or have used forms of birth control or have been sterilized, all forbidden by the Church, it is hard to say that Obama is far to the left. Seems to me that on the issue of providing birth control and sterilization in health insurance, the Obama administration is recognizing a reality which has nothing to do with right or left.
"When over 90% of Catholic
"When over 90% of Catholic women use or have used forms of birth control or have been sterilized" I realize its high, but that doesn't make it right. I would also question your phrasing, there are many women(and men) who have used abc, and have realized its wrong and have stopped, however they would still be a part of your 90% based on the phrasing of your statement.
Thanks for this. Had not seen
Thanks for this. Had not seen this yet. Important.
Healthcare is not subject to
Healthcare is not subject to normal market forces! Anything that you have to buy at any random moment in order not to die is not something to which a rational supply/demand calculus can apply. Check out "Penny Health" articles on how to reduce the cost of insurance.
Obama knows these people have
Obama knows these people have repeatedly compromised themselves on healthcare issues; some are openly pro-choice. He knows they're just signing the letter to satisfy someone higher up, and couldn't care less about conscience protection when it comes to this issue.
I think the folks signing the
I think the folks signing the letter care very much, but I think they are mistaken about involving the government in decisions about birth control and sterilization. The difference of viewpoints between the Catholic Church and Catholics and non-Catholics, on a medical choice that is widely practiced and widely accepted, is not one that the government should be involved in. Just because the government says birth control and sterilization must be covered in health insurance doesn't mean the Church is not free to convince each individual not to use them. Individual conscience.
The Church cannot even convince most Catholic women not to use birth control or not to get sterilized. Who is the Church? Those members of the hierarchy, nuns, noted theologians, prominent and well-known Catholics, who signs letters to government officials? Are not all those Catholics who use birth control/sterilization - over 90% of Catholic women and their spouses - also the Church?
Fight this battle of conscience protection on any abortifacients that may be included under these regulations. That is about life.
Why should companies be
Why should companies be forced by the federal government to provide contraceptives at all? I mean, if contraceptives must be covered, why not over-the-counter pain relievers, like aspirin?
More to the point, the cost of healthcare will not go down as long as the federal government continues to add required coverages. Forcing everyone to pay for contraceptives will not lower costs, which was a huge part of the sales pitch for health care reform.
Unfortunately, many Catholics ignored evidence that the push for health care was designed to codify material support for the Planned Parenthood agenda in US law. In the end, the Democrat congress that passed the law ignored the admonitions of Catholic bishops, who in general wanted to support the law, that they could not support it unless protections against abortion funding were included in the law through extension of the Hyde Ammendment. The law as passed does not do that, and the Executive Order payoff doesn't have the same standing.
I commend the writers of this letter, but unfortunately that boat has sailed. Any healthcare bill that doesn't delink the relationship between employment and coverage will never really solve the cost problem and will inherently involve someone having to violate their principles in what they have to pay for.
Peace.
A catholic Democrat?
A catholic Democrat? Endorsing mass murder?
Nothing new about that>
But even this is a bit much: Here's Vice Presidetn Biden in China
"Your policy is one which I fully understand -- I’m not second-guessing -- of [allowing only] one child per family,”
Forced abortion. Even Sibelius, Kennedy, Durbin, Lahey, Dodd, Kerry, Cuomo never talked openly about makinge it mandatory.
Add, the NCR. Not a word, as usual. Silence is assent.
What is the complete list of
What is the complete list of signers?
Please list the full list of
Please list the full list of names of this "Who's Who" of prominent Catholics who signed this letter.
I fully expect the proposed
I fully expect the proposed regulations will be modified accordingly.
The issues in this whole
The issues in this whole argument are getting confused.
One argument is of individual conscious, here described as religious conscious, versus state mandated behavior. The other argument is about insurance, as to what services require coverage and what services don't require coverage.
All of the arguments that have been made against providing contraceptive, etc. coverage are relying on the argument of protecting individual conscious but are calling it state mandated behavior. Nothing in any insurance policy states that the insured has to use contraceptives.
What the policy directive does say is that all citizens have a right to what is a nationally established norm of socially and medically accepted and recommended services. Since insurance is the de facto currency which is required to pay for services, that currency can not be limited by what the boss wants.
Let me ask this question: if our medical system used only cash instead of insurance to pay our medical bills, would employees of religious institutions be restricted on what medical services they spent money on? How would that work?
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