University May Be Forced to Offer Birth Control
Amanda Pellegrino, Tower Staff
October 7, 2011
Filed under News
On August 1st, of this year, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) added additional requirements to the Affordable Care Act which would require all universities, including Catholic schools, to provide women with ample “preventive health services.” The regulations would extend to birth-control and the “morning after pill” at their disposal for no additional cost.
Currently, policy at the Catholic University of America forbids the distribution of any type of contraceptives from Student Health Services.
“It does not take a college education to see the hypocrisy in offering to pay for the very services we condemn in our theology classes and seek forgiveness for in our sacraments,” said President Garvey in an opinion piece in the Washington Post on September 30, which was offered in response to this additional requirement.
For a month following the August 1st announcement, HHS accepted official comments regarding the new guidelines, especially surrounding the “religious employers” exemption, which states that an institution can be excluded from providing contraception if the primary purpose for the organization is to teach religious values, the majority of the people associated with the organization have the same religious beliefs, and the organization is exempt from filing IRS tax form 990.
After fully defined, the criterion benefits only a small group of religious organizations. Catholic charities, universities and hospitals are some of the many institutions that are not included in the exemption, and they are left to provide their communities with things that go against the very morals that make them a Catholic organization.
These new guidelines consist of services such as well-woman visits, screenings for gestational diabetes, DNA testing for human papillomavirus (HPV), counseling for those with sexually transmitted diseases, screenings and counseling for women with HIV, breastfeeding supplies, screenings for domestic violence, and contraceptives such as birth-control and the “plan-B” or “morning after” pill.
The Affordable Care Act not only includes the aforementioned services, but includes the originally mandated mammograms, colonoscopies, blood pressure checks and childhood immunizations. The other services for women were not added until just over a year later, and are to be free-of-charge under one’s insurance policy with plan years beginning on or after August 1, 2012.
According to the official news release by HHS about the matter, private nurses, doctors, scientists, and others performed tests to determine exactly which preventative measures women needed most.
“It should not be the business of the federal government to force Catholic schools and other Catholic institutions into such a collective violation of our own conscientious beliefs,” said Garvey.
Garvey, as well as presidents, religious leaders, and politics professors from many other Catholic schools around the country, published official comments on the issue to HHS.
The Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education, a division of the Cardinal Newman Society that promotes teaching and programs centered on Catholic beliefs and values in higher education, organized an appeal that included 18 Catholic colleges and explained the short-term and long-term negative impact the regulations will have on Catholic institutions. Catholic University was not included in the appeal.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops organized a letter to HSS, petitioning that the “religious employers” clause be reconsidered and edited to include Catholic universities, hospitals and charities. It also issued an insert for church bulletin with the headline “Conscience Rights Violated by Sweeping HHS Contraceptive Mandate,” that parishioners or priests could download online and distribute to their congregation.
Notre Dame University also announced their disapproval of the new regulation saying that it would force them to directly contradict Church teaching.
“It would compel Notre Dame to either pay for contraception and sterilization in violation of the Church’s moral teaching, or to discontinue our employee and student health care plans in violation of the church’s social teaching,” Fr. John I. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame said in a letter to HHS according to the Catholic News Agency.
These institutions are not denouncing the Affordable Care Act, just urging the government to reconsider exactly who is included under the “religious employers” exemption.
“The current fight is to expand the definition of religious organization so that places like Catholic University will not have to provide contraception and so on in [their] health care plans to employees and students. The issue here is not about contraception, but about conscience,” said Stephen Schneck, Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies. Schneck organized a sign-on letter of Catholic leaders, published two op-eds, as well as submitted his own comments to HHS about the controversial issue.
“Catholic universities shouldn’t be forced to go against conscience or overall doctrine,” said sophomore Isabel Tanco.
While Catholic organizations are petitioning the regulations, hoping to eventually be included in the religious exemption, establishments such as Planned Parenthood are rejoicing at the announcement of the insurance mandate.
“This would be a tremendous stride forward for women’s health in this country,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood in a statement according to PBS.
“If a woman needs to take birth-control for medical reasons, she should be able to have access to it, even at a Catholic school,” agreed sophomore Meghan Herock.
Within the next few weeks, HHS will process and consider all the complaints it received to determine whether or not to include Catholic universities, hospitals and charities in the “religious employers” exemption.
“My sense is that HHS and the administration are being very attentive to our complaints,” said Schneck. “If we convince the administration to support our argument for conscience exemptions for religious universities, hospitals, and so on, it would be very telling about where the administration stands and an important win for conscience protection.”
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People should never forget that real health depends how well you take care of yourself and not what health insurance you carry but I agree health insurance is important for every one. Search “Penny Health” or online for dollar a day insurance plans.
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Given that this church protected pedophiles for centuries, ordered Germans to vote for anti-abortion Catholic Hitler, ran Nazi death camps in Croatia, smuggled 100,000 Nazis to the Americas, torched millions of mothers for “satanic” childbirth scars, banned marital sex most “holy” days of the year and blamed all birth defects on Sunday sex, why should sensible politicians allow criminal Catholic Munchausen by Proxy medical abuse of women as enslaved breeders? Garvey and the bully bishops have no problem with covering Viagra exploited by adulterous men and non-chaste priests, even if abortions result, but they throw anti-Christ tantrums if abused women rely on similar medical advances to avoid grisly childbirth complications like DEATH and marriage-ruining bladder and bowel incontinence. Such criminal misogyny shouldn’t be coddled by cowardly politicians and the public.
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Andy Reply:
October 8th, 2011 at 7:27 am
@Carey,
Stay in school. Maybe you’ll learn something about Catholic history.
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Andy, I suffered through 11 years of Catholic schooling, witnessed many brutal physical and emotional beatings of learning-disabled students, and was deliberately chemically burned by my childbirth-fistulaed, Munchausen by Proxy Catholic extremist mom at age six as her permanent marital abstinence only excuse. You are the one who needs to learn church history: start with books by Karen Armstrong, Uta Reinke-Heinemann and duo Mark Aarons and John Loftus (“Unholy Trinity” by St. Martins Press).
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James Locke Reply:
October 9th, 2011 at 12:13 am
@Carey, You are just a troll. Excuse my french, but GTFO
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Carey Reply:
October 9th, 2011 at 6:45 am
@James Locke, having survived criminal abuse by your church doesn’t make me a troll. I’m a whistle blower looking out for your rights too.
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James Locke Reply:
October 9th, 2011 at 7:39 am
@Carey, Ha. I am sorry, but spewing baseless vitriol over the anonymous interest does not make you a convincing person. So yes, you are a troll and you really are here to just make people angry about nothing. Go do something productive.
PS it is not my Church: it is the Church of Jesus Christ that he instituted for ALL of mankind, that we may ALL find salvation. The one true way to salvation lies within the Church, even if her members are hopeless sinners.
James, 600,000 preventable global maternal childbirth deaths and 2 million childbirth fistula injuries annually, plus 11 million abandoned children in Catholic Brazil alone are not “nothing” issues. But since you are an unchristian male, female lives and already born children mean nothing to you. Jesus never condemned the popular Queen Anne’s Lace abortifacient weed relied on by his women followers in Jerusalem to avoid childbirth death and injuries causing humiliating divorces. Jesus also never condemned the midwife/abortionists who saved millions of women throughout human history. Condemnation of women’s health only entered when pedophile misogynists like “Saint” Augustine hijacked Christianity. I used to be a conservative Catholic, but discovered after investigating my family’s abuse that Jansenist sado masochistic Munchausen by Proxy (MBP) heresy has hijacked the RCC. This is historical fact and I already listed respected authors who’ve documented this. Why do you have unchristian vitriol for abuse survivors? Many conservatives are furious about the illegal invasion of impoverished Latin Americans, yet refuse to see the direct connection between their desperate poverty, church-coerced overpopulation and missing jobs. Anthropologist author/Catholic Munchausen by Proxy abuse survivor Nancy Scheper-Hughes has also documented high Munchausen by Proxy abuse among impoverished over-breeding sickly Catholic mothers in Brazil who get away with murdering their already born children through direct poisoning and starvation as poverty damage control. But the real culprits are politicians and clergy who deny them effective family planning. Since simple stress causes them to ovulate twice in one cycle, Natural Family Planning is a deadly malpractice scam. NFP nearly killed my mom with its failures and forced her to commit MBP abuse against me as her permanent abstinence excuse.
For Garvey and the bishops to be consistent with themselves, they should also condemn Viagra and 450 abortifacient food plants like coffee, tea, colas, holy wine, ginger and soy. Did you know that high-estrogen Mexican yams inspired the Vatican-funded research that developed the pill? I know countless women who induced miscarriages by drinking caffeinated beverages. Will you be consistent and get these drinks and Viagra prescriptions banned from all Catholic institutions? These medical complexities aren’t solved by black and white ancient superstitions. Please think outside small superstitious boxes.
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If a doctor knows what to give his patient, and his employer is an Italian corporation run by an elderly German fellow, and said corporation will not allow him to prescribe what he feels should be efficacious, he should blow the whistle and get the hell out. If it weren’t for the money, no one not employed by a Catholic institution would ever believe this nonsense and not help someone who doesn’t want too many children or doesn’t want a venereal disease.
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RRBILL, thank you for sensibly defending the right to life and health of the already born.
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[...] University of America’s The Tower quotes Stephen Schneck, Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic [...]
Umm someone needs to tell these catholics that condoms don’t cause abortions…
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Someone better start telling this administration that there is nothing in the constitution that says tax payers should be responsible for your bedroom paraphernalia. Nor should we be paying for stuff like Viagra or mistakes and failures of various methods of birth control. If you want to play the game better be ready to pay the price.!!!!!
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