Mandate Requires University to Provide Birth Control

Sam O'Mahony, Tower Staff
January 27, 2012
Filed under News

The Catholic University of America and other religiously affiliated institutions will be required to provide birth control and abortifacients to their employees covered by CUA insurance, at no extra cost, under a new resolution announced by the Obama administration.

All institutions are required to comply with the mandate initiated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and to allow their employees access to preventative services by August of 2013. Institutions that will be affected by this new mandate include religiously affiliated universities, hospitals, and charitable agencies.

“I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

This maneuver, while hailed by some to be beneficial, has drawn the ire of religious leaders.

“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. 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 in a September correspondence to The Washington Post.

This legislation has faced opposition from a multitude of religious affiliates, as many churches ban the use of birth control. Health and Human Services’s new mandate would violate the morals upheld by these institutions, especially those of the Roman Catholic Church, which is well-known for being dead-set in its opposition of contraceptives. This position was reinforced after the Second Vatican Council of 1962 to 1965–which modernized many church teachings, and brought them up-to-date– by His Holiness Pope Paul VI in his last encyclical Humanae Vitae, issued in 1968, which maintains the status quo, and declares the use of contraceptives by a Roman Catholic to be a mortal sin– the gravest form of wrongdoing.

“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience; this shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights,” said Timothy M. Dolan cardinal-delegate and Archbishop of New York, who was informed of Friday’s announcement via a one-on-one conversation with the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

The ruling which states that employers must add preventive services to their employee healthcare plans, excludes a limited base of religious employers, where the main purpose of the organization is to spread religious values. Organizations such as Catholic Charities, and St. Anne’s Infant and Maternity home would not be exempt under the new regulations, as their main purpose it to serve and care for others of all faiths.

Additionally, the Catholic University of America would not qualify for an exemption, for “[the mandate] is too narrow to include Catholic universities which observe norms of academic freedom and teach chemical thermodynamics, aerospace engineering, musical theater, Mandarin Chinese and the Victorian novel along with theology,” stated Garvey in his letter.

While the mandate will not require employers to pay for abortions, it may require the supply of abortifacients, such as a ‘morning-after’ pill. Additionally, institutions must regulate their healthcare plan, so that it provides contraceptives at no cost to everyone included.

Organizations which fail to comply with the Health and Human Services referendum shall be penalized with an annual fee of two thousand dollars for each employee denied coverage.

Institutions who oppose the mandate also have the more drastic option of ceasing their operations altogether– an option many religious institutions are currently considering– rather than commit an act of hypocrisy and succumb to the meddling of Health and Human Services.

The new mandatory regulation brought about by the Department of Health and Human Services, is forcing many religious operations to choose between continuing business as usual while paying a substantial fee or to comply with the new mandate, and break with their faith.

Hailed as a burden on their religious freedom, it is predicted that many religious institutions will cease employee health coverage, and pay the price in government fines, rather than provide the contraceptives.