They Really Do Not Get It

All through the media today, there are articles talking about the fight about "Contraceptives". The liberal media views the upset abroad in the land with the decision from the Obamacrats to force health plans to offer certain birth control and abortion services even at Catholic institutions which oppose those things on religious grounds as a fight by Catholics to deny birth control to women. To the media, it is a fight for women's rights. I find it strange, but the media just does not get it.

First, let's deal with the simple part of the question. No women or man who works at a Catholic hospital or university will be denied access to birth control or even to abortions. These are easily obtainable from many places and at a relatively low price. The question being discussed is the order from the Obamacrats that Catholic facilities must offer these services to employee free of charge as part of their health insurance. So, as things stand now, women who work at a Catholic hospital can get birth control pills at any pharmacy; the hospital, however, is not required to provide them.

The new rule ordered by the Secretary of HHS, does remove the ability of Catholic institutions to avoid violating the teachings of that faith. If a Catholic hospital or university can be ordered by a government bureaucrat to take actions which violate important elements of their faith, then the government bureaucrat is actually taking control of that faith and removing religious liberty. That, not access to contraception, is the real issue at stake. The receptionist at the hospital front desk who wants birth control pills can always get them from her private doctor or some organization like Planned Parenthood. The Catholic hospital, however, cannot avoid violating the tenets of its faith if the Obama rule stands.

The issue is the same as if the government issued a schedule under which all schools in a county had to bus their students to a central location to receive polio vaccination booster shots. If the schedule from the government required the local Jewish day school to bring in the kids for shots on a Saturday, we would have the same problem. The issue would not, however, be access to polio shots; those could be obtained on another day. The issue would be government bureaucratic action forcing a religious group to violated its basic principles.

Another example would be a regulation issued by the state government requiring a curriculum taught in both public and parochial schools to all students in 9th grade biology which expressly stated that creation as outlined in the Bible is false. Again, the issue here is not learning about evolution; that could be done without denigrating the religious beliefs of millions of Americans. Should teachers at a religious school be forced to teach that the doctrine of their own faith is false?

I keep repeating that the action by Obama and the Obamacrats was bureaucratic. The requirement in question was not passed by Congress; it is only in a regulation issued by the Secretary of HHS. Not even an elected representative came up with this affront to religious freedom. It was just some bureaucrat's plan.

This is not a difficult concept to grasp. Millions of Americans will quickly understand the attack being levelled by Obama and the Obamacrats at the Catholic Church and all religion. The media must get it too. Right now, the media is trying to change the focus to help Obama, but it will not work. Before long, the Obamacrats are going to have to back off this one.