Catholic Insurance Hypocrisy

 There has been a lot in the news recently about the Obama administration's decision to require religious institutions to cover birth control in their insurance plans, except that is not what is happening.  There is no real controversy here, it is all being manufactured by the bishops and religious right as an attention grab.  There are already exemptions built into the law that cover places of worship.  The part that everyone is upset about is that charities, hospitals, schools and other faith based organizations are being required to cover birth control.  At first glance, this seems like a huge over reach by the government into religion, something that has never happened before, except it has.  It has been going on in 28 states for some time now to various degrees.  The Catholic church has apparently had no problem violating its principles all these years in all these places.  I'm not sure what is different about now, but I would like to know.

There are other complexities at work here as well.  The conscience clause, where an organization is exempted from a practice because of its views, is still very well intact.  This means that a Catholic hospital can refuse to administer an abortion since it violates their beliefs.  However, since it is an employer, it has a duty to its employees who are not necessarily catholic themselves, just like when it comes to minimum wage laws and other labor regulations.  This is where the Church can't get around the issue.

98% of Catholic women use birth control, despite the church's decrees.  Most catholic women are on the side of the Obama administration.  The republican party at large is already hurting when it comes to women voters.  Birth control is very popular,  I don't think this is an issue where the Catholic church, religious right and republicans really know what they're getting into.


Addendum:  Interestingly enough, this is sort of forcing the church to recognize that birth control treatments are also used to treat other things such as Endometriosis.  I have a friend who has been diagnosed with it.  On some days it leaves her with some rather crippling pain and she has had to have surgery to deal with it in the past.  The problem is her family's health insurance is through her mother's employer, a catholic institution, and refuses to prescribe the medication.  The result is my friend having to pay out of pocket for a rather expensive treatment every 3 months so she can continue living a normal life.