I watched Fr Jonathan Morris on Fox and Friends on Sunday. He was discussing Obamacare, the Church and the one year exemption religious entities were given last year to delay implementation of the parts of the law which violate religious positions.
The Catholic Church and other religions, including Jewish, Protestant, Islam and others, have basic tenets concerning birth control, abortion, and other choice issues. Essentially, the Church believes that condoms, the pill, IUDs and other methods of birth control are immoral because they prevent conception, which to the Church, violates the premise of the conjugal act. And abortion is the taking of life, since the Church and other religious entities believe life begins at conception.
Understand that when I use the term "Church" in this commentary, I mean all religious entities, faith-based employers, and others whose views while not mirroring the Catholic Church, certainly are not secular in any way. Even atheistic views are respected here, since there are some atheistic views which are not state-based. And, also understand that, at best, I am a cafeteria Catholic, so I don't agree with all of the Church's positions.
Now, we all know this has been a debate for more than 40 years, since before Roe v Wade and other legal cases concerning this riveting issue. People like me, who believe that life is sacrosanct, but also believe that people should have the right to choose, wrestle with this problem constantly. We don't believe we have the right to tell others what they may do with their bodies, but at the same time, as with the Gosnell case, understand that it is a baby that a woman carries, not a bunch of cells that may become a chicken.
I don't mean to be flippant, but understand that the Church is a self-insurer, like Home Depot, GE, etc, which means these companies are the actual insurer and Blue Cross or other insurance company acts as a Third Party Adjuster (TPA). The Church is classified as such because as an employer, it is too big to have an insurance company provide group health insurance for the hundreds of thousands of its employees.
So, because it is technically an insurance company, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mandates that the insurance company provide sterilization, reproductive, and pregnancy prevention and termination services as part of its plan offering to the employees of the employer's insurer. Got that? The Church is required to provide abortion services to its female employees, in violation of its sanctity of life tenet. And yet, in its hospitals, abortions are not performed nor permitted.
From a Constitutional standpoint, this is a violation of the premise of separation of church and state, as well as, a violation of the first amendment, to wit: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Currently, the Church and others are suing the federal government over the the violation of those rights under the Constitution by being forced to comply with this part of obamacare.
There are at least a dozen separate cases pending in the federal courts, and ultimately one or more of these cases will end up in the Supreme Court. The exemption that HHS issued last year will expire on August 1. If the Supreme Court does not rule on any pending case before then, the Church will be in technical violation of the law at that time, unless Secretary Sebellius issues an extension of the exemption.
Keep in mind, that the Church operates many health care facilities across the country, including Catholic Health Services of Long Island, Inc, which people of all faiths and non-faiths are welcome. It operates six hospitals, three nursing homes, a palliative care center, a rehab center and a hospice, as well as, a visiting nurse home care service. If the federal government forces the Church to comply with its mandate, what will the Church do? It could cut back services to the community because it may be forced to close some facilities and lay off massive numbers of employees, in order not to pay the huge dollar amount of fines and penalties required under this legislation.
So, what can we do? Well, we can engage in a massive letter-writing exercise to our Representatives, Senators, Secretary Sebellius, the President and the Supreme Court voicing our objection to the mandate forcing the Church and others to act against its moral convictions and religious freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. We can voice our concerns to friends and families and have them do the same. It's amazing what the Power of the Pen could accomplish.
And we can demand that this legislation be finally repealed and instead, revisit the concept of health care to draw up a law that makes sense and does not infringe on anybody's rights. We have read this law, and in spite of what some want to say or want us to believe, we really don't like what's in it.
It can be done, we have done it before, and we will do it again.
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