By Jason Summers
The Catholic Church issued a strong reaction on Friday to the White House defending new rules to compel many religious employers to provide contraception to their workers as part of government-mandated health insurance plans.
Anthony Picarello, general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, "The White House information about this is a combination of misleading and wrong," adding that the bishops would "pursue every legal mandate available to them to bring an end to this mandate. That means legislation, litigation and public advocacy. All options are on the table."
The Department of Health and Human Services announced the new regulation in January as part of its effort to ensure that women receive free "preventive" health-care services, such as cervical cancer screening, breast pumps, and contraception. Employers will hence be required to include those services as part of their employee health insurance plans by the month of August.
Religious institutions can be allowed an exemption if a services violate their beliefs, but not if they employ large numbers of people who don't believe the same way. So, a Catholic hospital or university which employs largely non-Catholic workers will have to provide free contraception as part of its employees' health insurance, despite birth control being against Catholic doctrine.
Evangelical Christians have reacted with rage to the announcement, and so have Orthodox Jews and other religious denominations. However, the strongest reaction was that of the Catholic bishops, whose president, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York, said that the rules were "un-American," and were a "violation of conscience."
The White House responded in a blog post that there will not be any force on anyone to buy contraceptives. Cecilia Munoz, director of the Domestic Policy Council, wrote, "Over half of Americans already live in the 28 states that require insurance companies (to) cover contraception." She said that the states include large states like California and New York.
On Friday, Catholic bishops lashed back by saying that it was misleading to say that no one would be forced to "buy" contraceptives, because anyone who contributes to an insurance plan will have to start paying a bit from the subsidy for free contraception. They added that Catholic institutions have gotten around state mandates in a number of ways, with self-insurance being the most important, which won't be permitted under the new federal program.
Picarello said in an interview, "The state mandates are like a Maginot line. They're a hard barrier, but you can just walk around them."
Tricia Griffin, a spokeswoman for Dignity Health, formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West, has offered contraception since 1997. She said, "The federal requirements won't affect our policy." Long affiliated with the Catholic Church, Dignity recently cut the alliance, but it still continues to operate Catholic hospitals.
