Religion & Law

Helen Alvare has posted a two-pronged critique of the coming HHS contraceptive coverage mandate.

First, the problematic premise of the mandate:

Women?s well-being suffers under a system operating according to the maxim ?unprotected sex makes babies.? The Church predicted as far back as 1968 in the encyclical Humanae Vitae that such an ideology would lead to the devaluation of sexual intimacy and of women?s sexual dignity, in particular. For decades, and to the present day, a robust literature?economic, sociological, and psychiatric?indicates that the complete separation of the idea of sex from the idea of procreation does not in fact favor women?s preferences about sex, dating, or marriage. . . . the rates of every outcome harmful to women?uncommitted sexual encounters, sexually transmitted infections, nonmarital births, and abortion?have climbed precipitously during the decades that the federal government has escalated both public and private support for contraception.

Second, the implications for institutional conscience:

Even if its warning about women?s health goes unheeded, however, conscientious health care providers, especially religious ones, ought not to be forced to participate in HHS?s plan to heighten the profile of contraception in women?s health care. Catholic medical institutions are the largest providers of health care to women and men in the United States. Catholic employers serve vast numbers of poor and immigrant and other vulnerable populations. In fact, their social services, health care, and educational facilities regularly pick up the pieces of lives injured by the prevailing sexual marketplace, a marketplace that the federal government is preparing not only to affirm but to exacerbate. At the very least, religious entities ought not to be forced to become complicit in such a plan.

The first argument is a very tough sell today; the second one should not be unless we've lost sight of the value of institutions.