The Roman Catholic Church is once again trying to affect public policy that doesn’t follow the church’s morality. Courts in New York and California are hearing cases that would exempt branches of the Catholic Church from state laws that include contraceptives in employee prescription-drug plans. Under church doctrine, contraception is a sin.
The case was sparked after the California law was passed in 2000. Catholic Charities of Sacramento unsuccessfully sought to bar contraceptives from the health care plan. A state appeals court also refused to hear the case, and the California Supreme Court heard the case yesterday.
Going by previous rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, the state has every right to rule against the Catholic Charities of Sacramento. Religious organizations should not be exempt from state laws just because they don’t believe in them. The court ruled in favor of a ban on polygamy, despite objections from Mormons, and it ruled against a group of American Indians who were denied unemployment after they were fired for using peyote during ceremonies.
The other problem facing the Catholic Charities of Sacramento is not all of its employees are Catholic. With a $76 million budget last year, the charities provide social services to people of all religions, not just Catholics. Nor do they demand their workers be Catholic. If one of the non-Catholic employees needs to purchase contraceptives, it’s wrong to exempt them from getting them paid for by their employee drug plan.
While the most common use of oral contraceptives, such as ortho tri-cyclen, is birth control, a sin in the eyes of the church, that is not their sole use. Contraceptives can also be used to regulate the menstrual cycle and treat symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes, mood swings and osteoporosis. Doctors may also prescribe contraceptives to treat other conditions, like skin problems.
Arguments have been made that say some religious groups have been exempt from laws in the past. The U.S. military recognizes the religious views of conscientious objectors by keeping them off thfront lines. Traffic markings on the back of Amish horse carts have also been removed because they do not fit the Amish lifestyle, but these are extreme conditions that apply to religious groups as a whole. Because not all Catholics agree on the subject of contraceptives, it doesn’t make sense to exempt all organizations from the state law.
While Ohio does not have a law on its books requiring contraceptives be part of prescription-drug plans, the state could easily join the growing number to adopt such laws. While the Catholic Church should be free to have its own beliefs, it should not be able to push those beliefs on the thousands of non-Catholic women who work for Catholic organizations.
