In the world of politics, there are often interest groups that have competing...well, interests. Such is the case in the current fight between Catholic bishops and the Obama administration. Prominent Democrats want their party to represent Women's rights, specifically something called "reproductive rights". Now, in my high school civics class, we never studied any Constitutional rights called "reproductive rights." I doubt that anyone other than the members of the 1972 Supreme Court that wrote the Roe v. Wade decision could even adequately define "reproductive rights." It was something completely made up in order to justify abortion on demand.
On the other side of the issue are Catholic institutions, like colleges, hospitals, and charities. Under the new Nationalized Health Care policy of the current administration, these institutions would be forced to include contraceptive devices and abortion services in their Group Health plans. Never before has the federal government over-reached to this extent into the area of religious liberty. Our Founding Fathers created a government based on freedom of religion. In this case, the Catholic religion teaches and practices sexual purity, without the cop-out "safety net" of contraception or abortion.
Some say that many Catholics favor using contraception. Fewer favor abortions, but I'll bet you can find some who call themselves Catholics who support (and may have even had) abortions. And that is the key: they call themselves Catholics, but do not practice their religion. They are nominal Catholics, Catholics in name only.
I have also heard the argument that some states have mandated these women's services, and the Catholic colleges and universities in those states have complied without so much hoopla. First, these are state governments, and not the federal government. The U.S. Constitution gives states the right to make their own laws, where the federal government is constrained by the Constitution. Second, many of these state laws grant exceptions to Catholic institutions. Third, if the Catholics in the various states that have these mandates wanted to change the law, it is much easier to change a state law than it is to change a federal law.
When President Obama was still a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago, he was recorded as saying that the U.S. Constitution says to much what the government can't do; he thought then (and obviously thinks now) that the Constitution should be more about what the government should do. It should offer universal healthcare (in his view). It should offer abortion on demand and contraceptives to everyone, so that there are no consequences to having sex. The "general welfare" clause of the Constitution would be expanded, in his perfect world, to make everyone dependent upon the central government, and the "safety net" should shield people from sin, from bad choices they have made, from willful choices they have made without regard to the consequences. It is this way with the laws requiring banks to write off home loans made to people who signed the contract, signifying that they would make their payments timely; and when the payments were not made timely, the banks are now being forced to forgive the loans and still let people live in the houses they cannot afford. Is this a chapter in Through The Looking Glass? Is the White Rabbit in charge of things now?
If I could tell the President just one thing, and one thing only, it would be to respect the Constitution. In the case where the interests of women's health advocates clashes with the interests of religious leaders, the Constititutional protection goes to freedom of religion, not to "reproductive rights." If we lose sight of this truth, God help us.
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