The Whole Catholic Birth Control Thing
While I'm being controversial!
Seriously, why is this an issue?
Before I get started: unlike the Catholic church, I have no issue with birth control. If someone wants to get on the Pill, or use a condom, or get a vasectomy, or etc., I have exactly no moral issues with that. If they're having sex with someone who is not their spouse, or if they're using abortifacients, that introduces separate moral issues - but birth control itself, that is, "things that prevent you from becoming pregnant" in themselves - I have exactly no problems with. This is a moral conviction I flatly do not share. This is not me defending the Church's position, there; I think it's based on some very questionable theology and a frankly unbiblical understanding of marriage.
That is, however, irrelevant. This isn't about birth control.
I've heard at a couple of points people insisting that what the Catholics are doing is "discrimination" - that they're treating people unfairly by refusing to pay for something. Which is, to my mind, fairly ridiculous and somewhat insulting to people who are actually being discriminated against - that is, people to whom we'd say, "I am going to treat you differently than the way I treat him because of some inherent facet of who you are." The Catholics aren't doing that. They're treating everyone exactly the same: by refusing to automatically pay for a particular thing. Nor are they preventing anyone from obtaining it; the church is not going to stand in your way on the pharmacy aisle, demanding your paycheck back if the contents of your basket don't pass muster.
This isn't about discrimination.
At least once, I've heard it suggested that paying for birth control is a "tax on not being pregnant." Which is flatly manipulative and dishonest; are we going to say that any time you trade your money for any good or service, you're paying a "tax on that thing?" I had been under the impression that taxes were something you generally had to pay, where I can offer at least a couple of ways of avoiding pregnancy that don't require buying birth control at all.
This isn't about taxation - at least, not in that sense.
And if this wasn't a politically near-and-dear topic - a case where people are automatically on the side of, "We've got to maintain the absolute maximum possible access of women to birth control no matter what," - I think we'd recognize it as the foolishness that it is.
Suppose, for instance, that someone said, "We're going to pass a law that requires all companies to buy food for their employees." Not, mind you, to pay their employees in accordance with contracts - no. This would say that, in addition to whatever other payment and benefits are provided, the company has to pay for food.
Would we start at a company refusing to play along with that? How could we - the money is theirs. If they want to pay it to you in other forms - to give it to you, for instance, in the form of money, with which you can buy food yourself - and if you agree to their terms, well, what else is there?
And that's more legitimate than this is, because people genuinely unavoidably do need food if they aren't going to starve. Birth control? Birth control may be nice to have, but it is by its nature not a necessity in anything beyond extreme corner cases. If we extend not only to saying, "You have the right to buy this," but also to "You have the right to have this given to you," what possible luxuries are off limits?
Must your employer, in addition to whatever other benefits he offers, pay for a new car, if you want one? A new house? Must he put your kids through college, regardless of how you spend the rest of what he's paying you? Do you deserve a nicer bed, or a new computer, or a trip to Disneyworld? What principle can we possibly appeal to to say, "Oh, yeah, people have to just hand you nice things to have, if you want them," and how could any such system hope to survive? What line can we draw that permits this and doesn't end in madness?
This isn't about religion, or women's health, or anything but the simple question, "What do you have the right to demand that people give you?" All the rest of the issues touching on this are a distraction; change them as you like, and the underlying principle stays the same. And all of the consternation and the declaiming and the how-dare-theys ultimately are advancing a way of looking at the world that is unsustainably, unavoidably self-destructive.
If you're upset about the loss of freedoms - hey, there's your loss of freedom. If the government has the power to say, "Go buy this nice thing for anyone who wants it, because I think you should," you're holding on to a pretty short stack of other freedoms left to you. This is not the first issue like this, but it is well past time we saw it for what it is.
Edit: On reflection, I've focused here almost exclusively on why the criticism of the Church here is logically indefensible.
There are, I suspect, enough reasonably-likely unintended consequences to fill another post (What do we imagine will happen to BC prices when their primary market pays $0 out of their own pocket? What will that do to people who are actually paying it?), but I think the logical problems alone are probably enough.
Seriously, why is this an issue?
Before I get started: unlike the Catholic church, I have no issue with birth control. If someone wants to get on the Pill, or use a condom, or get a vasectomy, or etc., I have exactly no moral issues with that. If they're having sex with someone who is not their spouse, or if they're using abortifacients, that introduces separate moral issues - but birth control itself, that is, "things that prevent you from becoming pregnant" in themselves - I have exactly no problems with. This is a moral conviction I flatly do not share. This is not me defending the Church's position, there; I think it's based on some very questionable theology and a frankly unbiblical understanding of marriage.
That is, however, irrelevant. This isn't about birth control.
I've heard at a couple of points people insisting that what the Catholics are doing is "discrimination" - that they're treating people unfairly by refusing to pay for something. Which is, to my mind, fairly ridiculous and somewhat insulting to people who are actually being discriminated against - that is, people to whom we'd say, "I am going to treat you differently than the way I treat him because of some inherent facet of who you are." The Catholics aren't doing that. They're treating everyone exactly the same: by refusing to automatically pay for a particular thing. Nor are they preventing anyone from obtaining it; the church is not going to stand in your way on the pharmacy aisle, demanding your paycheck back if the contents of your basket don't pass muster.
This isn't about discrimination.
At least once, I've heard it suggested that paying for birth control is a "tax on not being pregnant." Which is flatly manipulative and dishonest; are we going to say that any time you trade your money for any good or service, you're paying a "tax on that thing?" I had been under the impression that taxes were something you generally had to pay, where I can offer at least a couple of ways of avoiding pregnancy that don't require buying birth control at all.
This isn't about taxation - at least, not in that sense.
And if this wasn't a politically near-and-dear topic - a case where people are automatically on the side of, "We've got to maintain the absolute maximum possible access of women to birth control no matter what," - I think we'd recognize it as the foolishness that it is.
Suppose, for instance, that someone said, "We're going to pass a law that requires all companies to buy food for their employees." Not, mind you, to pay their employees in accordance with contracts - no. This would say that, in addition to whatever other payment and benefits are provided, the company has to pay for food.
Would we start at a company refusing to play along with that? How could we - the money is theirs. If they want to pay it to you in other forms - to give it to you, for instance, in the form of money, with which you can buy food yourself - and if you agree to their terms, well, what else is there?
And that's more legitimate than this is, because people genuinely unavoidably do need food if they aren't going to starve. Birth control? Birth control may be nice to have, but it is by its nature not a necessity in anything beyond extreme corner cases. If we extend not only to saying, "You have the right to buy this," but also to "You have the right to have this given to you," what possible luxuries are off limits?
Must your employer, in addition to whatever other benefits he offers, pay for a new car, if you want one? A new house? Must he put your kids through college, regardless of how you spend the rest of what he's paying you? Do you deserve a nicer bed, or a new computer, or a trip to Disneyworld? What principle can we possibly appeal to to say, "Oh, yeah, people have to just hand you nice things to have, if you want them," and how could any such system hope to survive? What line can we draw that permits this and doesn't end in madness?
This isn't about religion, or women's health, or anything but the simple question, "What do you have the right to demand that people give you?" All the rest of the issues touching on this are a distraction; change them as you like, and the underlying principle stays the same. And all of the consternation and the declaiming and the how-dare-theys ultimately are advancing a way of looking at the world that is unsustainably, unavoidably self-destructive.
If you're upset about the loss of freedoms - hey, there's your loss of freedom. If the government has the power to say, "Go buy this nice thing for anyone who wants it, because I think you should," you're holding on to a pretty short stack of other freedoms left to you. This is not the first issue like this, but it is well past time we saw it for what it is.
Edit: On reflection, I've focused here almost exclusively on why the criticism of the Church here is logically indefensible.
There are, I suspect, enough reasonably-likely unintended consequences to fill another post (What do we imagine will happen to BC prices when their primary market pays $0 out of their own pocket? What will that do to people who are actually paying it?), but I think the logical problems alone are probably enough.