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One of the quirky things about Americans, especially those on the right of the political spectrum, is this: While we live in fear of government oppression, we accept the tyranny of our employers with a shrug.
When a Pennsylvania school district, mindful of the childhood obesity epidemic, suggested that it might be better for parents not to send cookies in school lunches, Sarah Palin was on hand to decry the war on cookies. But when employers begin punishing workers for being too fat, by contrast, the news is met with a shrug.
That’s one reason there’s so much to say about the Obama administration requiring church-affiliated employers — like parochial schools or Catholic-run hospitals — to offer employees health insurance that covers birth-control. The debate has put conservatives in an awkward position: telling you that in order for you to be free, you have to be bullied by your employer.
Take Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Ruth Ann Dailey, who wrote about the issue this week. Like many conservative critics, Dailey asserts that — although the Obama policy exempted churches themselves — applying the rules to parochial schools and other church-related workplaces is an “assault on their constitutional rights.”
Nor is Dailey (or the Catholic bishops) appeased by the concession Obama made last week: While employee insurance must still cover birth control if workers want it, the church would be exempted from any need to advise them of the benefit. Insurers would have to notify clients directly. The church’s only obligation would be to look the other way … a skill which Catholic bishops have spent considerable time honing in recent years.
Dailey calls the policy shift mere “window dressing” since “the cost [of insurance] will be passed back to the employers.” And that, it seems, infringes not just on their freedoms … but your own:
Apparently one of the things government ought to do “on your behalf” is force your employer to provide you with contraception, sterilization and abortifacients. Left-wingers want the government out of your bedroom — unless it’s standing there with a handful of “free” pills.
This is the crux of the argument as Dailey, and many others, have formulated it. And it’s based on a bit of sleight-of-hand. The first sentence is about the compulsion government is placing on your employer. In the second sentence, however, Dailey treats the policy as if it’s a burden placed on everyone.
It’s not, of course, and pretending otherwise makes absolutely no sense. I mean, OK, so jack-booted government thugs are kicking down our bedroom doors to … um … offer us an optional insurance benefit? The horrors! Next thing you know, the government will be seizing our retinas — by requiring insurers to cover an eye exam each year!
At most, the jack-booted thugs are knocking on your boss’ door, telling him that there are certain laws he must obey, regardless of his moral sentiments. And for all the Bible-waving, there’s nothing new about that.
In 1982, for example, the US Supreme court ruled unanimously that an Amish farmer — who felt Social Security taxes infringed on the community’s sacred obligation to care for its own — had to withhold the taxes anyway. “Granting an exemption from social security taxes to an employer operates to impose the employer’s religious faith on the employees,” wrote the majority opinion. And they saw this as a bad thing.
“Guarantee[ing] religious freedom to a great variety of faiths requires that some religious practices yield to the common good,” the ruling added.
Even arch-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia has suggested religious freedom must sometimes yield to the law. This time, the Court upheld the applicability of anti-drug laws to a religious group that used peyote. As Scalia’s opinion notes, there have been a whole slew of cases in which secular authority trumped religious scruple, in matters ranging from child-labor laws to military service.
That’s just basic common sense, of course. Your boss may have a religious objection to paying a minimum wage, but that doesn’t mean he can hide from the law because of what the Bible says. (“Jesus says I only have to pay a denarius a day, no matter how many hours someone works!”)
No doubt there are people who think the government shouldn’t be dictating such rules to anyone. After all, if we’re willing to let employers punish our cholesterol intake, maybe we won’t mind the boss setting limits on our sex lives too. Or at least choosing not to subsidize it. Maybe no employer should be required to provide benefits for birth control, or anything else.
But that’s a separate argument — about the obligations of employers to their workers. It’s not an argument about religious freedom, because this isn’t about freedom of speech. It’s about the exercise of power, and how much of it your boss should have. And I see absolutely no reason to give more power to bishops than we do to Amish farmers or His Eminence Jeffrey Romoff.
Memo to the bishops: It’s not society’s fault you can no longer inspire obedience, but only seek to compel it. Participating in modern life means that sometimes, your money is used for stuff you don’t believe in. And once you’re off the church grounds, your moral delicacies are no more important than anyone else’s. If you don’t like it, stay on your church grounds, where the new rules won’t apply. In fact, maybe you should pay more attention to the behavior of those who work directly for your church … and a little less to that of the janitor cleaning hospital floors. We’d probably all be better off.
This article appears in Feb 8-14, 2012.
“The debate has put conservatives in an awkward position: telling you that in order for you to be free, you have to be bullied by your employer.”
No it hasn’t. It’s put you in the awkward position of pretending anything your employer does not provide for you you are somehow being unjustly denied. Is an employer “bullying” their employees when they don’t offer dental, too?
The logic is remarkably simple: having the right to do something or buy something is not the same thing as having the right to compel someone to buy it for you. This isn’t that complicated.
“Memo to the bishops: It’s not society’s fault you can no longer inspire obedience, but only seek to compel it.”
Er, your side is the one using compulsion, last I checked.
It seems the problem with your argument is that you’re operating under the assumption that contraception is a fundamental right. It isn’t. Therefore, all the sarcastic hypotheticals about people who have a religion that forbids them to pay the minimum wage are invalidated. The church’s stance against contraception does not invalidate your rights, because you don’t have to be involved with the church. You’re coming into their yard, not the other way around.
Also, I can’t for the life of me discern the apparent significance of making a distinction between make “you” do something and making your employer do it. What’s the logic there? That I shouldn’t be outraged because someone ELSE is being compelled to do something they shouldn’t be compelled to do? Hell, what if I AM an employer? The problem is the law; whether or not every person complaining about it is directly affected is beside the point. You could pass a law raising taxes on anyone over 6’5″, and I’d still find it horribly unjust, even though it wouldn’t apply to me.
Thanks for your comments, Tofu. I’m rushing out the door, so I’ll have to make this quick.
First, my “sarcastic hypotheticals” are neither all that sarcastic, nor particularly hypothetical. As I said in the piece, people have claimed religious objections to a slew of worker rights — there have been religion-based challenges to child labor laws and Social Security withholding. Perhaps you don’t define these as “fundamental rights” either. But they are rules that employers have to live by, and religious employers do not get to pick and choose which rules to follow.
Which brings us to your broader argument — that having the right to buy something isn’t the same as having the right to compel someone to buy it for you … I’ll just go back to what I said toward the end of the piece:
“No doubt there are people who think the government shouldn’t be dictating such rules to anyone … But that’s a separate argument — about the obligations of employers to their workers. It’s not an argument about religious freedom … It’s about the exercise of power, and how much of it your boss should have.”
We could argue whether it’s appropriate for the government to require employers to do anything. I’m just saying that don’t think the answer to that question ought to be different for church-affiliated employers than for any other employer.
OK, I have time to add a bit more to this. You write:
“Also, I can’t for the life of me discern the apparent significance of making a distinction between make “you” do something and making your employer do it. What’s the logic there?”
Well, the distinction is that my employer and I are in distinctly different situations, and — even if we both opposed birth control — would be engaged in distinctly different behaviors. If I oppose birth control, I can impose that limitation on myself, but I don’t have any means to impose that morality on anyone else. My employer, however, has the ability to impose his preferences through the kind of coverage he purchases.
The point I’m making here — and the reason why it matters whose ox is REALLY being gored — is that framing this debate as a question of “religious freedom” ignores important questions about “the exercise of power, and how much of it your boss should have.”
Confucius say: Argue with tofu, get egg foo young on face.
“If I oppose birth control, I can impose that limitation on myself, but I don’t have any means to impose that morality on anyone else. My employer, however, has the ability to impose his preferences through the kind of coverage he purchases.”
He really doesn’t. You can buy it or not, and your employer can’t stop you. Absolutely zilch is being imposed on you in this scenario. I don’t see the thought process in the idea that anything you are not being explicitly provided by your employer, you are somehow being denied. By that logic, as I said before, isn’t your employer also “bullying” you and imposing their values on you by not providing dental? Hell, by not providing ANYTHING?
I don’t see how these questions are at all dealt with by saying the mandate is a “separate argument.” Conflicts like this are one of the reasons people oppose the mandate in the first place; it is the inevitable consequence of it, not some side issue. These are the worms inside the can. And even if we try to maintain the fiction that we can cordon the effect off from its cause, that still doesn’t explain how anything is being imposed on you…
…unless, as I suggested before, you’re operating under the assumption that contraception (not access to contraception, but actual contraception) is a fundmanetal right. AND the assumption that it’s somehow the job of your employer to secure that right and make it manifest. To make the arguments you’re making, both of these things need to be true, and it seems to me that neither of them are.
@Tofu — “…unless, as I suggested before, you’re operating under the assumption that contraception (not access to contraception, but actual contraception) is a fundmanetal right. AND the assumption that it’s somehow the job of your employer to secure that right and make it manifest. To make the arguments you’re making, both of these things need to be true, and it seems to me that neither of them are.”
It does seem like we need to define some terms here. “Fundamental right” doesn’t seem too helpful a term here. But if my employer can cite his beliefs to deny me benefits the government would otherwise require, I regard that as a sacrifice *I* am being forced to make for the sake of HIS convictions. Using institutional heft to deny me benefits I’d otherwise have — because of a morality I may not share? To me, that’s a form of bullying.
(And sure, I’d say the same of an employer who sought to deny me dental coverage I would otherwise be legally entitled to.)
See, I’m not “operating under the assumption” that my employer has an obligation to provide a birth-control benefit … I’m merely proceeding from the fact that the Obama Administration is mandating such an obligation.
The bishops are asking for a special exemption, based on church doctrine. But lots of business owners might have their own convictions about birth control. Should their convictions, or those of an Amish farmer, count for any less? And if so, why? Because the Catholic church is a bigger institution than the Amish community?
I’m actually not sure you think the bishops DO trump an Amish farmer. You seem to object to the idea that ANY employer could be required to offer a benefit he opposes. Am I wrong about that? Is it your belief that ANY employer should be able to opt out of paying for benefits he doesn’t approve of? Or is your position that certain religious-affiliated organizations have a special right to do so?
Helpful questions, and your guess is correct: I don’t think bishops should be treated better than Amish farmers. I don’t think we should be making major exceptions to broad mandates. But the fact that this dispute exists is not an argument against those exceptions, it’s an argument against the mandate.
We both, I would hope, agree that there are such things as unjust or unreasonable laws. If the law required that I buy you contraceptives, even though I’m not your employer and have no formal relationship to you whatsoever, I would not be “bullying” you by resisting, despite the fact that such a situation would be, to use your words, “deny[ing] [you] benefits the government would otherwise require.” This is clearly an absurd situation, but almost all of the arguments you’re using in defense of current law could be used in defense of this farcical hypothetical one, because almost all of them “proceed from the fact that the Obama Administration is mandating such an obligation.” Any ridiculous or unjust law can be defended if you get to ignore the part of the argument about whether or not it should be law.
The problem, then, is that the arguments presuppose the very thing being disputed. You assume the law is fair and reasonable. But the dispute is not strictly about whether or not to make a religious exception, but about the integrity of a law that would put us in that position in the first place.
I have to say, I think it might well be reasonable to ask the broad question, why is the ACA saying that contraceptives have to be paid for by health insurance for non-medical reasons? I mean, I know there are medical reasons to prescribe the pill (and I am assuming that the pill is the contraceptive we are talking about, not the almost disappeared diaphragm), but I don’t think “so I don’t have kids” is one of them. The inclusion of contraception as something health insurance and doctors must cover and prescribe seems like social policy to me.
But the Catholic church objecting to covering/providing contraception on religious grounds does strike me as major league hypocrisy. And Ruth Ann suggesting that Republicans should (as they are doing) make this an election issue is doubly hypocritical. If the church is so concerned with life, where were they when we attacked Iraq by choice, with flimsy justifications that never panned out? And how concerned are Republicans about freedom of religion, given their stance on Muslims building new Mosques?
Let’s be clear, there are several types of contraception available including the afore mentioned diaphragm and of course condoms that can be purchased cheaply from every drug store and grocery store in the country (as far as I know).In denying coverage for the pill, the Catholic Church is simply punishing poor and middle income unmarried and married women who work at Catholic hospitals and Universities, for what evidently the Church considers promiscuity. They are denying them access to a form of contraception women can control, is easy to use, effective, and in this context inexpensive. In the real world, women may face a situation where the man they are “with”, husband or otherwise, may choose not to use a condom, or may use it badly. That is where forbidding access to the pill can have a disastrous effect. This may be a religious issue for Catholics, but in this situation it is Catholics enforcing their religion on their employees (no matter what the religion of the employee might be). That makes it a social issue.
Again, I am not sure the ACA ought to mandate coverage of the Pill for reasons other than to treat a medical condition. But if that policy survives any legal challenge, then I am with Potter, there should be no religious exemption from this policy. Especially for the Catholics, who, I think everyone must admit, have a less than stellar record on all sorts of moral issues.
@Tofu —
Sorry for the delay.
Sounds like we both agree that religious-affiliated employers deserve no more — or less — deference that any other employer with an objection to the contraceptive benefit. And if I haven’t addressed your broader objection, it’s because this post was written specifically in response claims largely made on behalf OF CHURCHES. (See Dailey’s original article.) I think you and I have kind of dispensed with that claim, and can move on to discuss the issue as it applies to ANY employer.
You note that “there are such things as unjust or unreasonable laws.” I agree, but I’m not sure placing this requirement on employers qualifies … certainly not in the way your hypothetical example does.
For one thing — and I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this until now — a couple dozen states ALREADY require employers to offer contraception as part of their insurance coverage. Mitt Romney advanced just such a policy himself; it was arguably LESS solicitous of religious scruple than the modified Obama proposal.
For good or ill — and as a backer of single-payer, I think it’s mostly for ill — health-insurance in this country is largely tied to employment, at least w/r/t the working-age (and thus, for our purposes here, *child-bearing* age) population. That’s just how we roll here in the United States. It’s been that way for decades, for a whole slew of reasons … due in part to the preference of employers themselves.
Government already regulates various aspects of the workplace, including compensation: worker safety, minimum-wage and OT laws, social security withholding, etc. Sometimes, employers have cited religious or moral objections to those standards, but as we’ve seen, the courts have generally ruled that their scruples must defer to secular law. So should government regulation of BENEFITS like health coverage be more susceptible to such objections than government regulation of WAGES? Especially when both are key components of an employees compensation?
@Chris Potter: I’m not sure what argument is made by detailing the government’s long and illustrious history of interference. That no more justifies this particular interference than it would justify the Iraq War if I reminded you that we are, in fact, legally allowed to go to war and have done so many times before. In fact, it seems this entire discussion has been me trying to explain why this mandate is unfair, and you just telling me it’s law. The problem is, when the argument is about whether or not something should be law, pointing to its legality is circular.
You say my hypothetical is different…but I don’t see where you say why. The only difference I see is that mine is clearly ridiculous, which is the entire point. We can do this a million ways: If you don’t buy me a gun, are you interfering with my second amendment rights? If you don’t buy me a company car, are you “bullying” me into walking? If you don’t buy me a pony, are you imposing your anti-pony prejudices on me? If the answer to these questions is “no” (and it is) then all the rhetoric about Catholics imposing anything on anyone needs to be recognized for the hysterical gibberish it is. It flies in the face of both logic and the dictionary.
If your response, as it seems to be, is only that these things aren’t laws, then the ballgame’s over. Because if the only argument for a law is that it’s the law, then we have on our hands both a really bad law and a really bad argument. And that’s without even getting into the fact that, unlike the other regulations you mention, this one isn’t contingent on any action: you’re mandated to purchase it merely for being alive.
And, justness or unjustness aside, this is a pretty pointless wielding of government power. We’re not talking about whether or not we should be allowed to draft Quakers in times of war. We’re not talking about a scenario where the clear, undisputed responsibilities of government come into natural conflict with religious belief. This fight was picked. And as you alluded to in your article, mandating contraception is only going to decrease wages to pay for it, anyway. It’s of questionable value even if you completely strip away the religious aspect.
Yeah, we’re definitely talking past each other, probably because we have pretty different concerns when it comes to fairness. From what I can see, your principal concern is that it’s unfair to ask employers to pay for anything they don’t want to pay for. MY principal concern is that it’s unfair for working Americans to go without a baseline level of health insurance.
I’ve described the legal and social history here at length, largely to prove that this policy shift is not such a radical departure from previous precedent after all. Compared to a genuine overhaul like single-payer, it’s actually a pretty modest policy shift where employers are concerned: leaving the employer-based approach intact, but firming up some baseline requirements.
But obviously, if your goal is to erase those previous precedents — by removing government from EVERY aspects of the employee/employer relations — then citing historic precedents probably isn’t going to satisfy you. Neither, I suspect, will citing polling data that shows a majority of Americans are pretty comfortable with where Obama has come down on the contraception issue. Because it’s the prerogatives of management you seem most anxious to protect.
So we’re probably at an impasse here. But even if so, I thank you for the discussion.
While I appreciate the “hey, diff’rent strokes” sentiment, I don’t feel that’s an accurate assessment of our disagreement. If you look at my comments I think you’ll notice that I’ve been pretty consistent in making one point over and over again, and that it’s a point that remains unaddressed: the point about the specific rhetoric being used.
I would not have bothered to reply at all if my only contention sprang from our fundamentally different views on healthcare. I’ve had enough discussions with people who believe healthcare to be an innate human right to wander into another one. No, like any decent argument, I was disagreeing with something that I felt didn’t make sense even if I were to assume your general view of things: the insinuation that Catholics were trying to impose their beliefs by not wanting to participate.
You may find the more libertarian view of healthcare I’m talking about to be foolish, heartless, or a million other things. But the one thing it cannot be is bullying. It may be many things, but it is not compulsion or imposition. There is no angle from which that particular accusation makes sense, regardless of whether you’re Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich. You may think it necessary to force this on people whose religious faith condemns it. I strongly disagree, but there is an argument to be had there. But there is no way to pretend, without doing things to the words involved that would easily violate the Geneva Conventions, to pretend that their wanting to be left alone on this issue is somehow bullying others.
Well, as I said awhile back:
“Using institutional heft to deny me benefits I’d otherwise have — because of a morality I may not share? To me, that’s a form of bullying.”
You can reject that definition if you wish, but it is informed by my feeling that what’s at stake is a right to health coverage. And since many Americans seem to support the Obama approach, I suspect I’m not the only one thinking along these lines. In any case, it seems a little simplistic to say the church “just wants to be left alone,” as if no one else — namely the employees — has a stake in the decision. (And I’d add that birth control is only the beginning. Already Rick Santorum is saying covering certain forms of prenatal care should ALSO not be required … not because a procedure like amniocentesis is objectionable it itself, but because it MIGHT reveal information that MIGHT lead to a decision an employer would disagree with.)
But we’re at the point where we’re quoting ourselves, so this argument has played itself out. I’ll yield the last word to you, and thank you again for the discussion.
Well, if you’re offering the last word, I’ll take it:
You did indeed say that. And my response then (and now) is that the argument is circular: you’re defending a law based on its legality. Which is not defending it at all.
Whether or not you find contraception to be an important part of health care matters not one whit to the argument I’m making. I find free speech to be an immensely important right, but that doesn’t mean I have to loan you my megaphone. If you feel otherwise, how about a deal: the Catholic church pays for your contraception, and you pay for their communion wine. That’s what our freedom apparently means now, right? Not just the right to buy something, but the right to make other people provide it.
That, I’m afraid, is the part of your argument that just doesn’t follow. Even if I accept your…er…interesting personal definition of “bullying,” and even if I concede that the Declaration of Independence should be retroactively modified to include “contraception” right between “life” and “liberty,” there is nothing about that belief that necessitates that it has to be provided by one’s employer.
I am not a Catholic, nor a libertarian, nor am I against contraception at all. But those are my conclusions, and everyone gets to decide these things for themselves. There is no dictionary, no common usage, no lingo, under which someone who doesn’t want to buy you something is denying you your right to it. There is no way of looking at this issue in which the Catholic church is imposing things on you. It is just the opposite: the church is insisting on a society where each individual gets to decide whether or not they purchase contraception. You’re insisting on one where they don’t. It’s as simple as that.
I agree with Tofu: the Catholic Church ( or any other religous objector ) is not denying anyone the right to purchase their own birth control; they are denying the govt’s right to force the Religious Insitution to pay for it. No one is saying to remove all contraceptives from store shelves and pharmacy stocks; they are just saying that it is wrong for the government to force the Catholic Church et al to pay for something that goes against their very being.