22
Feb
Does the controversy over the Catholic Church and health care go beyond birth control?
“But sometimes the dual mandates of these institutions—to heal the body and to nurture the spirit, to perform public functions but maintain private identities—are difficult to reconcile. That was the issue with the recent contraception controversy. The whole point of the new health care law is to make insurance a public good to which every citizen is entitled regardless of where he or she works. And, because employers have traditionally been the source of insurance for most working Americans, the law effectively deputizes employers to provide this public good. In some cases, that means forcing religious institutions to pay for benefits—such as birth control—that violate the terms of their faith.”
—Jonathan Cohn, “Unholy Alliance: The controversy over the Catholic Church and health care goes beyond birth control.”
Image by Edel Rodriguez.
