In the unfolding storm over
President Obama’s health care mandate we have heard that the rights of women to
have their reproductive health needs protected have been trampled. Certainly
those needs need to be addressed. But I
have yet to hear whether or not those needs trump the need to keep the First
Amendment to our Constitution untrammeled and intact.
“Hard cases make bad law” is
a legal maxim that is widely known and quoted, the idea being that the law is
not malleable putty but needs to be properly maintained within our legal system
by due process through our appellate system. There are three branches to our
American governmental system. The Legislative branch is supposed to enact laws,
the Executive branch to enforce them, and the Judicial branch is to ensure that
the other two branches act lawfully and in accordance with our Constitution. President Obama's HHS mandate and its "accommodation" is a constitutional issue not just a governmental policy question... and he knows that. After all he taught Constitutional Law at Harvard. It is the Judicial branch that will ultimately decide this issue.
It is within that context
that we should evaluate what the Obama administration is mandating by requiring
that religious institutions provide “free” contraceptive services to their
employees even though those services run contrary the teachings and practices
of the religious bodies to which they belong.
In other words, how free is their freedom of religion? Does the claimed
reproductive health of women trump all else, even the freedom of religion
clause of the First Amendment?
Father Charlie, surely there is no "right of women to have their reproductive health needs met" is there? Unless, of course, we are talking about the health of a woman's fertility. We know the left is talking about the opposite. Since pregnancy is not a disease contraception is not health care. The way they talk about contraception as health care to me is chilling. Have we come to disdain life so far that now the gift of life is equated to a disease? The spiritual battle is raging. I'm very much enjoying your blog!
ReplyDelete