#morethanredandblue: Part 4

Here is Part 4 of my Theology on Tap talk, More Than Red and Blue.

You can read the explanation and Part 1 of the talk here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

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Let’s try another issue: let’s tackle artificial birth control, the Health and Human Services Mandate, and the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare. A few years ago, following the passage of the ACA, the Department of Health and Human Services mandated that employer-based health-care plans had to provide artificial birth control free of charge. Directly religious institutions were exempted, but other institutions with a religious ethos, such as religious universities, and private businesses owned by people with faith-based conscientious objections, such as Hobby Lobby were not. HHS offered a compromise that instead had these groups employ a third party to provide free artificial birth control as a middle man, but these groups were largely unsatisfied, still feeling complicit. Currently, appeals against the mandate are pinballing in the courts, stalled due in part to the death of Justice Scalia and the nominee to replace him not being considered by the Senate.

So, let’s start with the ACA and health-care access. Health-care would be considered a thrival right, something which the theme of Rights and Responsibilities calls us to affirm as a necessary element of helping people become who God created them to be. Again, we face the challenge of choosing a path toward universal health-care, and this is where we must face up to the political landscape of the US. Foundationally, it isn’t a just option to simply not work toward universal health-care. If we are to heed the calls of Rights and Responsibilities, the Dignity and Value of Human Life, the Preferential Option for the Poor and Marginalized, and Solidarity, we must somehow pursue universal health-care.

So, we need to choose a path as to how we will work toward this goal. Democrats want to strengthen and develop ObamaCare toward universal coverage; Republicans want to repeal and replace ObamaCare, though the parameters of their substitute plan are unclear. Either way, or via a potential third way, we as Catholics are called to affirm access to what our brothers and sisters need to survive, thrive, and develop. Democrats need to articulate how ObamaCare can develop to ensure affordable access to health-care for all, and Republicans need to explain how exactly privatized health-care or a revised health-care law can accomplish that. We as voters must decide how conscientiously we can best honors our Rights and Responsibilities, the Dignity and Value of Human Life, and the Preferential Option as we work for universal health-care.

I personally feel ObamaCare is a step in the right direction, and being realistic, I was, am, and continue to be prepared for a rocky rollout as we work toward universal coverage. There is a steep learning curve in educating young people and healthy people that they must get coverage – it will support them in case their health deteriorates or is affected by unforeseen circumstance, and their buy-in will gradually increase the national health-care spending by consumers and gradually lower costs to consumers across the board. I know it will take time to work toward that critical mass, and I am fine being patient for a little while. I also believe that continuing to incorporate a free-market element can help ensure that health-care providers are competing to provide the best options and prices to consumers, who can decide the best plan for themselves, be it a standard HMO or PPO, an FSA or HSA with high deductible, or an ObamaCare marketplace plan with low, subsidized premiums.

Now, let’s focus more on the HHS Mandate and the implications for artificial birth control access and use. Foundationally as Catholics, we believe that sexual intercourse is the fullest expression of love, something that can only be fully expressed in marriage by a husband and wife. We also believe that their marital sexuality should be simultaneously procreative and unitive; spouses should be open to each sexual act resulting in pregnancy as they express their love to each other with the greatest intimacy and vulnerability. Responding to this, we believe that we should not intervene artificially in the sexual act to alter or change its natural end, so we believe artificial birth control is immoral.

To connect this back to CST themes, let’s first consider The Dignity and Value of Human Life; this theme calls us to respect the beginning of life at conception, such that we do not interfere with the potential for conception, where a new life could begin. Let’s consider the Call to Family, Community, and Participation; this theme calls us to enact the fullness of marital love without any artificial interference such that our sexuality reflects the commitment to the marriage, the spouse, and the family that will be lived out in our families’ lives.

So how can we engage this mandate in terms that translate? We need to approach our consideration of artificial birth control in terms of sexual liberty v. reproductive health. On the one hand, sexual liberty is the concept that we should be free to have sex as we wish, with whom we wish, consensually, and with control over the consequences of the actions, including pregnancy, STDs, etc. To this end, people often turn to various kinds of artificial birth control to facilitate their sexual liberty: contraceptive surgeries, or sterilizations; contraceptive devices, such as IUDs; contraceptive medications, such as “the pill”; and abortifacients, such as “Plan B” that end pregnancies very early. On the other hand, reproductive health is the field of health-care that pertains to fertility, pregnancy, and care for young children and mothers. This seeks to support the natural processes of the body that enable procreation and healthy conception, pregnancy, birth, and development. To this end, people often turn to various things to aid their reproductive health: hormone and fertility therapies; corrective surgeries, usually for women’s issues like tube blockage, scar tissue, uterine abnormalities, tumors, or cysts; diet, exercise, and lifestyle adjustments; and natural family planning consultations and counseling.

Sexual liberty involves our desire to gain control over the natural processes of our body and their consequences whereas reproductive health aims to support and facilitate the body’s natural processes. Fertility and pregnancy are not diseases but rather healthy functions of a healthy body. These should not be restrained or interfered with, so artificial birth control cannot be considered reproductive health. The one exception to these distinctions, which Paul VI explicitly declares in his encyclical Humanae vitae, is when women elect to use artificial birth control therapeutically to treat irregular or heavy menstrual periods. As long as this use of artificial birth control does not become doubly used for sexual liberty, it’s ok.

So since artificial birth control does not treat a disease or disorder, it should not be considered or mandated as part of health-care. Advocacy for artificial birth control cannot really fit within the cohesive calls of these social teachings, so those who choose to advocate for artificial birth control should do so recognizing it as a matter of sexual liberty rather than reproductive health.

Coming up next in Part 5: gun control and gun violence.