A Path Of Continued Confrontation

Faculty members of Jesuit-run John Carroll University in Cleveland have urged U.S. Catholic church acceptance of the Obama administration’s contraceptive insurance regulation as adapted Feb. 10. The federal Health and Human Services regulation mandates that nearly all employee health insurance plans cover artificial contraception and voluntary sterilization services, including plans for employees of many religiously run institutions, even if the sponsors of those institutions are morally opposed to the use of those prescriptions or medical procedures. The faculty letter is in sharp contrast to the stance of the U.S. bishops’ conference, which has waged a high-profile campaign against the mandate, labeling it as a violation of First Amendment religious liberty rights. In a letter Feb. 14 to university president Jesuit Fr. Robert Niehoff, 48 John Carroll faculty members said, “We are all troubled that the bishops have chosen a path of continued confrontation” over the latest version of the Health and Human Services regulation. The signatories said they are all “committed to freedom of conscience and religious liberty,” but they “also believe that access to contraception is central to the health and well-being of women and children.” “The American bishops have accused the Obama administration of attacking religious liberty in mandating insurance coverage of contraception,” the faculty members wrote. “On the contrary, we believe the insurance mandate is driven by a concern for women’s health.” The faculty members asked Niehoff and presidents of other Catholic universities to “urge the bishops to avoid the inflammatory rhetoric they have been using to attack the administration’s policy ... [and] endorse a policy of insurance coverage of contraception that respects the religious liberties and health of all who teach and work at Catholic colleges and universities.”

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