Opting Out
When religious doctrine mixes with public policy, the views of many are ignored

by Anthony A. Cupaiuolo

The New York State Legislature is willingly about to fall victim to a religious version of “The Emperor Has No Clothes.” In this case the ‘emperor” is the newly consecrated Cardinal Edward Egan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York. Egan plans to take two trips this month, 150 miles up the Hudson from his Manhattan residence to the State Capital in Albany, to energetically promote so-called "Roman Catholic" goals. There is a real question as to whether they truly are Roman Catholic goals or that of the celibate male hierarchy.

While Egan will undoubtedly seek support for perennial church objectives including elimination of Medicaid funding of abortion and outlawing the procedure abortion opponents call “partial birth” abortion, he is even more interested in attacking an emerging issue in Albany - one that he may actually win. 

The Democratic controlled Assembly and the Republican controlled Senate are currently bickering over a bill that would provide enhanced health insurance coverage for women. While there appears to be little discord over inclusion of diagnostic tests like mammograms and pap smears, a proposed provision to cover doctor-prescribed contraceptive drugs and devices is creating a maelstrom.

The Senate’s version of the bill differs from the Assembly’s in that it contains a “conscience clause” that allows employers such as the Catholic Church to opt out of covering birth control if it violates their religious beliefs. Supporters of the Assembly bill have pointed out that generally speaking a “conscience clause” is used to protect the rights of an individual and not an institution. Individuals opposed to birth control are not obliged to use it. It goes without saying that Catholic institutions such as hospitals and social service agencies employ many individuals who are not Catholic and yet would be affected if the Republican version of the legislation were to pass.

Cardinal Edward Egan

There is good reason to believe that Egan might prevail and obtain the Senate’s support. All he needs is the backing of Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who solely determines which bills get passed and which never even bother to come up for a vote. Bruno would want to get off to a good start with the new Cardinal who is interested in showing off his own political muscle and step out of the shadow of his revered predecessor, Cardinal John O”Connor, who died last year.

That Egan is likely to be successful by either getting a “conscience clause” added or the entire provision regarding contraceptives dropped, and that he will have no success regarding abortion, is more than a little ironic. Catholics, as many Americans, are divided over the morality of abortion, but like an overwhelming majority of the population, Catholics use contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies. They do it without guilt and without any need to seek forgiveness in the confessional. 

Sermons about the sinfulness of contraceptives are about as rare as World Series celebrations in Boston or Chicago. I’m a fairly regular church-goer and I haven’t heard a Sunday sermon on the evils of contraceptives in more than 30 years. Parish priests no more want to talk about why artificial birth control is a sin than to re-visit “limbo” — the alleged resting place for infants who died without being baptized. It was supposed to be kind of an OK place except that God couldn’t ever visit.

It is all but impossible to explain the Catholic Church’s position on birth control because it defies all logic and strains credibility. Aside from some inexplicable Biblical passage about ’spilling seed,” the objection seems to be that it violates natural law. The same argument could be used against lying as a violation of speech. In fact St. Augustine, one of the great Church theologians, considered lying to be a grave sin that admits no exceptions. Is there anyone who believes that there aren’t times when lying is not only not immoral but even required for a greater good, such as the protection of an innocent life? By the same token, aren’t there valid reasons — the emotional and economic security of a family, the mother’s health, one partner has a transferable illness, environmental sanity, etc. — to thwart “natural law” and prevent the possibility of conception? 

Although in the 1960s a committee of Catholic clergy and laity was in favor of altering the Church’s position on birth control, Pope Paul VI disregarded its findings and in 1968 released Humanae Vitae, reaffirming the Church’s position against contraception. He probably feared that any change might weaken the Church’s authority and lead to even more “radical” proposals. Married clergy? Female priests?

For their own political reasons, the Republican state senators will probably give Egan what he wants despite the fact that he is speaking only for the Church hierarchy and not ordinary Catholics or clergy. Furthermore, they will ignore the fact that “Catholic” Italy, the home of the Pope, has almost the lowest birth rate in the world — proving that either the Italians are practicing birth control or they have given up sex.

Anthony A. Cupaiuolo is director of the Edwin G. Michaelian Institute for Public Policy and Management at Pace University in New York.

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