By Sara Nydam|Staff Writer|
Catholic Institutions around the country filed a lawsuit on May 20 against President Obama’s controversial birth control mandate that will require all employers to provide birth control coverage through their health insurance benefits.
The federal lawsuit argues that Obama’s mandate violates religious freedom by requiring religiously affiliated institutions to provide birth control to their employees.
I believe that the Obama administration is being quite fair in it’s implementation of this mandate which is in the best interest of everyone.
“The original rule generally allowed churches and other houses of worship to opt out, but kept the requirement in place for religiously affiliated nonprofits, including hospitals, colleges and charities,” reports the Huffington Post.
While I can see that churches should not be required to provide no-cost birth control, I strongly believe that the religiously affiliated colleges and hospitals should provide this insurance coverage to their employees regardless of their beliefs.
The issue here is that many religious institutions hire people who do not share their beliefs against birth control. The fact is that many colleges and hospitals employ and provide services to non-religious people.
These people should have access to all the benefits of health insurance, including no-cost birth control despite working for a place of worship.
Recent polls by the Public Religion Research Institute have shown that while Americans and Catholics have different opinions on this mandate, “the strategically important group of younger women strongly support the mandate,” reports the Washington Post.
In fact, 61 percent of women under the age of 49 say religious colleges and hospitals should be required to provide no cost birth control to their employees, according to the Washington Post.
With the majority of young women supporting this mandate, including even some Catholics, it is hard for the church to argue that this mandate is morally wrong.
I believe these people have an argument regarding the separation of church and state does not necessarily include birth control and is not a moral issue.
They are making it a moral issue while they are forcing their morals and beliefs on employees and students.
“They should provide birth control because sometimes, [if not] it could lead to abortion,” said Catholic student Magali Vidrio.
Taking birth control would be hardly an offense within the Catholic church in comparison to getting an abortion or having a child out of wedlock.
According to a recent Gallup Poll, a substantial amount of lay Catholics believe birth control is morally acceptable.
Even after Obama’s compromise, the Catholic Hierarchy are claiming that the government is infringing on the right’s of religious organizations, but it’s not.
Even so, the government is not forcing anyone to individually purchase and use birth control. Most women, including Catholic women, use birth control as a way to plan stable families and to prevent frequent pregnancies.
It would be smart to trust in the Obama administration for the sake of the female community.
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