Double Effect Regarding HHS Mandate?

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A parishioner sent me this question regarding possibly applying double effect to the HHS Healthcare Mandate in the event all alternatives fail. Your assistance is appreciated to give him a clear answer to this particular question! Thank you in advance and God Bless!!!🙂

Hi Father-

You don’t know me too well, but would probably recognize me if you saw me as being a “regular” at church. I’m a parishioner with 3 kids at St. XXXXXX’s school, and I am on your email distribution list.

I think this issue where HHS is trying to make everyone (including the Catholic institutions) pay for “services” that are morally wrong is horrible.

I think this should be fought, and ultimately maybe the issue should go to court.

But, it occurred to me, as bad as it is… if worse came to worse, couldn’t a Catholic institution comply with the law under principle of double effect?

Meaning, the church or institution desires healthcare coverage for their employees for good/valid medical procedures, desires not to have large fines, and does not desire the fact that the policy by law must include these things?

I know it is a bad (probably unconstitutional) mandate, but wanted to get your thought on the double effect applicability.

God bless,
 
This is an interesting question. What is being required in the first place? The law as I understand it is requiring you to purchase or provide insurance which will cover the cost of health care. Health care is the goal not insurance. So this law is itself just a means to the end of health care.

The law requires the insurance policy to include certain benefits. Some of these benefits are considered immoral. These same benefits are not actually health care. It is not for health reasons that most people take birth control. Birth control is taken to prevent life from resulting from sex. Abortion inducing drugs are not taken for health reasons but to kill a human life. So these problematic provisions do not actually have anything at all to do with human health. These provision are evil in what they intend to support.

The first requirement of the principle of double effect is that the action be morally good or indifferent. Material support for evil is not indifferent and certainly not good. So this fails the very first test. The key to this is to realize that an intentional good is wrapped up with an intentional evil. Abortion and birth control are not a side effect of the intended action but an intentional aspect of it. A side effect would be that certain drugs covered under health insurance will be abused, that is not used for medical treatment but used to get high. Morality is includes intention. There is no escaping the intention of this law of providing material support for evil acts.

This is wrong just like it would be wrong in war to have a bombing campaign that not only targeted industrial buildings but also the homes of non-combatants. The intention to do evil would be part of the whole plan in that case and make it wrong. If the bombing campaign has as only a side effect of killing civilians then it could be morally justified under this principle. As soon as the side effect is made a primary purpose then the campaign would no longer be moral in any way.
 
My own analysis would be different than the first one given here.

The actual action involved here, under the current compromise being offered by the White House as far as I understand it, would be providing health insurance, which is obviously not intrinsically evil. The employer would not be directly paying for contraceptives or even, directly, for coverage of contraceptives. The intended, primary effect of providing the insurance would be providing the means for employees to obtain health care, and also to avoid government fines. The unintended second effect would be a facilitation of access to contraceptives through the insurance company, which would offer coverage for contraception for “free”, using the money payed into the general pot by the employers and employees.

It therefore seems to me that the cooperation with evil involved would be material and indirect. Thus the morality of it would come down to the proportionate good vs. evil effects of the action. Do the goods gained from providing the health insurance plan, like health care for employees and avoiding ruinous fines, outweigh the evils of increasing access to technologies which sterilize the sexual act and even kill unborn babies?

It is inexcusable for the government to force this difficult moral problem on employers, whether religious or secular, who object to insurance coverage of contraceptives. Essentially they are manipulating the moral calculus of the problem by these fines they are threatening people with. It is very right to call this a matter of conscience protection and religious liberty. At the same time I think it may be possible to comply with the law should we lose the fight against it.
 
It would seem to me the paying for contraception and abortive drugs is not an effect.
 
Bookcat said:
It would seem to me the paying for contraception and abortive drugs is not an effect.
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Which you wouldn’t be doing as an employer. It would be the equivalent of giving a gift card to Wal-mart. The person you’re giving it to can go and spend it on any number of immoral things but that doesn’t mean that you in any way are responsible for what is done with the money.
 
Aelred_Minor said:
My own analysis would be different than the first one given here.

The actual action involved here, under the current compromise being offered by the White House as far as I understand it, would be providing health insurance, which is obviously not intrinsically evil. The employer would not be directly paying for contraceptives or even, directly, for coverage of contraceptives. The intended, primary effect of providing the insurance would be providing the means for employees to obtain health care, and also to avoid government fines. The unintended second effect would be a facilitation of access to contraceptives through the insurance company, which would offer coverage for contraception for “free”, using the money payed into the general pot by the employers and employees.
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Two problems with this analysis.
  1. For the principle of double effect to apply there must be proportionality. There is no proportionality here since the desired good (health insurance for employees) is entirely reachable WITHOUT the additional effect of contraceptive coverage.
  2. Contraceptive coverage is NOT the unintended secondary effect. The law has payment of contraception as a very much INTENDED effect of the law. Access isn’t even an issue here since contraception is easily accessible to all; payment is the only issue.
It therefore seems to me that the cooperation with evil involved would be material and indirect. Thus the morality of it would come down to the proportionate good vs. evil effects of the action. Do the goods gained from providing the health insurance plan, like health care for employees and avoiding ruinous fines, outweigh the evils of increasing access to technologies which sterilize the sexual act and even kill unborn babies?
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I think you mean material and remote.

What is the proportionate good to be gained from employers paying for contraception? It is not as if it is impossible to design a health insurance plan that does not include contraceptive coverage.
It is inexcusable for the government to force this difficult moral problem on employers, whether religious or secular, who object to insurance coverage of contraceptives. Essentially they are manipulating the moral calculus of the problem by these fines they are threatening people with. It is very right to call this a matter of conscience protection and religious liberty.
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đź‘Ť

(should have stopped while you were ahead ;))
 
KostyaJMJ said:
Which you wouldn’t be doing as an employer. It would be the equivalent of giving a gift card to Wal-mart. The person you’re giving it to can go and spend it on any number of immoral things but that doesn’t mean that you in any way are responsible for what is done with the money.
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It’s the same as paying your taxes…which also pay for ABCs…
 
Rence said:
It’s the same as paying your taxes…which also pay for ABCs…
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Nope.

One is not purchasing anything. One is paying a general tax.

(of course the use of the money for such is wrong but that is not the discussion)
 
Rence said:
It’s the same as paying your taxes…which also pay for ABCs…
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exactly. I haven’t heard that paying our taxes would be immoral even though it does go to support some evil things.

I do believe we have to oppose this because it sets a precedent but I don’t see how complying with the law if it is passed would be wrong. Don’t Catholic employers already comply in Canada, UK, Australia?
 
Rence said:
It’s the same as paying your taxes…which also pay for ABCs…
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If you were talking about Medicaid, this would be true. However, employee health insurance is a form of direct compensation from an employer to an employee. It is not at all the same as paying taxes.
 
If double effect can be used to justify the unintentional destruction of a fetus in a case of an ectopic pregnancy, where the destruction of the fetus is an absolute certainty, I don’t see why it couldn’t also be applied to the HHS mandate where there is no absolute certainty that anyone will avail themselves of the objectionable services.
 
cornbread_r2 said:
If double effect can be used to justify the unintentional destruction of a fetus in a case of an ectopic pregnancy, where the destruction of the fetus is an absolute certainty, I don’t see why it couldn’t also be applied to the HHS mandate where there is no absolute certainty that anyone will avail themselves of the objectionable services.
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Probability is not a factor in moral theology and ethics.
 
cornbread_r2 said:
If double effect can be used to justify the unintentional destruction of a fetus in a case of an ectopic pregnancy, where the destruction of the fetus is an absolute certainty, I don’t see why it couldn’t also be applied to the HHS mandate where there is no absolute certainty that anyone will avail themselves of the objectionable services.
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We are not speaking of an “unintended side effect” for starts.

We are speaking of the paying for contraceptives, sterilization and drugs that often work via abortions.
 
KostyaJMJ said:
exactly. I haven’t heard that paying our taxes would be immoral even though it does go to support some evil things.
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Right, and you’re still paying into a community bucket, which provides things that not everyone is on board with. Mandated rules are mandated rules. They take culpability away from the person being compelled to cooperate. Give to Caesar…
KostyaJMJ said:
I do believe we have to oppose this because it sets a precedent but I don’t see how complying with the law if it is passed would be wrong. Don’t Catholic employers already comply in Canada, UK, Australia?
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I believe those who are opposed to it should continue to oppose it as well, and rally support for their cause as well. But in the end, if the mandate sticks, not complying with the law and incurring fines and possibly jail time is the same as doing so for not paying your taxes. As far as I’m concerned, those who don’t follow the law can get fined up the waazoo and have fun in jail because the laws apply to everyone. When people stop accepting money from the government for supporting them, then they can dictate to the government how the government can and can’t cut their costs. In the meantime, the majority, and the needs of the citizens, and the governments efforts to pick up the slack, rule in social issues. Those who are opposed to cooperating in community efforts, can always do as the Amish, who provide for themselves and therefore can have nothing to do with the system - they don’t pay into it, and they don’t use it. When you use and abuse the system, it has to compensate to continue.
 
Corki said:
Two problems with this analysis.
  1. For the principle of double effect to apply there must be proportionality. There is no proportionality here since the desired good (health insurance for employees) is entirely reachable WITHOUT the additional effect of contraceptive coverage.
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Edit: the below response is based on a misreading of your question. I see now that your focus as in the second question is on the immorality of the mandate itself, which we both agree on. But the question is if the mandate sticks, and therefore it will be impossible to provide health insurance or to avoid ruinous fines without the insurance company offering contraception coverage to all your employees, what should you do?

This is the difficult question- the relative good and evil that would arise from providing health insurance under the administration’s current proposal. It’s why I didn’t say we can and should comply with the law if we lose, just that it is indeed a case of the principle of double effect. There are plenty of cases in which the unintended negative effects outweigh the good intended effect and thus render the action immoral. If this is the category of moral problems we have here then this is exactly the question we will have to pose to ourselves. We could potentially comply with the law if in our best judgement the good effects outweighed the bad, but by no means am I saying that they do. If they do not, we still can’t in conscience comply with the law, just as much as if it were requiring an action that in itself was intrinsically evil.
Corki said:
  1. Contraceptive coverage is NOT the unintended secondary effect. The law has payment of contraception as a very much INTENDED effect of the law. Access isn’t even an issue here since contraception is easily accessible to all; payment is the only issue.
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It is not the uninteded second effect of the mandate. There is no question that by mandating this the Obama administration is doing something intrinsically evil. But what we are discussing is the question of complying with the mandate, not the question of imposing the mandate on the country.
Corki said:
I think you mean material and remote.
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This is actually exactly what I wrote at first, but revised the word “remote” to “indirect” for the sake of any reader not well versed in this kind of language who might take the word “remote” as a statement minimalizing the weight of this cooperation, as though it were something obscure and irrelevant. I was under the impression that the proximate/remote, immediate/mediate, and direct/indirect dichotomies were equivalent on this subject of material cooperation with evil. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Corki said:
What is the proportionate good to be gained from employers paying for contraception? It is not as if it is impossible to design a health insurance plan that does not include contraceptive coverage.
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It will indeed be impossible to provide health insurance that does not offer contraceptive coverage under this mandate. The good to be gained from employers (and employees too, don’t forget) paying into an insurance plan which will also, subsequent to that, use the money to pay for contraception, is the providing of health coverage to people and avoiding monstrous fines. Whether these goods are proportionate to the evil is something I’m remaining uncommitted on.
 
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