I have a question for all the Catholics here: if the HHS mandate were changed so that Plan B and other abortifacents were no longer required in insurance policies, but condoms, spermicides and other contraceptives which do not hurt a fetus once concieved remained, would this still be a big issue?
Here’s a metaphor: Suppose that we lived in a rather silly nation in which food was bought by insurance rather than by individuals. Different policies would allow you to eat different kinds of food. Now suppose that you, as a Catholic, worked at an institution run by Muslims. Muslims do not eat pork, because they consider it dirty. So, logically, they would not supply you with insurance that allowed you to buy bacon. Enter Obama. The new Hungry Human Services mandate says that bacon is a fundamental right of all people, and so all employers must provide policies allowing pork to their employees. An Islamic institution would not like this mandate, but a reasonable Muslim would realize that eating pork hurts nobody, or at most hurts the participants, and so people should be allowed pork insurance if they are not Muslim.
Hindus believe that it is immoral to eat beef. But their reasoning is different from Muslims’. From my understanding of Hinduism, a cow is considered to be the highest form of earthly life, above even humans. So, to kill a cow is worse than murder, and to eat it, worse than canniballism. Therefore, it would not be reasonable for a Hindu company’s food insurance to cover beef. No matter what everyone else believes about cows, because a Hindu believes bovine life is sacred, he should not be forced to fund the beef industry in any way.
Similarly, Catholicism believes that contraceptives are wrong, but that their use does not directly hurt anyone. Sinful or no, it is not up to Catholics to prevent others from using them, and it would not be reasonable for a Catholic employer to take steps to prevent a non-Catholic employee from using them by choosing only contraceptive-free policies. But it is of course unreasonable to expect an employer to fund abortions through insurance, because his beliefs tell him that this is murder- by providing this policy, he is letting a child be hurt.
Would it be reasonable for Catholics to give in on the contraceptives, however distasteful, and fight only the abortifacents?