This article was interesting for several reasons. First, the author is a Catholic philosopher. That in and of itself is an interesting combination when you consider the topic being written about. This is a hot topic, and Gary uses statistics about polls from Catholic women on their views about birth control. According to the statistics 98% of Catholic women use birth control, and 78% think that it's perfectly alright to do so, despite the teachings of the Bishops. Even though the overwhelming percentage of Catholics share these views, the Church still teaches that birth control is morally wrong. This strong stance was highlighted by the backlash from the Obama administration's ruling that all Catholic hospitals and universities have to provide birth control to patients.
An interesting point Gutting brings up in the article is a question he poses: Who has the power to decide what the Catholic Church stands for and against? As he notes, no one has had a credible meeting with a divine being for thousands of years, so how can anyone possibly know what he/she feels about current issues that weren't around in the time of Christ? Do the Bishops get the power to blindly guess about these matters by default? Our government can't regulate the preachings of the Bishops because of separation between Church and state, so its up to each individual to decide for themselves what they believe.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/birth-control-and-the-challenge-to-divine-authority/?ref=opinion
It's not so much birth control being morally wrong as it is premarital sex in their opinion. They don't want to encourage people to have sex without being married, and I'm pretty sure the catholic church isn't against married women deciding whether they want to be preggers or not. If you want contraception, go to a different hospital, they're everywhere. The catholic hospitals and universities that don't provide it are private institutions, they can do and believe whatever they want, regardless of whether we want them to or not. I'm not saying I'm for or against the issue, I'm just saying we have to acknowledge their rights too.
ReplyDeletethe problem is if your insurance company uses a specific hospital and they don't cover birth control, you can't get it.
ReplyDeleteNot trying to be nitpicky, but I think the Obama administration actually made it mandatory for Catholic (and all religious) institutions like hospitals, schools, etc, to provide insurance that covers birth control for all employees. Before the ruling, you couldn't go to a different hospital to get free contraceptives, you'd have to pay no matter where you went because your insurance wouldn't have covered it.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the ruling makes sense. I think that if the employees were actually against contraceptives, then they just wouldn't get them. It's not like contraceptives are being forced upon people that don't want them. They're just being made easier to access for people who might want them. I think it's silly for employers, especially religious ones, to care so little about the health of their employees.