The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced late last month it would require all health insurance providers to include prescription birth control in their healthcare coverage, leading to disapproval from many religious people across the nation, state and University.
History sophomore Emily Nuttli, a member of Christ the King Catholic Church and Center at LSU and Louisiana Students for Life, said she feels the rule is an infringement on the workings of the Catholic Church.
“This rule is requiring us to do something that is against our beliefs,” she said. “It’s against the First Amendment and the free exercise clause.”
Katie Richard, mass communication sophomore and member of Christ the King, agreed.
“Catholics are pro-life,” she said. “To offer anything that would prevent life from happening is not OK from a religious standpoint.”
Jordan Haddad, philosophy and psychology senior and member of Christ the King, said the Catholic Church is actively working to end the “culture of death,” a term for a society that embraces abortion, euthanasia and contraception.
“To fund the culture of death is contradicting to what we stand for and work for every day,” Haddad said.
But Alecia P. Long, history professor and director of the Listening to Louisiana Women Oral History Project, said the question of whether the rule is infringing on the Church will likely be discussed in courts and possibly even at the U.S. Supreme Court.
“In my view, the Obama administration’s order, read and considered carefully, does not constitute an infringement of the First Amendment’s admonition that Congress not make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” Long said in an e-mail. ”Just making a contract with an insurance company that makes a drug available to your employees does not force anyone to use that drug if they find it is against their religious conscience.”
As the media has swarmed around the controversy, others argue the availability of contraception can prevent a number of unplanned pregnancies and abortions.
Long said it is a “demonstrated scientific fact” that birth control, if used correctly, can prevent unplanned pregnancies.
“If a medical product does what it says it will do safely and effectively, then of course that is a valid reason to include such a product as preventive care, which is what the law says — that certain kinds of preventive care be made available as a matter of law to the people who pay insurance companies for their health care coverage,” she wrote.
Nuttli disagreed.
“Contraception isn’t a God-given right, and it doesn’t have to be provided by the government,” she said. “If they want to receive contraception, they can do it on their own.”
Haddad said the argument that birth control prevents abortions and unplanned pregnancies doesn’t justify the use of contraception.
“To accept a lesser evil in face of a greater one isn’t acceptable,” Haddad said. “We stand for the absolute truth and won’t give a little bit here to get a little bit there.”
But Nuttli, Richard, and Haddad aren’t necessarily in the majority. In a recent Public Policy Polling survey conducted on behalf of Planned Parenthood, 56 percent of both Catholic and non-Catholic voters and 53 percent of Catholic-only voters said they were in favor of Obama’s decision to include birth control in healthcare coverage.
Long said the poll statistics show that using birth control is common among American women, regardless of religious affiliation.
“Those are issues of private decision making and of conscience that only individuals can decide for themselves in consultation, as they see fit, with the religious leaders whose opinions they respect or subscribe to,” she said.
Haddad said he was alarmed to hear the poll statistics.
“A distinction needs to be made between what the true teaching of the church is and what many lay people may practice,” he said. “That is something those people need to work on individually.”
Nuttli said the stance against the use of contraceptives is a core belief of the Catholic Church, and the number of Catholics using contraception doesn’t alter her opinion.
“This is the church ruling on it,” she said. “If you are a practicing Catholic, you can’t argue against this.”
Long disagreed, stating the provision of preventive care in the form of contraceptive methods is vital.
“This is especially true in the lives of young women who often desire to, if they choose to be sexually active, have the ability to control their reproductive capacities and decide when and if it is best for them to get pregnant in order to make it possible for them to achieve other goals in their lives, like completing undergraduate school or pursuing advanced degrees,” she said.
 
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Contact Kate Mabry at [email protected]