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- DECEMBER 13, 2011
The Church of Kathleen Sebelius
A zealous administration wants to require all health insurance plans to cover contraception, sterilization and drugs known to induce abortion.
By WILLIAM MCGURN
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
In the church of Kathleen Sebelius, there is little room for dissent. “We are in a war,” the Health and Human Services Secretary declared to cheers at a recent NARAL Pro-Choice America fund-raiser. Give the lady her due: Her actions mostly match her words.
Mrs. Sebelius’s militancy explains the shock her allies are now feeling after last Wednesday’s decision to overrule the Food and Drug Administration on Plan B, a morning-after pill. The FDA had proposed allowing over-the-counter sales, which would give girls as young as 11 or 12 access without either a prescription or a parent. Now the secretary’s allies are howling about her “caving in” to the Catholic bishops.
On this score they needn’t worry. Notwithstanding the unexpected burst of common sense on Plan B, the great untold story remains the intolerance so beloved of self-styled progressives. In this Mrs. Sebelius has proved herself one of the administration’s most faithful practitioners: here watering down conscience protections for nurses and doctors who don’t want to participate in abortions; there yanking funding for a top-rated program for victims of sexual trafficking run by the Catholic bishops, because they will not sign on to the NARAL agenda; soon to impose a new HHS mandate that will require health-insurance plans to cover contraception, sterilization and drugs known to induce abortion.
Bill McGurn on Kathleen Sebelius.
Alas for her president, her zeal for this agenda has yielded two unintended consequences. Within her party, it is creating a rift between the Planned Parenthood wing and the president’s Catholic and religious supporters. Outside her party, it is illuminating the danger of equating bigger government with a more just society.
Thus far, attention has mostly focused on the politics. One reason is that even Catholics who supported President Obama on his signature health bill recognize the contraceptive mandate as a bridge too far. These include the Catholic Health Association’s Sr. Carol Keehan, whose well-publicized embrace of the Affordable Care Act gave the president critical cover when he needed it. Others simply question whether forcing Catholic hospitals to drop health insurance for their employees rather than submit to Madam Sebelius’s bull is really the image the president wants during a tough re-election year.
Then there are the Catholic bishops. Just two years ago, many seemed to regard ObamaCare as a compassionate piece of legislation if only a few provisions (e.g., conscience rights and abortion funding) could be tweaked. Now they are learning the real problem is the whole thing is built on force—from the individual mandate and doctors’ fees to the panels deciding what treatment grandma is entitled to. The awakening has led to a new bishops’ committee on religious liberty, and tough, unprecedented criticism.
Predictably the press has been treating all this as a purely Catholic battle. If the church looms large here, that is because Catholic institutions have always been at the fore of social service. Still, it would be nice to come across a story that recognized that even if HHS were to widen the religious exemption (it’s so narrow Jesus Christ wouldn’t qualify) the new contraceptive mandate would still be imposed on non-Catholic as well as Catholic individuals and insurers.
Department of Health and Human ServicesHealth and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
Whether you approve or disapprove of contraception or sterilization is beside the point. Today nine out of 10 employer plans offer what Mrs. Sebelius wants them to. The point is whether it is right or necessary for Mrs. Sebelius to use the federal government to bring the other 10% to heel.
There was a day when liberals and libertarians appreciated the importance of upholding the freedoms of people and groups with unpopular views. No longer. As government expands, religious liberty is reduced to a special “exemption” and concerns about government coercion are dismissed, in the memorable words of Nancy Pelosi, as “this conscience thing.”
“Religious liberty is better seen as more a liberty issue than a religion issue,” says Bill Mumma of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “The more we drive religious and private associations off the public square, the more that space will be occupied by government.”
Of course, some might answer that they object to lots of things their money underwrites—say, the war in Iraq. Mrs. Sebelius’s HHS rule, however, doesn’t involve tax dollars: It involves forcing Americans to spend their private dollars on things they deem unconscionable. How far this is from the understanding in 1776 that the way to uphold liberty and keep these conflicts to a minimum was to keep government small and limited.
A new TV ad from CatholicVote.org features a little girl. “Dear President Obama,” she says. “Can I ask you a question? Why are you trying to force my church and my school to pay for things that we don’t even believe in?”
It’s a good question. Apparently it’s not enough that contraception be legal, cheap and available. As Mrs. Sebelius illustrates, modern American liberalism cannot rest until those who object are forced to underwrite it.
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
Imagine the Parable of the Good Shepherd told from the point of view of liberalism. Here, the Good Shepherd, instead of going out in search of the one lost sheep does something different. He sets up a series of committees and advisory boards to discuss the issue of whether perhaps the lost sheep is exercising an act of legitimate dissent by leaving the flock. Committees and subcommittees are formed. Polls are taken of bishop organizations, priest senates and lay organizations. Opinions are solicited from experts in theology and canon law. Opinion polls are made of the laity and are examined by priest sociologists and social engineers. Perhaps the very concepts of “shepherd”, “sheep” and “flock” need to be reinterpreted in the light of modern science and scholarship. Perhaps the lost sheep is actually a misunderstood charismatic prophet? Perhaps the lost sheep is the real shepherd and on and on.
When Humanae Vitae challenged the very foundations of the sexual revolution, how many bishops, priests and laymen supported it? Hardly any. And now the seeds that were sown then have grown and matured. Communist dictators didn’t force this on the American Catholic Church by means of torture and secret police. This was a self-inflicted wound!!! Anyone studying history would learn that for over 100 years, liberal Reformation theologies have continually given up doctrines considered difficult for moderns. And the reason given for this wholesale surrender? “We surrender the teachings of Jesus to concentrate our energies and forces on the defense of the main doctrines of Christianity.” Uh huh. What can be thrown overboard to save the precious cargo?
The spirituality of the soul? That can go. Angels and demons? Moderns are uncomfortable with that? Bye bye. The concept of the supernatural? Smacks of mythology. So long. Heaven, Hell, the Last Judgement? Adios. The Divinity of Christ. A concept beset with problems. Better left behind. And what is left? What is left? Don’ ask because the process isn’t finished yet. In the end, nothing will be left. In many Reformation churches Christianity is the idea that Jesus was a nice man who wants us to be nice. And that’s it. We are a lazy culture. We want everything done for us by others. We would prefer if we didn’t have to do anything. When Jesus asks us to do the will of the Father, we look around to see who will do it for us. Well although it is true that in the socialist state, many people can do many things for us. We want the bishops to do it for us. We want priests to do it. We want everyone in the laity except us to do it. It isn’t true that others can do the will of God for us. Through His grace we have to do it ourselves. We cannot be relieved of that responsibility.
The crisis of contraceptives and abortion was set when the American Catholic Church dissented from Humanae Vita. It continues because maybe 90% of Catholics still dissent from that. There is a direct line from dissent on Humanae Vitae to Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sibelius
Sometimes children ask the most difficult questions. During a recent Catechism class where the abortiofacient effects of oral contraceptives was discussed, a teenager asked me in her own way what the moral culpability is not only for pharmacists who dispense oral contraceptives but for those who aid and abet them in certain ways. She asked me: “What is the moral responsibility of those who work in the factories making these pills?” “What is the moral responsibility of freight companies or even UPS drivers who deliver these abortiofacient pharmaceuticals to retailers like Walgreens, Walmart and so on. Rather than teach the class something heretical I said I would find out the exact teaching of the Catholic Church. I know that mortal sin requires sufficient knowledge and sufficient freedom and that there are factors that diminish knowledge and freedom and hence responsibility. I know the difference between vincible and invinsible ignorance. But I am not an expert on medical ethics or even Catholic moral theology. I would guess that there are degrees of guilt. The class in question is a Vietnamese class and many Vietnamese Americas pursue careers in pharmacy and pharmacy technology. So in many cases the teenagers are asking me what the moral culpability is for their own parents and relatives. . . .