... First amendment freedom does not vanish on the basis of what is involved, food or healthcare.
[...]
The issue is about the choice of conscience.
To the thread purity police, hold your horses, I just want to respond to brother KRS's views on the above post.
First, the freedoms assured in the constitution are not blanket freedoms without any limits. Let me remind everyone of the oft repeated analogy of shouting fire in a crowded theater.
Similarly, freedom to practice religion also has limits, not just in the institutions run by religious entities, but even in churches, temples, mosques, etc. A simple example is fire code, no church can simply assert religious freedom and exempt itself from complying with these government mandated rules.
Governments, whether federal or state, do have the right to restrict the freedoms guaranteed in the constitution as long as they can show a compelling state interest. The supreme court has established a three tiered system (i) strict scrutiny, (ii) middle-tier scrutiny, and (iii) minimum scrutiny. Depending upon the level of intrusion of the rights one of these levels of scrutiny will apply. In other words, the state can pass a law compelling church and other religious institutions to do what they would consider against their religious teaching, just as long as they can convince at least 5 supreme court justices that it is in the compelling interest of the state.
Coming specifically to the case of contraceptives, the Republicans are trying to frame this as a constitutional issue, but it is not. This is to do with labor laws and tax laws. The government is not compelling that the Catholic Church must run these institutions and must provide these insurance coverage to all women. The rule is, if the Church chooses to run institutions outside their church and become an employer of people, then, like all other employers, they must provide a certain level of health insurance coverage.
Here is an analysis of this issue by a constitutional lawyer, David Boies -- he represented Al Gore in the Bush v. Gore some years ago. KRS may reject his analysis on the sole ground that Boies is a Democrat, but I would like others to give a listen.
Also, brother KRS says "choice of conscience" an ambiguous and broad term. Under such a standard any employer can simply exempt themselves from the laws.
Finally, this unfortunate comment "this is not a health issue - pregnancy is not a disease". I wonder what women and OB/GYN doctors would say about this. Sure, pregnancy is not a disease, and I doubt whether there is one person in this whole wide world who would think that. But, I don't think there is any question pregnancy is a health issue, why then this is a separate field in medicine? Why then do pregnant women see doctors? Why then do women get their babies delivered in a hospital? Yes, in olden days they had their babies at home, I myself was born at home, but not without medical care. Besides, in those days there were no hospital for much of anything, everything was treated at home.
The irony of this whole debate is, it is being widely reported that 99% of women in the U.S. have used contraception at some point or other, and even among Catholic women, 98% of the women in childbearing age use contraceptives. This is a settled issue in the U.S. and these men want to make it an issue again for political gain. But this is going to backfire, Obama is the one who is going to benefit from this debate.
Cheers!
