Let Doctors and Patients, Not Bishops, Make Healthcare Decisions
If the all-male executives of an international corporation, none with medical expertise, denied treatment access to women employees of all faiths, based on the executive order of a former CEO, we would be outraged. So why do we politely defer to this demand simply because the corporation is religious? Pope Paul VI's 1968 Humanae Vitae is perhaps the most-ignored "teaching" of the papacy; if 98% of Catholic women don't follow it, why should women of all faiths employed by Catholic-affiliated universities and hospitals be compelled to? No religion has the right to discriminate based on gender. Lost in the bishops' misinformation campaign is this simple truth: opposition to contraception is wrong, morally and medically. President Obama, however much the Catholic hierarchy dislikes him (although over 51% of the laity voted for him) did not make the recently-reversed decision to compel all hospitals and universities to obey the law; the Institute of Medicine, after exhaustive review, agreed with the CDC, WHO, AMA, and every non-sectarian medical society that contraceptives are preventive medications with demonstrable health benefits, so should be covered without copayment. President Obama chose not to override this overwhelming medical and scientific consensus. The religious right seems intent on personalizing this, seizing on it to "prove" that a president they never really liked whose faith they never accepted is hostile to religion. Nonsense. This is not a war on religion as much as a war on women and science.
Some historical background:
Humane Vitae History from Papal Sins (2000) by Garry Wills (emphasis added):
If the all-male executives of an international corporation, none with medical expertise, denied treatment access to women employees of all faiths, based on the executive order of a former CEO, we would be outraged. So why do we politely defer to this demand simply because the corporation is religious? Pope Paul VI's 1968 Humanae Vitae is perhaps the most-ignored "teaching" of the papacy; if 98% of Catholic women don't follow it, why should women of all faiths employed by Catholic-affiliated universities and hospitals be compelled to? No religion has the right to discriminate based on gender. Lost in the bishops' misinformation campaign is this simple truth: opposition to contraception is wrong, morally and medically. President Obama, however much the Catholic hierarchy dislikes him (although over 51% of the laity voted for him) did not make the recently-reversed decision to compel all hospitals and universities to obey the law; the Institute of Medicine, after exhaustive review, agreed with the CDC, WHO, AMA, and every non-sectarian medical society that contraceptives are preventive medications with demonstrable health benefits, so should be covered without copayment. President Obama chose not to override this overwhelming medical and scientific consensus. The religious right seems intent on personalizing this, seizing on it to "prove" that a president they never really liked whose faith they never accepted is hostile to religion. Nonsense. This is not a war on religion as much as a war on women and science.
Some historical background:
Humane Vitae History from Papal Sins (2000) by Garry Wills (emphasis added):
Humanae Vitae (1968)
The Pontifical Commission met five times, first in 1963.
The second was in 1964 attended by 13 men.
No one had recommended altering the church's teachings on contraception by the third meeting.
The rhythm method made people obsessed with sex and anxious about its failure rate. "Sex is for procreating, yes - but all the time, and each and every act?
Eating is for subsistence. But any food or drink beyond that necessary for sheer subsistence is not considered mortally sinful. In fact, to reduce eating to that animal compulsion would deny symbolic and spiritual meetings in shared meals -- the birthday party, a champagne victory dinner, the Eucharist itself… the more they saw the questionable roots from which it grew -- the fear and hatred of sex, the feeling that pleasure in it is a biological bribe to guarantee the races perpetuation, and any use of pleasure beyond that purpose is shameful. This was not a view derived from Scripture or from Christ, but from Seneca and Augustine. "
When the 19 theologians on the commission, convened for a separate vote, were asked whether church teaching could change on contraception, 12 said yes, 7 no.
- page 91
Pope Paul VI ignored the vote and instead seized on the minority report. Humanae Vitae was issued "The church, calling man back to the observance of the natural law, as interpreted by its constant doctrine, teaches at each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life."
Catholics responded with an unparalleled refusal to submit. Polls registered an instant noncompliance with the encyclical. A simultaneous poll among German Catholics at large founded 68 percent of them thought the Pope was wrong on contraception. [page 95]
The Pope was stunned. He would spend the remaining 10 years of his pontificate as if sleepwalking, unable to understand what happened to him, why such open dissent was entertained at the very top of the episcopate. [page 97]
Humanae Vitae condemned in vitro fertilization. [page 97]
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