Religious freedom and religious privilege

By RUSSELL BLACKFORD - TALKING PHILOSOPHY
Added: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:30:39 UTC

I enjoyed reading Mike LaBossiere’s post entitled “Church & State: Immaculate Contraception”, but I can’t resist the impulse to add a post of my own – perhaps because I lack free will in the matter, but mainly because I devote an entire chapter of Freedom of Religion and the Secular State to this sort of issue (so it is kind of on my mind), and certainly because it has become even more topical than usual.

In setting the scene, Professor LaBossiere describes a provision that the Roman Catholic Church is currently objecting to in the United State: “This law requires that health insurance plans offer free birth control. Since this would include Catholic affiliated hospitals and schools, the Catholic Church has been pushing back against the law.” He adds: “Not surprisingly, this is being portrayed as an attack on religious liberty and the values of Catholicism. However, it is rather important to note that the law does not apply to churches, but rather only to institutions, such as hospitals and schools, that serve a large number of non-Catholics and also receive federal money.”

He raises an interesting point – can we really say that “birth control”, i.e. the use of contraceptive technologies, is against Catholic doctrine if (as is the case) most Catholics, at least in the relevant jurisdiction, are not morally opposed to it? I’ll leave that issue to him, though let me say in passing that, for now, and into the foreseeable future, birth control is most certainly against official Catholic doctrine. In particular, the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae is still binding in the sense of being the Church’s official and unmodified statement on the matter.