Religious freedoms separate from federal policy

After the Obama administration announced a mandate that would require all employers, even religiously affiliated ones, to offer birth control for its employees under their health care plans, Catholic leaders and Republicans alike lashed out at the regulation.

In a prepared statement, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops President Timothy Nolan said, "This shouldn't happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights." Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said the mandate was part of Obama's "war against religion" in a Florida town hall meeting, and Gingrich's rival Mitt Romney also condemned the regulation. While birth control is undeniably against the tenets of the Catholic Church, does the church's right to religious freedom outweigh the government's right to protect and provide for its citizens?

In a column for the Huffington Post, Sister Mary Ann Walsh wrote that "the First Amendment unambiguously says that government ‘shall make no law' prohibiting the free exercise of religion. It doesn't say that some laws trampling free exercise are fine. It says no law."

While Walsh is correct, blind adherence to this philosophy would give anyone license to do anything, illegal or not, under the protection of religion. If the First Amendment's Establishment Clause was held to its fullest potential, cult leaders could get away with pedophilia and polygamy, all in the name of their unique religions.

The Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (RFRA), passed in 1993, directly deals with this conflict. RFRA holds that a federal law may infringe religious freedoms and still be a valid law if the government proves it is the result of a "compelling state interest" and that it pursues that interest in the least burdensome way possible. Using the "Sherbert Test" outlined in the 1963 Supreme Court case Sherbert v. Verner, two conditions must be met to establish a law's religious freedom infringement: 1) the individual must provide valid claim to a sincere religious belief, and 2) the law is a substantial burden on the person's ability to act on that belief.

It is no secret that the Catholic Church has, for almost (if not all) of its history, opposed contraceptives. In 1997, the Vatican issued a vademecum that stated "the Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful." Indeed, Catholic institutions' distribution of contraceptives to its employees seems to violate this belief.

It is up to the government to prove that the law is in the country's best interests and that it is in its least burdensome form.

According to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, 52 percent of Catholics believe religious employers should offer contraception under their health care plans. In addition, 49 percent of Americans also believe they should offer contraception, compared to 46 percent who oppose it. Furthermore, 54 percent of women surveyed were also in favor. Similarly, a study by the Guttmacher Institute reported that 68 percent of Catholic women use some form of birth control, and just three percent of married Catholic women who do not want to become pregnant rely on the natural family planning method, as per the Catholic Church's suggestion. According to the same study, virtually all sexually active Catholic women—98 percent—have used contraceptives.

These statistics show that the majority of Catholics and Americans support the law. White House Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is Catholic, noted in her USA Today column that there is "a large body of medical evidence" that shows contraceptives have significant benefits for women's health. Furthermore, birth control can be expensive enough that many women cannot afford it without the help of their insurer. Thus, the government has a compelling interest to provide accessible birth control for all, particularly in consideration of its health benefits and support among the American public.

The law would also exempt churches and other houses of worship from providing contraceptives. In addition, 28 states already require religious employers to offer access to birth control to their employees, with varying degrees of exemptions and restrictions. White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council Cecilia Muñoz clarified that abortion-inducing drugs are not included under the new policy. Furthermore, thanks to a revision in the rule announced Friday, religious non-profit institutions (such as universities and hospitals) can still write coverage plans that do not account for contraception. In that case, the companies that provide the plans will offer contraception directly to employees at no extra cost. Although the image of a priest handing out condoms is shocking, it has no basis in truth. Catholic institutions would be far removed from the process.

It is worth noting, too, that our own offered contraceptives to its employees even before the new regulation, even though it does not offer them in any way, shape or form to its students.

Through RFRA's lens, it is easy to see that the new contraceptive mandate fulfills a compelling state interest and does so in the least intrusive manner possible. Though the Catholic Church has the right to religious freedom, religious freedoms do not—and should not—dictate federal policy, especially when the policy addresses the concerns of the majority of Catholics and other Americans.