The Catholic health care debate has been all over the news recently. In January, the Department of Health and Human Services mandated that most religious institutions pay for certain health services that include those they find morally objectionable.
[1] For weeks, there was intensive criticism over this decision, and the Administration amended their mandate in early February. This “accommodation” requires that these religious employers offer the health services, but their insurance companies would be the ones to pay for those services.
[1][2] Realistically, insurance companies will not be willing to pay for these services. Either the religious organization will lose coverage, or their coverage will become, indirectly, more expensive. Religious institutions are being, in effect, forced to offer services that they find morally objectionable and that violate their rights of conscience. The Administration has "encouraged" Catholic leadership to listen to the "enlightened voices of accommodation."
[3] Professor Stephen Monsma explained why this issue impacts everyone, saying, "It's a matter of religious freedom rights and if the religious freedom rights of some religious traditions are violated, the religious freedom rights of all faith-based organizations would be put in danger."
[4] It isn't even constrained to the rights of faith-based organizations. When liberty for some is removed, it may also be removed for others.
In the 1900s, Pastor Niemoller wrote that we can easily convince ourselves, simply because we're not immediately or directly impacted, something is not our battle to fight. I like his writings, and I find them inspiring (as well as convicting), so I wanted to share a famous excerpt.
(Disclaimer: I don't mean to be inflammatory, and I'm certainly not making a comparison between the health care issue and the concentration camps, however, I think the principle Niemoller wrote about is applicable to today and this situation.)
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“… when the concentration camp was opened we wrote the year 1933, and the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it; it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice...? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians – ‘should I be my brother's keeper?’ Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. - I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: ‘Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]?’ … Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible? … I believe we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that ‘it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.’”
“We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if … Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? ... I can ... imagine that we would have rescued 30-40,000 million people, because that is what it is costing us now.”
"We must openly declare that we are not innocent of the Nazi murders, of the murder of German communists, Poles, Jews, and the people in German-occupied countries. … For in our world and in our name have these things been done." – Pastor Martin Niemöller
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Wow.
How often do we not speak out, just because it's easier to sit down? Even apart from the rights of religious organizations...how often do we let things we disagree with just pass by?
Liberty cannot be divided. With liberty, you cannot pick some parts and leave other parts. Liberty isn't just a cliche - it's so much more. Freedom for all (popular or not) is the foundation of our nation. When we allow actions to be taken for our nation, and in our name, that infringe upon anyone's liberty - we are responsible.
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the incurably sick, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a incurably sick;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for the people in countries occupied by Nazi Germany., and I did not speak out--
because I was not in countries occupied by Nazi Germany;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.” – Pastor Martin Niemöller
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