According to Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, disease is “any deviation from or interruption of the normal structure or function of any part, organ or system (or combination thereof) of the body that is manifested by a characteristic set of symptoms and signs and whose etiology, pathology and prognosis may be known or unknown.”
I have yet to meet a doctor who defines pregnancy as a disease, and I worked in the OB/GYN field for over 10 years.
The body is functioning perfectly when a woman becomes pregnant. In fact, it is infertility that is a disease.
Contraception, when given as pregnancy prevention, is not to treat a disease state. In fact, the contraceptive pill has been known to cause disease states, such as breast cancer, heart attacks and strokes, in many women.
It’s quite impossible to distill Catholic beliefs into one short letter or article. That’s part of the problem. And while Catholic Answers (see Mr. Parker’s letter of 02/15) often helps to shed light on certain questions, it is to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the many papal encyclicals that one should always turn to when looking for answers about what the Church teaches.
To refer to the numbers of Catholics who don’t practice what the Church teaches may sound witty and clever (again as per Mr. Parker’s letter), but it’s a bit disingenuous in terms of an argument for or against something such as contraception.
The Church doesn’t base revealed truths on the number of Catholics who believe in them. Certain absolute moral truths don’t change simply because people find them difficult to abide by.
In his 1968 encyclical entitled Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI warned of four consequences of the widespread use of contraception. These were a general lowering of moral standards, a rise in infidelity and out-of-wedlock births, a reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men, and GOVERNMENT COERCION in reproductive matters.
Hmmm … Sound familiar?
Healthcare is about the prevention, treatment and management of illness. Contraception is not healthcare.
The recent HHS mandate is indeed forcing Catholic institutions to pay for artificial contraception and abortion. This is a gross violation of the constitutional rights of Catholics.
Interestingly enough, the Obama administration has granted over 1,800 ObamaCare waivers to favored businesses whose sole argument for said waivers is that they can’t afford the new legislation.
Who has received waivers? Let’s see: AARP, a myriad of labor unions, the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund and quite a number of businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s district.
The Catholic Church is the single largest charitable organization in the world. They operate hospitals, schools, charities, etc., because the mandate of the Church is charity – to fill the gaps that responsible people do not expect the government to fill. The bishops are ultimately in charge of all of these institutions.
The Obama administration is asking these bishops to violate their beliefs or pay millions of dollars in fines.
The Church is not denying contraceptives to women who work for these institutions. It simply can not in good conscience pay for something that it views as intrinsically evil and against the good of those same women.
These women are free to purchase contraceptives on their own if that’s a priority for them.
Make no mistake, this is a mandate aimed squarely at the Catholic Church for reasons of social engineering.
Remember that when millions of poor are no longer given adequate healthcare because the Catholic Church has been forced to close the hospital doors. Absurdly enough, the new “compromise” states that the insurance companies (ultimately the Church who will have to pay into these insurance funds) will be forced to provide free contraceptives.
Did you get that? Free contraceptives. Is your Lipitor free? Your Crestor? Is your diabetes medication free? You know, that medication that could keep you from going into a coma?
Refusing to pay for someone else’s bedroom choices is hardly on a par with honor killings. And those Somalis that Mr. Parker referred to were fired because they were taking advantage of their paid breaks and refusing to follow simple workplace rules, not because they were Muslims who were praying.
Our country was founded by people who were mostly deists – the overwhelming majority of whom believed that our rights were inalienable, granted not by man, but by a Creator.
It is when we start believing that our rights are something to be doled out piecemeal to us by those in government as they see fit that we get into serious trouble.
As Archbishop Timothy Dolan so eloquently stated, “The Amish do not carry health insurance. The government respects their principles. Christian Scientists want to heal by prayer alone, and the new healthcare reform law respects that. Quakers and others object to killing even in wartime, and the government respects that principle for conscientious objectors. By its decision, the Obama administration has failed to show the same respect for the conscience of Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease.”
I hope for the good of this nation that President Obama is not given another four years to continue his war on freedom.
Susan Bertram
Peachtree City, Ga.
