NEWS STORY: Insurance Contraception Rule Creates Conflict Between Faith, Law

c. 2003 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Born and raised Roman Catholic on Chicago’s South Side, Taft Contracting Co. owner Richard Walsh finds himself stuck in a situation in which the laws of his church counter the laws of the state. And he’s not happy about it. On July 7, Illinois became the 21st state […]

c. 2003 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Born and raised Roman Catholic on Chicago’s South Side, Taft Contracting Co. owner Richard Walsh finds himself stuck in a situation in which the laws of his church counter the laws of the state. And he’s not happy about it.

On July 7, Illinois became the 21st state to adopt a law requiring health care insurers in the state to provide coverage for contraceptives.


Several other states have more limited mandates in place, which apply only to specific types of insurers.

Because of the new Illinois law, Walsh’s company health plan now will have to cover birth control for his employees. Last year Taft Contracting Co. employed 35 office staff and 125 union workers. The requirement has created a personal moral battle for the 70-year-old, who calls his faith “the happiest thing that ever happened to me” and “more important to me than my company.”

“I don’t approve of male or female (birth control),” he said. “These are not medicinal purposes. These are for lifestyle.” And, according to the teaching of the church, he said, “it’s wrong.”

The 21 state contraceptive coverage laws, including the new Illinois statute, are comprehensive, meaning they require health care insurers that cover prescription drugs to also cover federally approved contraceptive drugs, devices and services, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research center founded by Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

But exemptions to those requirements are possible for religious employers or insurers in more than 75 percent of the states with provisions similar to those in Illinois, according to the same data. Walsh, however, is not a religious employer.

These “conscience clauses” have been used to overcome opponents who argue that “religious employers and health systems should not be required to offer coverage for services that conflict with their religious principles,” according to NCSL.

Even with such a conscience clause in place, religious groups in Illinois were among the bill’s fiercest opponents and fought hard, though unsuccessfully, to quash it.


Robert Gilligan, director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, which represents Illinois’ Catholic bishops and teamed up with the Archdiocese of Chicago to lobby against the legislation, said one of the main reasons for the staunch religious opposition is to protect private employers, like Walsh, who don’t qualify for a religious exemption.

“Even if you look at it in terms of our issue,” Gilligan said, “the fact of the matter remains that private employers are now going to have to offer through their health care plans contraceptive services. There are private employers out there who have objections to doing so on moral grounds.”

Gilligan also said his organization wanted to ensure that the conscience clause was foolproof. Because it’s a separate statute in Illinois, rather than part of the July 7 legislation, the CCI and Archdiocese of Chicago were worried that lawmakers would find loopholes to keep it from applying to religious organizations.

Frances Kissling, president of the Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice, an independent reproductive rights group often at odds with the bishops, indirectly agreed with Gilligan. She said the Catholic Church was opposed to contraceptive equity legislation because it wants to guarantee that the religious exemptions are applied in the broadest possible ways.

The religious exemptions vary from state to state, she said, leaving many states with very narrow definitions of what qualifies as religious institutions.

She said the church has been fighting these laws as part of a more general cultural mission: “There’s a desire to prevent a social consensus that is supportive of contraception.”


Even so, such legislation “is definitely a trend,” Kissling said, “and a good one, from my way of thinking.”

While the Catholic Church keeps up its fight, many ordinary American Catholics are using contraception, she said, and there’s “every reason to assume that Catholics would like to get these paid for by their health insurance.”

The issue should be one of individual religious freedom, Kissling said.

“Just because you work for an employer that has specific religious beliefs,” she said, “should not bind the conscience of the employee.”

And when religious views come into conflict _ as seems to be the case regarding contraceptive equity legislation _ “we think the law needs to protect the religious freedom of the individual,” she said.

But Walsh made it clear that while religion is the main cause for his opposition to the law, it isn’t the only factor.

Money, too, is playing a central role.

“It’s money going out of our pocket on certain things that we do not agree with, and we’re going to fight it,” he said.


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Attempts to mandate health benefits of all kinds have historically created tension between consumer rights and employer costs, according to Carla Plaza, who works in the health policy branch of the NCSL.

In the case of contraceptives, that tension has evolved into one between the sexes. Women typically pay 68 percent more in out-of-pocket costs for health care than men, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based legal advocacy group.

Texas was the first state to pass any sort of contraceptive equity law in 1978. It was decades before any other states followed suit.

Despite the conservative and religious opposition, state legislation of this kind has blossomed in the past five years and gained strength after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in 2000 that it is discriminatory for employers to exclude contraceptives from their health plans.

In addition to the 21 states with laws mandating comprehensive coverage, five other states _ Colorado, Kentucky, New Jersey, Minnesota and Oklahoma _ have provisions of some kind that require limited groups, such as health maintenance organizations and small and individual market insurers, to cover contraceptives. Virginia has a law that requires insurers to offer optional contraceptive coverage to employers that purchase a health plan.

Last year, 20 states had pending legislation to require contraceptive coverage or to amend their existing statutes, according to the NCSL.


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Despite the trend toward adding the contraceptive coverage, Walsh, the CCI and the Archdiocese of Chicago don’t intend to let their cause die without a fight.

“We’re going to appeal it with the Roman Catholic Church, and I’d go on as a joint plaintiff,” he said.

DEA END DAGOSTINO

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