Is it Moral to Comply with the HHS Mandate?

Catholic Vote ^ | September 28, 2012 | Prof. Janet E. Smith

[NYer]

Catholic ping!

[NYer]

You raised this question on a previous thread. Hopefully you will find the answer here.

[Black Agnes]

“We are permitted to cooperate materially with evil even when the evil is serious if we or other innocent people would experience serious harm by refusing to cooperate.”

Cowardice. This mentality enabled millions to be exterminated in camps in the 40’s. This mentality enables tyrranical dictators worldwide. They’re counting on this cowardice.

[FewsOrange]

Tricare already covers contraception

http://www.tricare.mil/mybenefit/jsp/Medical/IsItCovered.do?kw=Birth+Control&topic=Women

So these moral issues would have already arisen for Catholic members of the military and their families.

[frogjerk]

Prof. Janet E. Smith

Is Janet a Bishop in communion with the Pope and the Holy Catholic Church?

[NYer]

Is Janet a Bishop in communion with the Pope and the Holy Catholic Church?

Biography

Janet E. Smith holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. 
 
She is the author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later and of the Right to Privacy, editor of Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader. She has coauthored Life Issues, Medical Choices, Questions and Answers for Catholics, with Chris Kaczor.  She has published in The Thomist, The Irish Theological Quarterly, Nova et Vetera, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, The National Catholic Bioethics Journal, among other publications.
 
She speaks nationally and internationally on the Catholic teachings on sexuality and on bioethics.

 

She is serving a third term as a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family and she serves the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian unity as a member of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, III.

 

She has received two honorary doctorates and several other awards for scholarship and service. 

 

She has appeared on the Geraldo show, Fox Morning News, CNN International, CNN Newsroom and has done many shows for various series on EWTN.

[frogjerk]

First, it seems to me that the payment for health care can legitimately be understood to be part of an employee’s salary or compensation.

Only partially. I pay for half and my employer pays for half. It is a benefit provided by the employer IF I wish to take it.

[ConservativeChris]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
I would say MAKING you pay for an abortion, even for someone else, is a clear violation of scripture. PROHIBITING your free exercise of you NOT WANTING TO KILL A BABY, is OBVIOUSLY, a violation of the First Amendment.

[frogjerk]

With all due respect I guess that would be a no then.

[frogjerk]

Also, I’m not exactly sure how complying with a mandate that violates one’s conscience, which is a right given by God himself, is morally acceptable.

[frogjerk]

Also, even the good people in the Church, even saints, have been wrong about things regarding the faith and morals.

[frogjerk]

There is a sense in which the HHS mandate is an act of holding a gun to the head of employers or it can be seen as a kind of tax; they are being forced or coerced into paying for something that they object to, at the threat of considerable harm.

What is more harmful than killing your own well-formed conscience?

[Mrs. Don-o]

I guess it's a question of just how "remote" your material cooperation is. Every taxpayer in the USA is already paying for the gay-rights advocacy being carried out by the DOJ, the DOS and the DOD; already paying for contraception, sterilization, and early-abortion drugs as part of our international "Aid" program (surely just as bad to offer them as "aid" as to offer them as "benefits"); already paying for huge swindles/ponzi schemes known as our fiscal and monetary policies; already paying for murder via Predator Drones; already implicated in increased national indebtedness, i.e. theft from our own descendants down to several generations (if our nation lasts that long.)

That's our material cooperation ALREADY.

This is all tied in with the question of intention. Within recent months I read the short book "Intention" by G.E.M. Anscombe, considered by many to be a masterpiece in the field. I am perplexed and must admit I didn't understand Anscombe at all.

But I'm told she and Mary Geach (her daughter) and others of the Anscombe school take a very hard line on intention: the only way you can say you "did not intend" something is when you can honestly say "I didn't know I was doing that." In other words, complete inadvertence. They make --- I am told --- short shrift of "Double Effect".

I have thought from the start that to offer one's employees an evil as a "benefit" must involve formal cooperation. Under duress from the HHS, yes, but formal.

Can anybody clarify this for me?

[frogjerk]

The employer is acting as a “conduit” for the employee’s money. He is not using his own money to pay for AID-S-C; he is simply making it possible for the employee to use his or her money for AID-S-C.

Well, I guess that makes it all right then...-sarc

[frogjerk]

I guess it's a question of just how "remote" your material cooperation is. Every taxpayer in the USA is already paying for the gay-rights advocacy being carried out by the DOJ, the DOS and the DOD; already paying for contraception, sterilization, and early-abortion drugs as part of our international "Aid" program (surely just as bad to offer them as "aid" as to offer them as "benefits"); already paying for huge swindles/ponzi schemes known as our fiscal and monetary policies; already paying for murder via Predator Drones; already implicated in increased national indebtedness, i.e. theft from our own descendants down to several generations (if our nation lasts that long.)

Correct, but here is the difference. Much of that is out of our hands because our government is a Representative Republic and we can vote and organize and such but junk like what you describe makes it through. What is different here is that now the Catholic employers have the actual power to resist and they must. They cannot say 'It's out of my hands' when it is actually not.

[Black Agnes]

Edmund Burke said all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

This mindset is what enabled ‘Christians’ (and I put that in quotes on purpose) in Germany to watch their Jewish neighbors ‘go up the chimney’.

Most people are unaware of the extent of the issue. Suborning ourselves to it because we have in the past, unawares, is not the answer. Or, even awares. Else, we’d still have slavery.

The idea that we have to remain as ‘evil’ as we currently are and that’s ‘Ok’, is in itself, evil. We shouldn’t acquiesce to current contraceptive policies because we did last year, we should fight them to the betterment of ourselves and our souls.

If the babykilling left can ‘progress’ towards their goal without our interference, what sort of Christians are we if we just give up because it’s easy or we’re afraid of the personal consequences? I’m going to infer from her statement that the ‘discomfort’ and danger to ourselves might be denial of our own healthcare? Or jobs? So, if we lose a court case against this current ruling we should just roll over and play dead? Really? Because the left will stop at that? Really?

This lady is wrapping us in cotton swaddling to just accept abortion and our paying for it as de facto. If I supported evil yesterday, even if I didn’t know it, it’s OK to support it tomorrow when I DO know it today sort of reasoning that I do NOT buy.

She’s supporting Obamacare. Bet she voted for him too.

It’s funny, and suspicious, to me that she’s advocating just giving up if the left wins this ONE battle. If this ONE court case goes against us we should just lie back and think of England...The left NEVER rests if they lose one battle. NEVER. And this lady thinks we should?

Suspicious...

Grima Wormtongue had nothing on this lady...

[Mrs. Don-o]

I disagree with Dr. Janet Smith.

I argue that paying taxes into a "general treasury fund" is not morally objectionable. Jesus was asked about this very thing, and He (Christ) OK'ed payment of taxes, even to the Roman Empire. That suggests that paying taxes, even to Caesar, is not formal cooperation in evil.

However --- and I hope this is a BIG HOWEVER--- paying taxes or making other mandated payments into a fund that is explicitly set up to provide for intrinsic evils, IS morally prohibited.

My argument in more detail, on another thread.

It's a difference between evil-designated funds (HHS) and non-designated funds (U.S. Treasury).

I am saying, refuse to pay for explicitly designated evils (HHS mandate). There's the bright "do not cross" line. AND fight like hell to prevent such things from being funded by the U.S. Treasury.

P.S. Dr. Smith did not spport Obamacare, did not support Obama, and is in fact a major opponent of contraception, sterilization, and abortion, a defender (oftentimes a LONE defender) of Humanae Vitae going back decades, and in general a hero of Catholic philosophy. Though I disagree with her reasoning here, she is trying to find the line between "you must object," and "you mustrefuse."

Do not rashly characterize her as an Obamunist. She is not.

[Black Agnes]

Let me add that those supporting the ‘Caesar has decreed and we should render to him’ argument need to defend any and all pro-life activity since 1973. Because in 1973, Caesar decreed. And according to that argument any and all pro-life activity since then has been un-Christian.

So Christians should just shut up about the whole matter. Right?

Because Christian abolitionists just gave up and went home after the Dred Scott decision. Right?

[frogjerk]

Though I disagree with her reasoning here, she is trying to find the line between "you must object," and "you mustrefuse."

Where I think she goes wrong is that in her effort to want Catholics to be good citizens and not be disobedient to legitimate authority, which would be a sin, she doesn't take serious enough (or creates some sort of moral equivalance) that disobedience to the highest authority would be a mortal sin. And I cannot help but blame the Church a little here by not doing anything serious about Sebelius, ( who is running the whole evil enterprise called Obamacare) and the other abortion promoting "Catholics" who muddy waters in league with the Evil One.

Killing your conscience is the path to Hell.