Recently Catholics stood up in a united protest against the Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate that requires employers to provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs, filing 12 lawsuits on behalf of 43 Catholic entities across the country. They claim that the mandate runs afoul of the First Amendment and the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act by requiring them to pay for or to facilitate access to products and services in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs. They joined a broader interfaith coalition that now includes 53 groups filing 23 lawsuits.
To many, including the editors of the New York Times, opposition to the mandate seems like an attempt to impose Catholic views about contraception on the rest of the society, or an unjustified request for special treatment. Why should a minority of Catholics (together with some other Christians who object to the abortion-drug aspect of the mandate) determine public policy for the entire country? Yes, the government could provide free access to contraceptives without conscripting employers to do it for them through their health plans, but why should we bend over backwards to adapt our policies to the religious or moral sensibilities of a minority?
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