Will the Catholic Bishops Decide How You Die or Whether You Live? – Truth

(Image: Modern hospital and emergency sign via Shutterstock)What happens when religious institutions get to manage public funds, absorb secular hospitals, and put theology above medical science and individual patient conscience? Religious freedom suffers.

In 2010, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an elderly woman was rushed to a local hospital called St. John. She had suffered a massive stroke and could no longer eat, drink or speak. Mercifully, she was one of the growing percent of Americans who have prepared for such an eventuality by writing an end-of-life directive. Hers said that said she did not want artificial hydration or nutrition if she wasn’t going to recover. Unfortunately, St. John is a facility where the directives of the Catholic bishops take precedence over the directives of individual patients, and one such directive orders hospitals to feed and hydrate end-of-life patients whether they want it or not.

Americans would do well to consider what happens when theology dictates health care.

In the official language of the bishops, St. John is a “Catholic health care ministry,” their term for all Church-affiliated hospitals and clinics. Catholic health care ministries are publicly licensed institutions intended to serve the general public. They are highly subsidized by public dollars. To fund them, the Church uses a variety of public revenue streams including Medicare, Medicaid, county appropriations, federal dollars allocated through the 1946 Hospital Survey and Construction Act, and tax-exempt government bonds. As with any hospital, additional revenues come from insurance payments and investments, with the end result that the Catholic Church contributes less than 5 percent of the funds flowing through their hospitals and clinics. And yet the bishops place theological restrictions on care for all patients and sometimes forbid providers from telling patients that treatment options exist elsewhere.

According to MergerWatch, Catholic control of health dollars and hospital facilities is on the rise across the United States. In Washington State, for example, if all currently proposed mergers go through, almost half of hospital beds will lie in the hands of religious institutions by the end of 2013. Across the US, as Catholic systems such as Peace Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) quietly absorb secular hospitals, the bishops are fighting in court for the religious equivalent of corporate personhood, claiming that the constitution gives them institutional conscience rights that trump patient choice. Meanwhile, Catholic-owned pharmacies are suing for the right to deny services; and other Catholic-owned business are demanding (and winning) religious exemptions from health insurance obligations.

In an effort to standardize the rules of Catholic institutions and the advice that priests give laypeople, the bishops have created what they call “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care,” called ERDs for short. When secular and religious institutions merge, the bishops’ directives often restrict services in both. Patients may not realize that a once secular institution named Swedish or Highline is now subject to theology and could impose religious beliefs at odds with those of the patient. Following mergers, changes often are gradual, occurring slowly as staff leave and are replaced with believers, which makes the shift even harder for patients to detect. (Religious hospitals are exempt from non-discriminatory employment practices, somewhat remarkable given that so much of their funding is public.) Hospital administrators may state that they do not interfere in the doctor-patient relationship while at the same time advertising for staff who are “deeply familiar” with the bishops directives.

From a consumer standpoint, one problem with putting religion rather than science in charge of health care is that patients may not know they are being denied the full range of medically appropriate options. They may have no idea when institutional rules prevent doctors and nurses from honoring end-of-life wishes or discussing services that are available in secular settings – services like contraception, abortion, tubal ligation, vasectomy, fertility treatment, or death with dignity. For example, one woman tells of being diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy at a religious hospital. She was advised that she needed to have her fallopian tube removed. Fortunately, she consulted her smart phone and realized that elsewhere she could simply obtain a medication to end her nonviable pregnancy. The medication is safer and leaves fertility intact, but the Catholic directives treat this as a direct abortion, while the surgery (which damages long term fertility) kills the fetus indirectly and so is acceptable.

Other countries where Catholic theology limits health options offer a dire warning of what might happen here if the Church had an equal hold on the levers of power. In El Salvador, Catholic theology was written into law in 1998, banning all abortions, even those intended to save the mother. As a consequence, a 22-year-old mother named Beatriz, who carries a nonviable fetus, lies in a hospital bed with her kidneys failing, hoping to be granted an exception by El Salvador’s Supreme Court. She has been waiting for over a month. In Catholic Ireland last October, a young dentist, Savita Halappanavar, died after being refused an abortion.

In an ironic twist, the extremity of Catholic directives leads many people to believe that they couldn’t possibly be implemented here. Consider the case of Beatriz. She is the mother of a young child. Her fetus is anencephalic, meaning it has no brain and never will be a person under any circumstance. (Note: Somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of human fertilized eggs self-destruct naturally before a full-term gestation, most before a woman knows she is pregnant, and many because they are defective.) In other words, the Salvadorian anti-abortion law risks the life of a young mother for an incomplete fetus that is a normal failed reproductive product rather than a potential child. For someone who thinks that morality is about well-being, this just sounds crazy. Of course, this could never happen in the United States, right? You may be astounded to learn that a Phoenix nun was excommunicated and her hospital was forcibly disaffiliated from the Catholic Church for allowing an abortion under similarly hopeless circumstances.

In Ireland, after Halappanavar’s unnecessary death, thousands of men and women demanded medical services based on scientific evidence and individual conscience. Halappanavar became the tragic face of an international movement. Even so, given the power of religious institutions and traditions, legal change in Ireland is likely to be minimal. The largely Catholic Irish Medical Association has declined to request abortion rights even in cases of incest, rape and nonviable fetal anomalies. Currently Irish law allows abortion only when a mother’s life is threatened, which is not good enough for a case like Halappanavar’s. A leading obstetrician testified that Halappanavar probably would have survived if she had gotten an abortion during the first three days of her hospital stay. But at that time, there was not a “real and substantial threat to her life.” By the time she met the legal criteria, it was too late.

Patients count on their doctors to know and suggest their best options to protect health and well-being. But as medical options increase, especially at the beginning and end of life, the range of services excluded for theological reasons also increases. Catholic “ethicists” devote millions of dollars to analyzing biomedical technologies in the pipeline and then advocating policy based on theological priorities. They block certain lines of research and prevent affiliated hospitals from participating in clinical studies that require participants to be on contraception, for example a study of a cancer treatment that might cause fetal defects. Procedures opposed by the theologians are likely to be absent altogether from patient-doctor conversations.

Some patient advocates say that mandatory disclosure is part of the solution: Pharmacies that refuse to fill some prescriptions should post the fact that they are not full-service. Church-run abortion diversion centers known as crisis pregnancy centers should post that they are not medical providers. Treatment consent forms should list the scientifically and medically accepted practices that a doctor or hospital refuses to provide so that patients know that these services are available elsewhere. Conversely, providers who sign onto a Patients’ Bill of Rights promising to base care only on medical science and patient conscience could get the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

But disclosure alone won’t ensure state-of-the-art health care for many Americans, especially those living in small towns or rural settings. Sometimes one clinic or pharmacy serves a wide area, or all nearby services are managed by the same religious institution. In these cases, a woman with a painful and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy might not be able just to get in her car and drive to another clinic. Denial of service hits low-income communities hardest because members often have less flexible time off work and more restricted access to transportation and child care. The right of religious doctors and institutions to deny services obstructs the right of patients to receive timely care that meets normal medical practice standards, which are designed to maximize well-being.

That is because Catholic theology isn’t necessarily about well-being; it is about submitting to the perceived will of God. Sometimes these two align, and sometimes they don’t. To serve God’s will, Catholic theologians attempt to derive moral principles that are about the inherent goodness or evil of certain beliefs and behaviors, regardless of their consequences. In this way of thinking, contraceptives or abortions should not be provided because they are “intrinsically evil,” even when contraception or abortion may save a woman’s life.

To make matters worse, Catholic theology values passive submission to harm when it is believed to serve Catholic practice or faith. Saints are heralded for their commitment to theological principle even in the face of outrageous and foreseeable outcomes, including martyrdom. In fact, Catholic theology sees pain as having positive soul-purifying benefits. This is called redemptive suffering. In the ERDs, it is offered up as an alternative for patients whose unbearable pain leads them to seek death with dignity:

Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death…. Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.

Former nun Mary Johnson (author of An Unquenchable Thirst) spent 20 years working with Mother Teresa’s organization, the Missionaries of Charity, which has been accused of providing substandard treatment and pain management. She explains the sometimes abysmal conditions in their facilities thus:

Most people today would say that we help the poor by helping them out of poverty. That was never Mother Teresa’s intention. Mother Teresa often told us that as Missionaries of Charity we did not serve the poor to improve their lot, but because we were serving Jesus, who said that whenever service was rendered to one of the least, it was rendered to him. Jesus promised eternal life to those who fed the hungry and clothed the naked.

The point, in other words, is not necessarily to solve the problem but simply to perform service. Ultimately, it isn’t about real world outcomes for the person on the receiving end, but about eternal outcomes for the person on the giving end. The difference is important. And although Johnson doesn’t mention it, the passage she quotes mentions the ill as well as the hungry and naked. The Jesus of the gospel promises eternal life to those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit prisoners and care for the ill. When religion and healing are at odds, the way to get to heaven is to offer theologically principled care, even when more compassionate options are available.

This difference in objectives seems like reason enough to separate religion from medicine. Thanks to science, fertility treatment has come a long way from the mandrakes and dove blood prescribed in the Bible. Victims of sexual assault now have options other than being forced to bear rape babies (also the Biblical solution). As we face death, we have alternatives to convincing ourselves that suffering is redemptive. Do we really want theology at the helm of our biggest hospital and clinic systems?

If not, it may be time for ordinary men and women to speak our minds. In Washington State, where the battle over Catholic hospital mergers is heating up, the state constitution specifically prohibits the use of public funds to support religious institutions. Despite that prohibition, one district actually has a line-item in the property tax code to subsidize a Peace Health facility, leaving the local community with no secular alternative. With the Peace Health clinic newly open, the local bishop has already tried to block the now-Catholic system from providing lab work for Planned Parenthood, as was done in the past. Legal challenges may play out in court thanks to a patients’ rights campaign by the ACLU and grassroots groups, but the broader question is this:

When it comes to medical options, whose beliefs count: the bishops’, or the patient’s? Who gets to say whether one woman is forced to incubate a pregnancy gone wrong or another is force-fed at the end of life? Whose version of god gets to dictate how you live and how you die? 

Will the Catholic Bishops Decide How You Die or Whether You Live? – Truthout – Truth

(Image: Modern hospital and emergency sign via Shutterstock)What happens when religious institutions get to manage public funds, absorb secular hospitals, and put theology above medical science and individual patient conscience? Religious freedom suffers.

In 2010, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an elderly woman was rushed to a local hospital called St. John. She had suffered a massive stroke and could no longer eat, drink or speak. Mercifully, she was one of the growing percent of Americans who have prepared for such an eventuality by writing an end-of-life directive. Hers said that said she did not want artificial hydration or nutrition if she wasn’t going to recover. Unfortunately, St. John is a facility where the directives of the Catholic bishops take precedence over the directives of individual patients, and one such directive orders hospitals to feed and hydrate end-of-life patients whether they want it or not.

Americans would do well to consider what happens when theology dictates health care.

In the official language of the bishops, St. John is a “Catholic health care ministry,” their term for all Church-affiliated hospitals and clinics. Catholic health care ministries are publicly licensed institutions intended to serve the general public. They are highly subsidized by public dollars. To fund them, the Church uses a variety of public revenue streams including Medicare, Medicaid, county appropriations, federal dollars allocated through the 1946 Hospital Survey and Construction Act, and tax-exempt government bonds. As with any hospital, additional revenues come from insurance payments and investments, with the end result that the Catholic Church contributes less than 5 percent of the funds flowing through their hospitals and clinics. And yet the bishops place theological restrictions on care for all patients and sometimes forbid providers from telling patients that treatment options exist elsewhere.

According to MergerWatch, Catholic control of health dollars and hospital facilities is on the rise across the United States. In Washington State, for example, if all currently proposed mergers go through, almost half of hospital beds will lie in the hands of religious institutions by the end of 2013. Across the US, as Catholic systems such as Peace Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) quietly absorb secular hospitals, the bishops are fighting in court for the religious equivalent of corporate personhood, claiming that the constitution gives them institutional conscience rights that trump patient choice. Meanwhile, Catholic-owned pharmacies are suing for the right to deny services; and other Catholic-owned business are demanding (and winning) religious exemptions from health insurance obligations.

In an effort to standardize the rules of Catholic institutions and the advice that priests give laypeople, the bishops have created what they call “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care,” called ERDs for short. When secular and religious institutions merge, the bishops’ directives often restrict services in both. Patients may not realize that a once secular institution named Swedish or Highline is now subject to theology and could impose religious beliefs at odds with those of the patient. Following mergers, changes often are gradual, occurring slowly as staff leave and are replaced with believers, which makes the shift even harder for patients to detect. (Religious hospitals are exempt from non-discriminatory employment practices, somewhat remarkable given that so much of their funding is public.) Hospital administrators may state that they do not interfere in the doctor-patient relationship while at the same time advertising for staff who are “deeply familiar” with the bishops directives.

From a consumer standpoint, one problem with putting religion rather than science in charge of health care is that patients may not know they are being denied the full range of medically appropriate options. They may have no idea when institutional rules prevent doctors and nurses from honoring end-of-life wishes or discussing services that are available in secular settings – services like contraception, abortion, tubal ligation, vasectomy, fertility treatment, or death with dignity. For example, one woman tells of being diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy at a religious hospital. She was advised that she needed to have her fallopian tube removed. Fortunately, she consulted her smart phone and realized that elsewhere she could simply obtain a medication to end her nonviable pregnancy. The medication is safer and leaves fertility intact, but the Catholic directives treat this as a direct abortion, while the surgery (which damages long term fertility) kills the fetus indirectly and so is acceptable.

Other countries where Catholic theology limits health options offer a dire warning of what might happen here if the Church had an equal hold on the levers of power. In El Salvador, Catholic theology was written into law in 1998, banning all abortions, even those intended to save the mother. As a consequence, a 22-year-old mother named Beatriz, who carries a nonviable fetus, lies in a hospital bed with her kidneys failing, hoping to be granted an exception by El Salvador’s Supreme Court. She has been waiting for over a month. In Catholic Ireland last October, a young dentist, Savita Halappanavar, died after being refused an abortion.

In an ironic twist, the extremity of Catholic directives leads many people to believe that they couldn’t possibly be implemented here. Consider the case of Beatriz. She is the mother of a young child. Her fetus is anencephalic, meaning it has no brain and never will be a person under any circumstance. (Note: Somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of human fertilized eggs self-destruct naturally before a full-term gestation, most before a woman knows she is pregnant, and many because they are defective.) In other words, the Salvadorian anti-abortion law risks the life of a young mother for an incomplete fetus that is a normal failed reproductive product rather than a potential child. For someone who thinks that morality is about well-being, this just sounds crazy. Of course, this could never happen in the United States, right? You may be astounded to learn that a Phoenix nun was excommunicated and her hospital was forcibly disaffiliated from the Catholic Church for allowing an abortion under similarly hopeless circumstances.

In Ireland, after Halappanavar’s unnecessary death, thousands of men and women demanded medical services based on scientific evidence and individual conscience. Halappanavar became the tragic face of an international movement. Even so, given the power of religious institutions and traditions, legal change in Ireland is likely to be minimal. The largely Catholic Irish Medical Association has declined to request abortion rights even in cases of incest, rape and nonviable fetal anomalies. Currently Irish law allows abortion only when a mother’s life is threatened, which is not good enough for a case like Halappanavar’s. A leading obstetrician testified that Halappanavar probably would have survived if she had gotten an abortion during the first three days of her hospital stay. But at that time, there was not a “real and substantial threat to her life.” By the time she met the legal criteria, it was too late.

Patients count on their doctors to know and suggest their best options to protect health and well-being. But as medical options increase, especially at the beginning and end of life, the range of services excluded for theological reasons also increases. Catholic “ethicists” devote millions of dollars to analyzing biomedical technologies in the pipeline and then advocating policy based on theological priorities. They block certain lines of research and prevent affiliated hospitals from participating in clinical studies that require participants to be on contraception, for example a study of a cancer treatment that might cause fetal defects. Procedures opposed by the theologians are likely to be absent altogether from patient-doctor conversations.

Some patient advocates say that mandatory disclosure is part of the solution: Pharmacies that refuse to fill some prescriptions should post the fact that they are not full-service. Church-run abortion diversion centers known as crisis pregnancy centers should post that they are not medical providers. Treatment consent forms should list the scientifically and medically accepted practices that a doctor or hospital refuses to provide so that patients know that these services are available elsewhere. Conversely, providers who sign onto a Patients’ Bill of Rights promising to base care only on medical science and patient conscience could get the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

But disclosure alone won’t ensure state-of-the-art health care for many Americans, especially those living in small towns or rural settings. Sometimes one clinic or pharmacy serves a wide area, or all nearby services are managed by the same religious institution. In these cases, a woman with a painful and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy might not be able just to get in her car and drive to another clinic. Denial of service hits low-income communities hardest because members often have less flexible time off work and more restricted access to transportation and child care. The right of religious doctors and institutions to deny services obstructs the right of patients to receive timely care that meets normal medical practice standards, which are designed to maximize well-being.

That is because Catholic theology isn’t necessarily about well-being; it is about submitting to the perceived will of God. Sometimes these two align, and sometimes they don’t. To serve God’s will, Catholic theologians attempt to derive moral principles that are about the inherent goodness or evil of certain beliefs and behaviors, regardless of their consequences. In this way of thinking, contraceptives or abortions should not be provided because they are “intrinsically evil,” even when contraception or abortion may save a woman’s life.

To make matters worse, Catholic theology values passive submission to harm when it is believed to serve Catholic practice or faith. Saints are heralded for their commitment to theological principle even in the face of outrageous and foreseeable outcomes, including martyrdom. In fact, Catholic theology sees pain as having positive soul-purifying benefits. This is called redemptive suffering. In the ERDs, it is offered up as an alternative for patients whose unbearable pain leads them to seek death with dignity:

Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death…. Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.

Former nun Mary Johnson (author of An Unquenchable Thirst) spent 20 years working with Mother Teresa’s organization, the Missionaries of Charity, which has been accused of providing substandard treatment and pain management. She explains the sometimes abysmal conditions in their facilities thus:

Most people today would say that we help the poor by helping them out of poverty. That was never Mother Teresa’s intention. Mother Teresa often told us that as Missionaries of Charity we did not serve the poor to improve their lot, but because we were serving Jesus, who said that whenever service was rendered to one of the least, it was rendered to him. Jesus promised eternal life to those who fed the hungry and clothed the naked.

The point, in other words, is not necessarily to solve the problem but simply to perform service. Ultimately, it isn’t about real world outcomes for the person on the receiving end, but about eternal outcomes for the person on the giving end. The difference is important. And although Johnson doesn’t mention it, the passage she quotes mentions the ill as well as the hungry and naked. The Jesus of the gospel promises eternal life to those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit prisoners and care for the ill. When religion and healing are at odds, the way to get to heaven is to offer theologically principled care, even when more compassionate options are available.

This difference in objectives seems like reason enough to separate religion from medicine. Thanks to science, fertility treatment has come a long way from the mandrakes and dove blood prescribed in the Bible. Victims of sexual assault now have options other than being forced to bear rape babies (also the Biblical solution). As we face death, we have alternatives to convincing ourselves that suffering is redemptive. Do we really want theology at the helm of our biggest hospital and clinic systems?

If not, it may be time for ordinary men and women to speak our minds. In Washington State, where the battle over Catholic hospital mergers is heating up, the state constitution specifically prohibits the use of public funds to support religious institutions. Despite that prohibition, one district actually has a line-item in the property tax code to subsidize a Peace Health facility, leaving the local community with no secular alternative. With the Peace Health clinic newly open, the local bishop has already tried to block the now-Catholic system from providing lab work for Planned Parenthood, as was done in the past. Legal challenges may play out in court thanks to a patients’ rights campaign by the ACLU and grassroots groups, but the broader question is this:

When it comes to medical options, whose beliefs count: the bishops’, or the patient’s? Who gets to say whether one woman is forced to incubate a pregnancy gone wrong or another is force-fed at the end of life? Whose version of god gets to dictate how you live and how you die? 

Helen Alvare to speak on women, religious freedom in Year of Faith talk

Posted in Local Catholic News, on May 1st, 2013

By Matthew Gambino

Helen Alvare
(CNS photo/Bob Roller)

Is the freedom of women and freedom of religion a matter of clash or collaboration?

Helen Alvare will argue they are not mutually exclusive concepts and are more relevant than ever, during a talk Tuesday, May 14 at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary’s Vianney Hall, 100 East Wynnewood Road in Wynnewood.

Part of Archbishop Charles Chaput’s Year of Faith Lecture Series, Alvare’s talk is expected to reflect the topic for which she has become an expert, according to Meghan Cokeley in the archdiocesan office of Life, Family and Laity, which is sponsoring the series.

Cokeley said Alvare is well known for speaking about the Catholic faith and the implications for doing so in public. “Helen’s expertise is that topic but specifically on women’s issues that are in the forefront of the culture — women’s issues and the relationship to religion and religious freedom,” she said.

Alvare will address the notion that “religious freedom is conflicting with women’s freedom; that somehow if we as a country are going to affirm religious freedom we are negating women’s freedom,” Cokeley said.

“I believe Helen’s point is that by affirming religious freedom you are also setting women free. That religious freedom, the belief in God and all the morality that implies, actually ends up confirming women in all their liberty. You can’t have one without the other.”

Alvare brings to bear a solid background in law and Catholic theology to her arguments concerning religious freedom.

She is a law professor at George Mason University in Arlington, Va., a consultor for the Pontifical Council for the Laity at the Vatican and leads the Conscience Protection Task Force at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J.

Alvare earned her law degree from Cornell University and her master’s in theology from the Catholic University of America. Last year she wrote the book, “Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves.”

Cokeley said the talk will be relevant to her personally and likely to many women, but all others as well.

“Because of my deep Catholic convictions and my deep convictions about femininity and the great gift of woman for the world, if I can’t reconcile religious belief with my own femininty then I am in trouble,” she said.

“For every woman in the world, at the heart of a woman’s vocation is this question of, Is the belief in God somehow irreconcilable with her femininity? As a Catholic woman, that belief in God is what actually grounds our femininity and our fruitfulness in the world, but the contributions that we have in the world come directly from being a woman of faith.”

The current opposition by religious congregations and people of faith over the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate for contraceptive coverage in the health care reform law, despite moral objections, has underscored a threat to religious freedom in the United States.

Cokeley believes the question of religious freedom is not just for Catholics but “evangelical Christians are also being affected by the HHS mandate; orthodox Jews, really anyone of faith is affected by this question and it is relevant for all of us.”

Other upcoming lectures in the series will tackle the tensions between science, Catholicism and modern atheism, with Notre Dame University professor Brad Gregory on Sept. 12; and the failures of institutionalized religions in America, with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat on Sept. 19.

Archbishop Chaput will cap the Year of Faith series with his talk on the call to conversion and the New Evangelization on Oct. 1.

It is not too late to register for the May 14 program, which begins with Alvare’s talk at 7 p.m. and continues with a question-and-answer session until 9, or any talk in the series.

Registration is online at the website for the lecture series.

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Bill Seeks to Protect Religious Groups

Ed Colbert says the Houston Independent School District wouldn’t let him host a Catholic Bible study group on school grounds after school hours because of his religious beliefs. 

In response to concerns like these, state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, has filed a bill that would codify in Texas law existing U.S. Supreme Court rulings that ensure that religious groups have the same rights to hold meetings at public school facilities as nonreligious organizations.

“The bill adds a little extra layer of religious liberty,” Krause said.

Under House Bill 1525, known as “The Religious Equal Access Act,” if a public school district allows noncurricular community groups not organized by students to meet during “noninstructional” time, the same access would be allowed to religious organizations. Krause said the bill would protect groups that may have been denied access to facilities because of the religious nature of their organization.

“The issue is really a lack of legislation saying something either way,” Colbert said.

Colbert, who lives in Houston, said new legislation would make it easier for both religious and nonreligious organizations to use public school facilities for meetings and community events — creating a level playing field.

“If an atheist believes he is speaking the truth and wants to rid the world of superstition, he should compete in the marketplace of ideas,” he said. 

Krause, a lawyer, founded a Texas office of Liberty Counsel, a legal and educational organization dedicated to “advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.” 

He said in a statement that through his pro bono work, he witnessed many people who experienced “viewpoint discrimination” while trying to access public facilities. He called it an infringement on First Amendment rights of free speech. Current laws prohibiting viewpoint discrimination are “crystal clear,” Krause said, but a lack of knowledge could be why some school districts deny religious organizations access to facilities.

“We need to put all school districts and everyone on notice that [viewpoint discrimination] is something you cannot do,” he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court rulings that Krause cites in the bill are Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District and Good News Club v. Milford Central School. Both cases set precedents for religious groups and their rights regarding free speech on government property.

In the 1993 decision in Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, the court decided that government could not limit free speech because of a specific viewpoint. The court found in the 2003 case Good News Club v. Milord Central School that if the government has a “limited public forum,” it could limit the speech there to certain topics, but it could not discriminate against speech because of the viewpoint, including religious perspectives.

Zachary Moore, coordinator for the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason, an umbrella organization for several Texas atheist groups, said he hasn’t seen any evidence of religious groups being denied access to the same use of school facilities as nonreligious groups, and doesn’t see a need for reinforcing current laws.

Although Moore said he doesn’t see a need for additional laws to protect religious organizations, he said that Krause’s legislation would help protect free speech rights of the secular movement, too. 

“[Krause] is doing our work for us,” he said.

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Proposed Tennessee Law Could Allow Faith-Based Groups at Public Colleges …

A proposed Tennessee law could allow faith-based student organizations at public colleges to limit membership to only those who share the group’s religious beliefs. State Senator Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet) has introduced anew version of a bill that Governor Bill Haslam vetoed last year following controversy at Vanderbilt University over its non-discrimination agreement.

Vanderbilt requires that student groups register with the Dean of Students’ office, and sign a non-discrimination agreement. The Vanderbilt Catholic group – concerned that its inability to limit membership could result in members and/or leaders who didn’t share the group’s Catholic faith – gave up its official student organization status rather than sign the agreement. The organization not only gave up its official status, but was asked by the University to change its name. The organization renamed itself University Catholic.

“The discriminatory non-discrimination policy at Vanderbilt University has forced our hand,” said Father John Sims Baker, chaplain of University Catholic in a statement at the time. “Our purpose has always been to share the Gospel and proudly proclaim our Catholic faith. What other reason could there be for a Catholic organization at Vanderbilt? How can we say it is not important that a Catholic lead a Catholic organization?”

University officials have said that the debate is over non-discrimination rather than religious freedom.

Beavers’ original bill passed the state legislature in 2012.The governor vetoed it because he didn’t feel the state should be enacting legislation that impacts religious institutions. The new bill applies only to public universities.

“We’re bringing that back, to apply to our public institutions…to make sure that you’re not forced to accept people who do not believe the same way you do,”said Beavers.

Religious leaders at the University of Tennessee support the bill.

“Rules of political correctness frequently have very good intentions, but they usually result in less freedom and an atmosphere that is intolerable,” said Fr. Stephen Freeman, priest-advisor of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, at the University of Tennessee.

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Measure would back religious groups ruling – Longview News

Ed Colbert says the Houston Independent School District wouldn’t let him have a Catholic Bible study group on school grounds after school hours because of his religious beliefs.

In response to such concerns, state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, has filed a bill that would codify in Texas law existing U.S. Supreme Court rulings ensuring religious groups have the same rights to have meetings at public school facilities as nonreligious organizations.

“The bill adds a little extra layer of religious liberty,” Krause said.

Under House Bill 1525, known as “The Religious Equal Access Act,” if a public school district allows noncurricular community groups not organized by students to meet during “noninstructional” time, the same access would be allowed to religious organizations. Krause said the bill would protect groups that may have been denied access to facilities because of the religious nature of their organization.

“The issue is really a lack of legislation saying something either way,” Colbert said.

Colbert, who lives in Houston, said new legislation would make it easier for religious and nonreligious organizations to use public school facilities for meetings and community events — creating a level playing field.

“If an atheist believes he is speaking the truth and wants to rid the world of superstition, he should compete in the marketplace of ideas,” he said.

Krause, a lawyer, founded a Texas office of Liberty Counsel, a legal and educational organization dedicated to “advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.”

He said in a statement that through his pro bono work, he witnessed many people who experienced “viewpoint discrimination” while trying to access public facilities. He called it an infringement on First Amendment rights of free speech. Laws prohibiting viewpoint discrimination are “crystal clear,” Krause said, but a lack of knowledge could be why some school districts deny religious organizations access to facilities.

“We need to put all school districts and everyone on notice that (viewpoint discrimination) is something you cannot do,” he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court rulings Krause cites in the bill are Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District and Good News Club v. Milford Central School. Both cases set precedents for religious groups and their rights regarding free speech on government property.

In the 1993 decision in Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, the court decided that government could not limit free speech because of a specific viewpoint. The court found in the 2003 case Good News Club v. Milord Central School that if the government has a “limited public forum,” it could limit the speech there to certain topics, but it could not discriminate against speech because of the viewpoint, including religious perspectives.

Zachary Moore, coordinator for the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason, an umbrella organization for several Texas atheist groups, said he hasn’t seen any evidence of religious groups being denied access to the same use of school facilities as nonreligious groups, and doesn’t see a need for reinforcing current laws.

Although Moore said he doesn’t see a need for additional laws to protect religious organizations, he said that Krause’s legislation would help protect free speech rights of the secular movement, too.

“(Krause) is doing our work for us,” he said.

Staten Island woman’s lawsuit: Child’s immunization conflicts with their …

Vaccines “would defile God’s creation of the immune system” and interfere with His plan “to supply each human with a pristine immune system,” Dina Check of West Brighton wrote in an affidavit to the court.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — West Brighton resident Dina Check fervently opposes vaccinations, even for her young daughter, on religious grounds.

The practicing Roman Catholic believes the body is a temple, and contends injecting vaccines into it “would defile God’s creation of the immune system … [and] demonstrate a lack of faith in God, which would anger God and therefore be sacrilegious.”

Those strong views have put Ms. Check, 46, at odds with the city Education Department. They have also resulted in her 6-year-old daughter’s recent barring from PS 35, Sunnyside, for failing to be immunized.

Ms. Check has struck back, filing a civil lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court against the Education Department.

She alleges religious-freedom and due-process violations and seeks a court order granting religious and medical exemptions from immunization and allowing her first-grader to return to school.

“She has a right to refuse the [immunization] shot both medically and religiously,” said Patricia Finn, the family’s Rockland County-based lawyer, on Thursday. “They’re very brave and very faithful people. They believe God is going to provide through this, and it’s going to be the right result.”

The state Public Health Law requires children be vaccinated against a number of diseases including mumps, measles, polio, diphtheria and rubella.

In court papers, Ms. Check contends her daughter was covered by a religious exemption granted more than two years ago under a YMCA education program. However, a recent snafu undid it.

A school nurse allegedly mistook medication documents from her daughter’s pediatrician as a request for a medical exemption.

The girl suffers from gastrointestinal problems, which, Ms. Check contends, qualify her for a medical exemption.

However, the medical exemption was denied and Ms. Check re-applied for a religious exemption.

As a practicing Catholic, Ms. Check said she believes the human body is a “temple of God.”

Vaccines “would defile God’s creation of the immune system” and interfere with His plan “to supply each human with a pristine immune system,” she wrote in an affidavit to the court.

“I believe that man is made in God’s image and the injection of toxic chemical and foreign proteins into the bloodstream is a violation of God’s directive to keep the body … holy and free from impurities,” Ms. Check wrote to the Education Department in 2010.

“To inject invasive and unnatural substances into this divine creation is showing a lack of faith of God and His way,” Ms. Check contends.

She told school officials she believes in medical intervention “only if the child is ill or injured. … A healthy child should be left alone.”

According to court exhibits, Ms. Check’s other children were immunized; however, she said she regretted doing so.

The Education Department denied the religious exemption, finding that Ms. Check failed to demonstrate “genuine and sincere religious beliefs which are contrary to immunization,” according to a Dec. 4 memorandum included in court papers.

Professor Christopher P. Vogt, a moral theologian, said the Catholic Church doesn’t oppose vaccinations.

“I don’t see any tension between immunizing children and Roman Catholic teaching, belief or practice,” said Vogt, associate professor and chairman of the Department of Theology Religious Studies at St. John’s University in Queens. “When we immunize children, we’re trying to protect children and the common good. As a Catholic, we have a responsibility to take care of our world.”

When read some passages Ms. Check had written, he said it seemed as though she’s taken a Fundamentalist view of Scriptures.

“Catholicism doesn’t hold that we take a literal reading of Scriptures,” he said.

An Education Department spokeswoman referred all inquiries on the lawsuit to the city Law Department.

A Law Department spokeswoman said the city recently received the suit papers and is reviewing them.

Breaching a Contract, Breaking Faith: Religious Freedom in Cincinnati

We’re used to thinking of religious freedom as an individual right—my freedom of conscience to believe and practice as I choose. But as the continuing debate over the HHS mandate demonstrates, freedom of religion under the First Amendment also guarantees the rights of religious institutions. When those freedoms collide, what gives?

In the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, for which I perform occasional work as an independent contractor, the cases of two dismissed Catholic school employees are in the news this week.

Purcell Marian High School Assistant Principal Mike Moroski was placed on administrative leave on February 4, after refusing to remove a January 27 post on his personal website that said:

I unabashedly believe that gay people SHOULD be allowed to marry. Ethically, morally and legally I believe this. I spend a lot of my life trying to live as a Christian example of love for others, and my formation at Catholic grade school, high school, 3 Catholic Universities and employment at 2 Catholic high schools has informed my conscience to believe that gay marriage is NOT something of which to be afraid.

In other news, a trial date was set this week in federal court for a civil rights lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Cincinnati by Christa Dias, a computer teacher at two Cincinnati Catholic elementary schools who was terminated in 2010 after telling students and administrators she was single and pregnant by artificial insemination, and was seeking maternity leave.

The Archdiocese, as is proper while litigation is ongoing or being contemplated, is not speaking in detail on either case. But the media and the comboxes are saying plenty.

PURCELL MARIAN TEACHER UNDER FIRE FOR OPINIONS ON GAY MARRIAGE, reads the Cincinnati Enquirer headline. ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL AT CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL CHOOSES MARRIAGE EQUALITY OVER JOB, trumpets Queerty.

TEACHER FIRED FOR GETTING PREGNANT ‘THE WRONG WAY’ is one of many similar web post headings in the Christa Dias case. CHRISTA DIAS, MOTHER, FIRED FROM CATHOLIC SCHOOLS FOR USING ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION, says HuffPost.

In both cases, the headlines are incorrect. Mike Moroski was not fired for expressing a personal opinion. Christa Dias was not fired for becoming pregnant. Both had their employment terminated for simple breach of contract.

Catholic schools employees in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati sign a contract agreeing that they will “comply with and act consistently in accordance with the stated philosophy and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.” That’s not “the stated philosophy and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church that I accept, or as I interpret them.” There’s no clause that adds “except on my own time”—because the stated philosophy and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church guide all of life, 24/7. This contract, willingly signed by both Mr Moroski and Ms Dias, does not require that employees be members of the Catholic faith—Ms Dias is not; Mr Moroski, with 16+ years of Catholic education, says he “believes in Catholicism”—but it does require that employees live by Catholic moral teachings and exemplify them for their students.

I can understand the difficulty many people have with the particular teachings involved in these cases, both of which are rooted in Catholic belief in the God-given purposes of sexuality, marriage, and parenting. The Church does not accept or approve of gay marriage because, for Catholics, it’s an impossibility: marriage, a sacrament, can only be contracted between a man and a woman. Artificial insemination (as well as pregnancy outside marriage) runs counter to Church teachings that children are to be conceived within the physical, emotional, and spiritual union of a marriage between a woman and a man. These teachings are not about rights or equality; they aren’t rooted in hatred of homosexuals or the shaming of women. But I can see we have a long way to go before we speak that truth in ways people outside the Church can even vaguely comprehend.

Not to mention people inside the Church. I know the arguments. Yes, it’s true that these, like many of the Church’s teachings, may be more honored in the breach than in the keeping. But Catholic teaching, in spite of the best efforts and highest hopes of the media and many Catholics, is not driven by majority rule or by opinion polls.

It’s not about rights, either. A federal judge allowed Ms Dias’s suit to go forward based on her claim of gender discrimination—that she is being punished because, as a woman, her use of IVF is apparent, whereas a male teacher whose wife or partner conceived through IVF would not be so apparent. Mr Moroski claims his belief in the equal rights of all people is a higher authority than the teachings of the Church, and it would be a violation of his right to freedom of conscience to recant that belief. The thing is, neither Ms Dias not Mr Moroski was terminated for what they did or what they believe, but for upholding those actions and beliefs, which run counter to Church teachings, in the public forum.

The judge in Ms Dias’s case said the Archdiocesan contract did not bind Ms Dias because she is not a Catholic and did not teach religion—the typically narrow definition of the religious freedom of the institutional employer. Mr Moroski’s fellow teachers and students bemoan the loss of this popular administrator, who had a gift for working with teens, simply because he expressed an opinion on his private web page.

But it’s not simple. Had Ms Dias arranged her pregnancy for off-school time, and not both requested maternity leave and encouraged her young students’ plan to throw a baby shower for her (encouragement that included telling them she wasn’t married and had been artificially inseminated), she might have been as unnoticed as a man in similar circumstances. She made a choice to violate her employment contract. Had Mr Moroski, whose website is hardly “private” (he’s using it as a platform to launch a political career), refrained from posting his comments, or provided the disclaimer requested by the Purcell Marian administration, he might have gone on with what has seemed, up to now, to be a stellar career in Catholic education. He made a choice to violate his contract.

Both Ms Dias and Mr Moloski claim that their individual wants and needs and opinions supersede the rights of Cincinnati Catholic Schools to provide students with teachers and administrators who embody Catholicism and its values.

“I’ve always wanted to have a baby,” Dias told the publication [the Cincinnati Enquirer]. “I’ve always known that. That’s why I became a teacher, because I love kids. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Moroski said he “knew the statement I was making was not in accordance with Roman Catholic beliefs,” but he does not think he violated the contract because he was following his conscience.

Maybe if it weren’t the Church, the Blue Meanie of the Western World, that were doing the firing, people might see it differently. Suppose an assistant director of PETA wrote on her “personal website” that there was nothing wrong with wearing fur, and that we should stop being afraid of animal testing? Suppose a teacher in an Orthodox Jewish shul brought bacon-wrapped shrimp to a class party, and sent the kids home with goodie bags full of ham and cheese sandwiches? Suppose a board member of the Susan G Komen Foundation took issue with diverting cancer prevention funds to Planned Parenthood abortion clinics? (Oh, wait, we don’t have to suppose that one.)

Employers have the right to protect the mission of their organizations. Catholic schools exist to promote Catholic teaching and values, not only in religion classes but all day long and wherever and whenever their employees interact publicly. And there is no unlimited employee freedom, no matter what the situation: when you enter into a contractual relationship with an employer, you surrender (at the minimum) your right to show up whenever you feel like it, to wear whatever you please, to make public statements dissing your employer’s mission or telling your boss she’s nuts. In return, you are compensated for performing stated responsibilities, which Ms Dias and Mr Moloski, IMHO, failed to do.

I’m not a lawyer, or a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. I don’t always understand the teachings of the Church myself, and I’m not going to get into combox apologetics in their defense. But in these two cases, I think, neither plaintiff has a moral leg to stand on. Those children in Ms Dias’s computer classes, those teens with whom Mr Moloski has such a good rapport? They’re the losers here. They deserved better Catholic educators in their Catholic schools. And it’s with them, ultimately, that Ms Dias and Mr Moloski breached a contract and broke faith.

Catholic Bishops Courageous Stand For Religious Freedom Continues: No to …

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) – In a statement from Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Bishops weighed in on the recent alleged “accomodation” offered by the Obama Administration last Friday. The answer was clear, principled, uncompromising and courageous. I expected nothing less from this man who is such a great gift to the  Church in the United States during this critical hour in the history of both Church and Nation. 

Archbishop Timothy Dolan loves the Lord and the Church with an infectious enthusiasm borne of a sincere, living faith. He is what I call, dynamically orthodox. A strong defender of the truths which the Church must always defend, he defends them filled with the joy of the Lord. Even those who contend with him cannot help but like him. He is a man comfortable in his own skin, at ease with the use of the media, filled with the Holy Spirit, and eager to share the Gospel, as it is found in its fullness within the Catholic Church.

This dynamic Bishop began his challenging assignment of leading the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in June of 2002 by proclaiming those wonderful words of Blessed John Paul II, the words of the Angel to Our Lady, “Be Not Afraid” when he addressed the faithful. Any observer of the work of Bishops must attest that, given the state of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee when he was appointed, he demonstrated his full palate of gifts and led with the heart of a true shepherd.

Wherever he serves, he is dearly loved by his priests and deacons. That is because he has a pastor’s heart and knows the importance of a Bishop’s relationship with his clergy. He is also a dynamic and inspiring communicator and solid teacher of the truths as taught by the Magisterium of the Church.Finally, he is a true leader, both naturally and supernaturally.  He is just what we need as we face great threats to the freedom of the Church to engage in her mission at the very time when the nation so desperately needs her message and her ministry.

His pastoral and communications gifts – and full compliment of leadership skills – were applied immediately upon his appointment to the Archdiocese of New York, the second largest local Church in the United States. He leads the Archdiocese of New York – which the Holy See is purported to consider the “Capital of the World” – with a pastors heart, a teachers wisdom, and a courageous and faithful Bishops dedication to defending the fullness of truth found within the full communion of the Catholic Church. He has been willing to fight the enemies of the Church, but he does so with velvet gloves! He confounds his opponents with Truth and wins them with the Love of God, making them friends.

At this critical time in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States, Cardinal Dolan’s election to the office of President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was not only an historic turn of events, it was a sign of the Lord’s continued guidance of the Catholic Church in the United States. The United States of America has become mission territory. The Church in the United States is in need of the New Evangelization and Cardinal Dolan is its instrument, a trumpet in the hands of the Lord.

But make no mistake, the smile on his jovial face, his gregarious manner and his genuine warmth dwell right within a leader with a backbone of steel. This is a true defender of the faith. He will not back down in the defense of the Church, her mission, her rights and her call to participate fully in the public square. We ask our readers to pray for Cardinal Dolan and for all of our Bishops as they once again take the lead in this epic struggle.

We are please to present his entire statement of response to the most recent proposal from the Federal Administration below, in its entirety.

—–   

Statement of Cardinal Timothy Dolan Responding to Feb. 1 Proposal from HHS

For almost a century, the Catholic bishops of the United States have worked hard to support the right of every person to affordable, accessible, comprehensive, life-affirming healthcare.As we continue to do so, our changeless values remain the same.We promote the protection of the dignity of all human life and the innate rights that flow from it, including the right to life from conception to natural death; care for the poorest among us and the undocumented; the right of the Church to define itself, its ministries, and its ministers; and freedom of conscience.

Last Friday, the Administration issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding the HHS mandate that requires coverage for sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortions.The Administration indicates that it has heard some previously expressed concerns and that it is open to dialogue.With release of the NPRM, …

Contraception Opt-Out Offer

By LOUISE RADNOFSKY

The Obama administration on Friday offered an updated compromise to its requirement that employers cover contraception in workers’ insurance plans, a step aimed at settling a yearlong contretemps over a mandate in the health-care overhaul.

The proposal is aimed at addressing the argument of Catholic bishops, along with religiously affiliated universities, hospitals and charities, that requiring employers to provide contraception violates their religious freedom. These objections sparked an election-year furor, along with a number of lawsuits seeking to void the requirement.

Obama administration will announce next steps in its attempt to resolve a controversy over health insurance coverage of contraception. Any change would be aimed at alleviating concerns of the Catholic church. WSJ’s Louise Radnofsky reports (Photo: AP)

The updated policy, proposed Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services, still guarantees that workers at religious nonprofits would get such coverage. But it specifies a way for employers to avoid funding it. The employers would be allowed to omit contraception, including the morning-after pill, from their insurance plans if they morally object to it.

Instead, insurance companies handling the policies would be responsible for informing employees that they were eligible for separate insurance plans covering contraception with no additional premium or out-of-pocket expense. The new rules would require insurers to pay the upfront cost.

The White House first outlined a compromise last year, but it was rejected by the bishops and Catholic institutions who had been its main opponents, and they went on to file several dozen new lawsuits challenging the requirement.

What is new about Friday’s proposal is how insurers would pay for contraception coverage, and how the workaround applies to employers that directly pay workers’ medical claims. The federal government would credit insurers for providing the stand-alone coverage for those employers by reducing a user fee insurers must pay starting in 2014 to sell policies to millions of Americans through a federally run health-insurance exchange.

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AP

Shirley Bierman, of Meridian, Idaho, stands with fellow protesters during a demonstration in Boise to oppose the Obama administration’s health-care mandate for religious institutions in June 2012.

“Nonprofit religious organizations like universities, hospitals or charities with religious objections won’t have to arrange, contract, pay or refer for coverage of these services for their employees or students,” said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, an official at the Department of Health and Human Services. “At the same time, women who work or go to school at these institutions will have free contraceptive coverage and will no longer have to pay hundreds of dollars a year that could be going to rent or groceries.”

As of late Friday afternoon, it wasn’t clear whether the latest offer would win over the policy’s main opponents. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, associations representing Catholic hospitals and schools including the University of Notre Dame didn’t immediately offer a substantive response, saying they were still studying the proposals.

But it was evident the deal didn’t appease some opponents of the policy, including several businesses suing the administration. The revised policy would provide no relief for companies that don’t have formal religious affiliation but whose owners oppose contraception coverage. Many foes of the mandate have said they wouldn’t be satisfied unless the requirement were eliminated altogether.

“The federal government continues to rely upon accounting gimmicks to address the concerns of religious nonprofits that do not qualify for the exemption,” said Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, a Republican who brought an early suit against the requirement. “This rule utterly fails to address the concerns of for-profit corporations with religious objections to providing coverage for services contrary to their beliefs.”

Supporters of contraception coverage cautiously praised Friday’s proposal. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a written statement that it “delivers on the promise of women having access to birth control without copays no matter where they work.”

The contraception requirement stems from a piece of the 2010 Affordable Care Act that requires insurance policies to cover preventive health services without charging out-of-pocket fees to enrollees. The Obama administration decided in 2011 that contraception counted as such a service, citing the health benefits of planned pregnancies for women.

Catholic hospitals, universities and charities are among the leading plaintiffs in the lawsuits challenging the requirement. For-profit companies suing include Hercules Industries Inc., a Catholic-owned Colorado heating-and-cooling company, and Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., an Oklahoma City craft chain whose Christian owners consider the morning-after pill to be a form of abortion.

A handful of judges have allowed cases against the requirement to proceed on the grounds that the employers could be protected by a 1993 statute that requires the federal government to consider the rights of religious groups when crafting policy. Some have been tossed out by judges that contended they could not be considered until the administration’s proposals had been fully detailed.

“Today’s proposed rule does nothing to protect the religious liberty of millions of Americans,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm representing several of the companies. “We are confident that we have the support of the Catholic Church and other religious organizations in the for-profit cases.”

The fight over the requirement has been bruising for both sides. The White House has struggled for months to reconcile the objections of the religious groups, as key allies including women’s groups insisted President Barack Obama stand by a commitment to expanding access to contraception. The issue has divided Catholic groups, and priests across the country have used Sunday homilies to take sides on it.

Earlier efforts to come to an accommodation with religious groups had run into problems because many large employers, including big Catholic institutions, self-insure, meaning they act as insurance companies by assuming the full responsibility for the health costs of their workers and use traditional insurance companies only for administrative services.

The proposal to shift the costs and responsibilities for contraception coverage directly to traditional insurance companies is likely to be met with skepticism by the industry. The main trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, said Friday it was still reviewing details of the plan.

—Colleen McCain Nelson contributed to this article.

Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared February 2, 2013, on page A3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Contraception Opt-Out Offer.