The intersection of intellectual freedom with
government controls is evident in the long-running controversy surrounding the
government’s reproductive, or birth control, mandates.
New Jersey Star-Ledger Guest Columnist T.
Patrick Hill asks How can
government give healthcare workers the right to invoke their own religious
beliefs when treating others?
In a secular and pluralistic society, such as the United States
today, religious exemptions as public policy are a contradiction in terms.
Under the U.S. Constitution, individuals enjoy the right to practice religion.
At the same time, the Constitution prohibits any kind of state-sponsored
religion. Constitutionally speaking, the practice of religion is a private not
a public matter, even though it takes place in public.
Why then did President
Trump recently issue rules affording healthcare
providers, insurers and employers the protection of their religious beliefs
against providing such services as abortion and sterilization?
Exemptions to laws on religious grounds, but not
other grounds, are definitely unfair. Providers should be free to decide who
they do or do not treat, consistent with contractual terms, on any ethical
grounds as a matter of individual rights. However, on religious freedom, Hill
is dead wrong. Hill does not explain how government protecting the freedom to
non-rights violating religious practice, in this case refusing to provide
abortion or sterilization services consistent with the providers’ private
religious convictions, amounts to a government establishment or sponsorship of
religion.
Yet that is what Hill is arguing. And he frames
his view in constitutional terms. I left these comments, expanded and edited
for clarity *:
Religious freedom—freedom of conscience—means the right of each person to live by his own conscientious beliefs, so long as he respects and does not violate the same rights of others. This means that a person has the moral right to consume contraceptives, but no right to force any pharmacist to provide the contraceptives. Likewise, the pharmacist has a moral right to refuse to provide contraceptives, but no right to forbid anyone from going elsewhere to get it, or forbid other pharmacists from filling the prescription. Either way, no one’s rights are violated.The same goes for abortion or any other healthcare product. There is no right to healthcare—to legally force someone to provide it—only the right to pursue healthcare from willing providers on mutually agreed terms. This principle goes beyond the reproductive mandates, to all healthcare mandates. Forcing anyone to provide, or buy, services against her will violates the government’s purpose to protect individual rights.
Hill goes on:
How can we secure the constitutional principle of equal protection
under law when the justification for the law is a set of beliefs that cannot be
shared beyond the believer precisely because they are religious?
In light of Hill’s reference to the Equal
Protection Clause, it is stunning to read the following:
Obviously, the believer is at liberty to undergo or not medical
treatment on the basis of his or her beliefs since the decision is
self-regarding. But of course that is not possible in the case of a healthcare
provider, whose treatment decisions are unavoidably other-regarding, involving
patients.
This is a moral perversion. Hill is essentially
saying that health providers are not entitled to live “on the basis of his or
her beliefs” because they provide the services. That is fundamentally
unethical, and unequal treatment under law. Providers are not slaves. Providers
have the same “self-regarding” right to conscience as everyone else--and rights
by definition govern relationships with others**. Protecting pharmacists’
right to refuse is not “law [that] prohibits the fulfillment of the
prescription.” No one is proposing to prohibit any pharmacist from proscribing
any legal substance. By protecting religious rights (or any right), government
is doing its job of protecting rights equally, both of the consumer and of the
provider. Just as no one should be forced to undergo medical treatment against
his or her will, so no one should be forced to provide medical treatment
against his or her will.
Hill jumps through myriad hoops to twist logic
onto his side. I agree that there should be no
religious exemptions to laws. But neither should
anyone be exempt from the protection of their individual rights. Each of us has
a right to our own conscientious beliefs, but no “right” to force our beliefs
on others. Yet forcing beliefs on others is exactly what the reproductive
mandates for contraception, abortion, sterilization, etc. do. If it is wrong
for government to establish religious beliefs, it is equally wrong for
government to establish any moral beliefs. Religious freedom = freedom of
conscience, because religion has no monopoly on moral beliefs. Freedom of
conscience extends to both believers—the consumer and the provider. The First
Amendment, interpreted fundamentally and in its full context, protects
intellectual freedom, which is the right of each person to live by his own
conscientious beliefs, so long as he respects and does not violate the same
rights of others.
Related Reading:
How the Catholic Church Paved the Way for the Birth Control
Mandate
**[Absent a social setting or relationships with others, rights are absurd. The purpose of individual rights is to prevent others from violating your rights. If you are alone on a deserted island, who can violate your rights?]
Related Viewing:
Ayn Rand on Free Speech and
Church-State Separation --Onkar Ghate explains
the broader meaning of the First Amendment.
*[Once again, the Star-Ledger has blocked my
comments from public view; that is, it appears when I am signed in but
disappears when I sign out. It does that often, for reasons no one will explain
to me.]
**[Absent a social setting or relationships with others, rights are absurd. The purpose of individual rights is to prevent others from violating your rights. If you are alone on a deserted island, who can violate your rights?]
No comments:
Post a Comment