The Chicago Tribune reports:
Current law allows insurance providers that morally or religiously object to birth control to not cover contraceptives as long as they maintain the same policy for all of their clients. The new measure would allow individual religious organizations and institutions to not provide coverage for contraceptives even if their insurance provider did offer that coverage to other clients. ... "This is a separation of church and state issue," Gilligan said. "We don't believe the state should be defining what we can and cannot do in terms of providing benefits to our employees."
[O]pponents of the bill said the original law was meant to promote equality for women. Feigenholtz said that allowing the Catholic Church to opt out would mean that even non-Catholic employees who work for Catholic institutions could not have access to affordable birth control. ... Also, she said the broad language of this new bill opens the possibility for secular companies to claim a moral objection simply to keep down the cost of their premiums.
Sen. Iris Martinez (D-Chicago) said this new measure is unfair because women take contraceptives not just for birth control, but for other health reasons as well. "When Viagra hit the market, four months later, insurance companies covered it," she said. "Forty years ago they introduced contraceptives for women, and apparently we still can't get the coverage."
I can certainly understand a Catholic church not wanting to have to pay for things like birth control pills, but if the Catholic diocese happens to own or partially own a shoe store, a book store, or any other business, why should those employees be denied the same health coverage that the laws mandate for every other employee in the state? What is it about Catholic employers that they should be permitted to subscribe to a lower set of standards when it comes to how employees are treated?
What’s next? Will Jehovah’s Witness business owners be able to opt-out of insurance plans that pay for blood transfusions? If your employer is an adherent of Christian Science, can they refuse to pay for any insurance plan that relies upon modern medicine? If your employer is a big believer in homeopathy, will you be limited to insurance plans that cover nothing but that? If Catholic employers are allowed to pick and choose which medical treatments they will pay for based upon their personal moral beliefs, it is difficult to see why cases like these would be refused (unless Catholic employers are suddenly going to get special privileges denied to everyone else).
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