The College Fix

The Catholic Georgetown University will cover contraception, a recent memo from the president to the campus community stated:

In late June, the Obama Administration issued final regulations providing guidance on the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that employers provide contraceptive coverage.  The regulations will require insurance companies themselves to pay directly for contraceptive services for the employees and students of non-profit organizations, like Georgetown, that oppose providing coverage for contraceptive services on religious grounds.

The final regulations were the culmination of a long regulatory process, in which many voices were raised in support of religious freedom and the need for a regulatory solution that would respect the religious identity of institutions that serve diverse populations. Georgetown participated in this process, joining with our Catholic and Jesuit colleagues in higher education in publicly expressing our hope that a compromise would be found allowing us to comply with the law and honor our Catholic and Jesuit identity. 

These regulations give us the opportunity to reconcile our religious identity and our commitment to providing access to affordable health care. Under the framework established by the Administration, the University’s insurance companies will cover the costs of contraceptive services for Georgetown faculty, staff and students who opt to use them, regardless of which health care plan each person has.  We will continue to provide our community with access to affordable health care options, and women will have access to contraceptives at no cost to them or to the University.

The Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception, and abortion are intrinsically immoral. The church also teaches that Catholics are not allowed to cooperate in evil acts such as abortion–which the church says is a form of murder.

Under the final regulation, even Catholic organizations such as Catholic hospitals, universities and charities are not counted as “religious employers.”

Thus, if a Catholic university wanted to seek out and do business with a health-insurance company whose owners ran their company wholly in keeping with Catholic teachings, the university would not be allowed to do so because all insurance companies providing health insurance to Catholic universities will now be required to pay for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs for the employees of those universities.

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