A Modest Proposal 0
Eric Zorn, at the Chicago Tribune, considers the kerfuffle over attempts by the Catholic church, its adherents, and the element of the punditocracy that will attack the current Federal administration for any old reason at all to control what goes on between women and their doctors. He offers a bit of perspective:
Instead, Millman suggests in a recent commentary, pretend it’s the Church of Scientology.
And pretend that the flash point of controversy isn’t coverage of contraception, which violates Catholic teachings, but coverage of mental-health services — psychology, psychiatry and mood-stabilizing drugs, all of which violate the teachings of Scientology.
If the Scientologists operated a network of schools and hospitals, would the pundit classes be rushing to the ramparts bellowing about religious liberty in defense of the right of these schools and hospitals to deny mental-health coverage even to employees who don’t belong to their faith?
More likely, Millman suggests, the dispassionate public-policy question would be, “Should it be OK to systematically disadvantage employees of Church of Scientology schools because that church has a weird hang-up about mental-health services?”
Read the rest.
