Days of Change

Day 1191 – Enumerated and Implied

The talk of 11 dimensional chess tends to make people think in terms of moves and counter-moves. I understand this is the stock and trade of conspiracy theorists and it’s very seductive. My experience is that people are usually pretty transparent about their goals. This president is not, and that may be because he has a number of people to whom he is beholden. The people bankrolling Obama scare me more than Obama himself.

The Obamacare decision this week to require Catholic organizations, like churches and charities, to offer zero co-pay insurance for sterilization, birth control and abortion seems to me as more of a language barrier. The people who populate the White House don’t seem to understand the objections to this, not from the churches themselves, but from everyone.

Abortion is legal in the United States, although restricted in many states to earlier stages of pregnancy and to adult women. It has been interpreted in the last four decades as an aspect of the right to self-determination. However, abortion is not a right in the legal sense of the word. Health codes generally require a medical professional to be involved. It has to be paid for, either through insurance or in currency. Abortion providers are sometimes few and far between. Rights are traditionally things that dictate the government allow it, not that the government facilitate it.

The First Amendment has enumerated and implied rights. It is the first part of the Bill of Rights created to keep the Constitution in check. It grants freedom of religion and of speech. An individual is allowed to practice their religion and not follow the dictates of a state religion, like the Anglican Church at the time of the American Revolution. Speech is also allowed with few restrictions, mostly based on people giving marching orders to anarchy.

Does a non-Catholic (or Catholic, to be honest) have a right to have an insurance plan with no co-pay for family planning? Right now, the answer is no. Despite the claims, President Obama did not “give us health care.” 50 million people are still uninsured and the 20-somethings on their parents’ insurance plans use the least health care of almost any group. If some people don’t have that kind of insurance, it’s hard to consider it a right.

I think that the people who decided to push the Catholic Church into this figured that abortion is a right by their standards and the Church was just whining about having to pay for it. Furthermore, when the Church fought back by issuing statements at services this weekend, the government forced military chaplains to censor their statements. It might not be a violation of the First Amendment, but it sure seems like it.

I have to condemn the Church for supporting Obamacare two years earlier. Pope John Paul II fought the Nazis and their creeping Socialism. Hitler was bad, but Socialism is the real problem. Every other country that’s using it has a virtually faithless population. Instead of taking a burden off the Church financially, Obamacare will simply make it irrelevant. To paraphrase scripture, you reap what you sow.