Little Sisters of the Poor Go Supreme

Who can resist the Little Sisters of the Poor?

I mean, the name alone!  

And they do such nice things, like providing homes for destitute women, where they sing and dance and think lovely thoughts.

But, as is so often true for religious institutions which do work in the secular world, whether it's running hospitals or universities or homes for poor women, nuns cannot do all the work, the cleaning of the rooms, the hauling of garbage, the surgery, the radiology the emergency room nursing. So even the nuns and the priests need help and they have to hire non Catholics and when they become employers in America the nuns incur certain social responsibilities, like paying for health insurance. 

And that's where the nuns found themselves in conflict with the government. Under the Affordable Care Act, the nuns had to provide health insurance which covers contraception, but if they don't approve of contraception, they have to inform the government of that objection so the government can provide it.  The Little Sisters has to file a form which says they do not want to pay for contraception.

The government is not asking the Little Sisters to provide the names and addresses of the employees affected by their refusal; the government just wants the declaration of objection, as I understand it.  The government will say, "Okay, if your employer won't provide this, we will." 

But what the Little Sisters said was, "No, we don't want you to provide contraception coverage to our employees, even our Protestant or Jewish employees, because we consider contraception a sin, an evil and we will not be party to that."

That the employees may disagree about this, that the government disagrees about this does not matter. The Little Sisters refuse to be tainted by even thinking about what their female employees may be doing in their off time. 

Their case is now before the Supreme Court: If you want to work for us, you have to accept we will not allow the government to pay for your contraception.

It's not enough that any pamphlets about contraceptive coverage has to be put in a separate envelop and mailed separately to employees. 

It's not enough that the position of the Little Sisters about contraception can be posted and explained and advocated by the Little Sisters to all those non believers among their employees. Employees must not be allowed to avail themselves of the government's program to pay for their contraception.

So the religious beliefs of the Little Sisters are going to be imposed upon their employees by the act of forbidding the government from identifying them.

We are not going to allow those naughty government people to lead you down the path toward perdition.

Where do you begin with this argument, as a matter of law or as a matter of policy?

You have a religious order which has decided to step beyond religious rites to operate in the world of social need, but it decides in doing so, it will use this action to impose it's views on non Catholics. 

Without Justice Scalia to find some virtue in this argument, this is a case I would not bet the Little Sisters will win.

But, here is the really amazing thing about this case: It comes on the heels of the scandals concerning priests and sexuality.  

It comes at a time when most Catholics practice contraception and reject the Church's argument against contraception. 

It is a stand against contraception, which, if experience is any teacher, means the practical consequences could be more abortions. 

Does anyone, other than the Little Sisters,  still believe contraception is a sin because God wants sex to be for procreation only?

It all reminds me of the time I sent a patient to Georgetown University hospital for a semen sample. The patient happened to be Catholic and he and his Catholic wife were having trouble conceiving, so I had to know whether he made sperm. 

I get a call from an embarrassed director of the laboratory: "Uh, Doctor, you do know we cannot do a semen analysis."

"No, I did not know. Why not?"
"Because to provide a semen sample the patient has to masturbate, a cardinal sin."
"But this is to help him get his wife pregnant. To make more little Catholics!"
"Sorry, Doctor. Those are the rules. This is a Catholic hospital."

Actually, I had forgotten that. Georgetown is a Jesuit institution and they keep the Catholic part pretty muted, beyond the obligate photo of the Pope next to the elevator in the main lobby.

At what point does the Catholic Church realize its position toward sex leads regularly to absurdity and real harm?

If this were just the Baptist owners of a fast food restaurant, you could say, well, those people are Bible thumpers and beyond the reach of reason. But the Catholics got Jesuits. We might have expected something more subtle and better thought out from this group.

Really, in this day and age.