Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.
Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.
His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.
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Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris
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Interview with Meghan Smith, domestic program associate at Catholics for Choice, conducted by Melinda Tuhus
In late January, the Obama administration issued a ruling that religious institutions serving the public, such as schools and hospitals, must provide their employees with access to birth control through employee health plans with no deductibles or co-pays, as part of the president’s Affordable Care Act health reform law. However, the ruling provides an exemption for employees of churches and other houses of worship, and allows these institutions an extra year to comply.
But Republicans – and especially Republican presidential candidates – have attacked this regulation to score political points against President Obama and the Democrats. Each candidate is trying to outdo the others in condemning the provision as an assault on freedom of religion. Along with their calls to end virtually all abortions, most of this year’s GOP presidential candidates want to prevent women from accessing effective forms of birth control.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Meghan Smith, domestic program associate at Catholics for Choice, which works in the U.S. and abroad to secure the right to legal abortion and maintain and expand access to birth control. She explains that Catholic women already use birth control as much as non-Catholics, and that, in her view, this new government mandate is not an attack on religious freedom.
MEGHAN SMITH: We think that this is a good decision; we think it shows that the administration has listened to the majority of Catholics who truly do want contraceptive coverage and not to the 271 active U.S. bishops who don't. We know that the majority of Catholics really do support access to birth control and that the majority of Catholics have used birth control. We know that 98 percent of women have used a form of birth control that's banned by the Vatican, and when asked, 63 percent of Catholic voters in the U.S. supported coverage for birth control, whether in government-run or in private plans. What we've seen is that Catholics themselves use it, and they support other people being able to use it. So when we hear about the bishops railing against this, it's really that having failed to convince Catholics in the pews, the bishops are attempting to ride roughshod over other individuals' consciences who don't agree with them. There are 68 million Catholics in the U.S. and they aren't represented by the 271 bishops.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Where does that statistic come from that 98 percent of Catholic women use birth control?
MEGHAN SMITH: That statistic comes from the National Survey for Family Growth in 2008 and was also reiterated this year by the Guttmacher Institute in some of their research.
BETWEEN THE LINES: And it doesn't include the rhythm method, which the bishops do approve of?
MEGHAN SMITH: Correct. It would be a form that's banned by the Vatican, so any modern family planning that we think of: condoms or the pill or IUDs or something of that nature that the Vatican doesn't believe in.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Meghan Smith, elected officials and certainly all four of the remaining Republican candidates oppose abortion, and the two Catholics, Gingrich and Santorum, have explicitly accused the Obama administration of attacking freedom of religion for its decision that religious institutions that serve the public, like schools and hospitals, must cover birth control in their employee health plans. How do you respond?
MEGHAN SMITH: Well, I think it's very important to note that when we see conservative Catholics talking about freedom of religion, the only freedom they want right now is freedom from the Constitution. Religious freedom really is a two-way street; it involves freedom of religion – freedom to practice one's religion – but also freedom from religion – freedom from having another person's ideals imposed on you. So freedom of religion and religious liberty is an expansive idea, rather than a restrictive idea. It's not about telling people what they can and can't believe or practice, but it's about respecting an individual's right to follow his or her own conscience in religious beliefs and practices as well as moral decision-making. We know that women are moral agents, and we know they make decisions based on their reproductive health care needs all the time, and that contraceptive use really is a moral choice. So we respect their consciences and their religious freedom and their ability to make those decisions, just as we respect the rights of folks who don't want to use those services not to have to use them. We definitely recognize the rights of folks who want to decline to provide services or decline to use services, but it goes way too far to grant those refusal rights to an institution, because really, institutions don't have consciences, it's individuals who do.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Frontrunner Mitt Romney has stated that he would eliminate federal funding for Title X, which provides low- or no-cost family planning services to low-income women. This goes way beyond being anti-abortion.
MEGHAN SMITH: Well, the majority of Catholics really understand health care access as a social justice issue. It's truly part of our religion, that commitment to social justice and that commitment to letting the least among us – the poorest of the poor – have access to the same services as everybody else. So when we think about Title X services, and we think about the ways in which Catholics support access to contraception, to family planning, we know the majority of Catholics truly do support access to Title X and support the ideals of that program.
BETWEEN THE LINES: How widespread do you think the views of Catholics for Choice are in the pews of Catholic churches around America?
MEGHAN SMITH: Well, I can tell you the story of one woman I spoke with a few months back, who was very angry when she thought that she would not be included in this decision. This woman was a science teacher in a Catholic middle school in the Midwest and at the time her employers were denying her birth control coverage. She had come from a public school system where she had that access, and once she took a significant pay cut to move to this school, this Catholic school, she found she was not allowed the same birth control coverage she used to utilize under her previous insurance plan. And this was a significant financial hardship for herself and her husband. They're in their mid-20s; they weren't ready to have children. She told me that while she really enjoys teaching children, she's not ready to have them herself. So she was quite worried that she would not have the benefits of this great proposal to allow women to have this contraceptive access without co-pays, and I think folks like her are really going to be able to reap the benefits of this, not only in terms of planning out when or if they want to have children, but also to regulate medical conditions, and I've heard from plenty of my own friends about how excited they are about this proposal, because it really does represent an acknowledgment that women's consciences matter, and that during these tough economic times, their ability to pay for health care matters.
For more information on Catholics for Choice, visit catholicsforchoice.org.
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