In a follow-up to its decision to end its adoption services in the nation’s capital, Catholic Charities has decided to stop providing health insurance to employees’ spouses, in order to avoid providing services to same-sex couples, the Washington Post reports.
Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the District tomorrow. Starting today, Catholic Charities, according to the Post, “will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan.”
Our contributor Mary Hunt has already eviscerated the church’s decision to abandon at-risk children rather than provide services to same-sex couples. But the health insurance decision exposes the church to even more charges of hypocrisy, in light of its role in the health care reform debate still unfolding on Capitol Hill.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the central player in pressuring the Democratic leadership to include the Stupak amendment in the House health care bill last fall, is frequently portrayed as less insidious than other religious right groups that also supported Stupak, because the USCCB supports health care reform, and those other groups just wanted to kill it altogether. The bishops call for “a truly universal health policy with respect for human life and dignity,” framing access to health care (but not all reproductive health services) as an essential human right.
Catholic Charities’ abandonment of children and exclusion of all new spouses of employees from its own health insurance plan shows that “truly universal” has a very particular meaning to the Catholic hierarchy—sort of “it depends on what your definition of truly, or universal is.”
The bishops are dissatisfied with the abortion funding restrictions in the Senate version of the health care reform bill—even though it would be, in practice, no different from the Stupak amendment. The Democrats are currently aiming to pass the Senate version via reconciliation, to avoid a Republican filibuster, and Rep. Stupak has continued to insist he has the votes to block it in the House. That threat, though, might prove toothless, as some members who voted against the bill in November might switch their votes this time around. But the bishops’ continued opposition to a bill—just like its moves in D.C. to exclude its own employees’ families from coverage, and to leave countless children vulnerable—shows just how they define “truly universal” protections for life and dignity.
UPDATE: Catholics United is calling on the bishops to support health care reform, rather than lobby against it because of the abortion language.
