The current squabble between religious groups and the White House over the mandate that all institutions receiving public funding pay for contraception services has brought the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, back to the forefront of American politics.

The contraception debate, which President Barack Obama tried unsuccessfully to put an end to last week, has been framed as the conservative’s war on contraception and the right’s attack on woman’s health. In reality, these claims are absurd. The real issue is one of religious freedom and a health care bill that offers many similar assaults in the future.

At first the argument for Obama’s contraception mandate was that because many church organizations receive federal funding they could simply live by the new rules or give up their funding. They overlook the fact that the federal government has to play by a set of rules, too. This set of rules is simple, quite straightforward, and has been generally the same for more than two hundred years.

I speak, of course, of the U.S. Constitution. Let us not forget that it is the law of the land, and it lays out the functions of the federal government quite clearly. The first amendment states that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ The federal government must follow these rules, and therefore, the funds they distribute must also. Mandating contraception undoubtedly violates a church’s right to freely exercise by forcing them to violate religious doctrine.

The left, realizing that it has no constitutional standing in this debate, has resorted to accusing conservatives of being against women or against public opinion. Pundits point to public opinion polls showing a majority of Americans in favor of the Obama mandate and other polls showing most sexually active Catholic women use contraception. They are simply blind to the fact that none of this matters. Our constitution was written to protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority. It wouldn’t matter if 99 percent of the country was in favor of the president’s decision.

The ‘compromise’ offered by Obama last week fails for two main reasons. The first is the change that the president made only shifts the costs the religious institutions still have to foot the bill indirectly. As Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said this weekend, ‘It’s a distinction without a difference.’ The second is very simple. There is no compromise to be made on any of our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

It’s actually quiet fortunate that this debate has come to the forefront. Americans have the chance to get a good look at the health care act, of which the most draconian and unpopular facets will be released upon the public in the years to come and, not so coincidently, after the election.

Unfortunately, though the rights of the people must prevail, and probably will prevail in this case, it is only the tip of the iceberg, a tragic preview of what is to come.

Patrick Mocete is senior political science and policy studies major. His column appears every Thursday. He can be reached at pdmocete@syr.edu. 

 

Published on February 15, 2012 at 12:00 pm