Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Catholics and Contraception

I have been lagging with my posts lately, due to other commitments, so I am kind of forcing myself to write something. It seems like the contraception debate has been the biggest hot button issue lately, and while I have already written a bit about this, I may as well address it again.

I have argued that religious institutions can be a force for great good as well as harm. The Catholic Church has its share of blemishes, but in parts of the Third World, particularly in Latin America, it has been a significant champion of the poor and oppressed. Its anti-birth control stance has actually allowed the Church to fight against eugenicist projects (see discussion here about eugenics and contraception), among other things. So I think it is unfair to unequivocally condemn the Catholic Church for this stance.

In the case at hand (requiring coverage of contraception), however, I don’t know if contraception is really the issue. At first blush, it seems like the Catholic Church is being kind of silly. Hormonal birth control has medical uses entirely independent of contraception, to the extent that the name “birth control pills” is a misnomer. [On a side note, I don’t entirely understand the Catholic Church’s position on birth control. If the reasoning is that sex should only be for reproduction and not for recreation, then why is the “rhythm method” acceptable? It is a (fairly ineffective) means of having sex without conceiving. It seems there is some inconsistency there. But I digress.]

I came across an article, which I am too lazy to find again and link to, written by a Catholic who argued that what is at stake is the nature of liberal society itself. This gets to the heart of the issue. The legislation requiring coverage of contraceptives, and the maelstrom surrounding it, demonstrates once again the tenuousness of boundaries created between “politics” and “religion.” (See my previous discussion here.) It is liberal/secular doctrine that religion should be confined to the private life of the individual, leaving the public sphere free for a non-religious civil society. Of course, this set-up was historically buttressed by defining religion as a set of beliefs, and therefore a matter of individual conscious rather than public morality.

The creation of categories and boundaries is always strategic, and never conforms exactly to reality. Thus “religion” and “politics” as we know them do not exist in reality. What we actually have are competing systems of morality/interpretation/practice. Catholics and other religious voices are correct when they insist that legally confining religion to the individual conscious is, in fact, a victory for liberal/secular society. When they say that their religion is more than a set of beliefs – also a code of morality, a set of real practices, and a mode of organizing society – they are being truthful.

For this reason, when I watch the debates, I don’t really “feel” anything at all or “choose sides” (aside from noting the nonsensicalness of the Catholic Church’s outrage in this particular case). I just sit back and watch another instance of the inherent conflict built into the modern social structure.

**I want to add an addendum to this post that I actually wrote a number of days ago.  I don't know if the terrain has shifted or I am kind of out of touch with the national conversation, but it has recently come to my attention that the terms of debate now include the claim, advanced by conservative pundits of all Christian stripes, that this bill would, in effect, be forcing citizens to pay for women to have sex.  Once again, side-stepping the urge for an immediate emotional reaction and outrage at the lack of logic employed, one must question why they are reacting in this way.  I propose it arises from the capitalist framework for understanding health, in which health is always seen as an individual problem and a matter of personal responsibility.  People should not be spared the consequences of their decision to have sex.

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