Sex and the Secularists
By TIMOTHY EGAN
NYT
In my old neighborhood in a patch at the north end of Spokane, Washington, not only was John F. Kennedy a saint, but the family from which he came was viewed as the norm – that is, a brood of nine or more kids, each a year or so apart. Birth control in the mid-1960s was the rhythm method, and its failed efficacy was evident in the size of the clans. “The I-got-rhythm method,” my dad called it.
Today, it’s the rare Roman Catholic family in America that produces enough children to field its own baseball team. What that tells you is that most young parents in good standing with the church are practicing a method of birth control abhorred by the clerical elite. Specifically, according to a survey by the respected Guttmacher Institute, 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used birth control other than church-approved natural methods (rhythm!).
It’s worth keeping this figure in mind as we parse the latest campaign trail grenade thrown by Republican leaders, ever eager to cast the opposition party as militant secularists. The phony political outrage is one thing. But the policy at the core of the issue – a federal rule that insurance plans, including those at many Catholic-run hospitals and universities, cover birth control – is a step too far. There are ways to resolve this delicate struggle between conscience and accepted medical practice.
The administration has already granted an exemption to institutions that cover a strictly religious employee pool. Perhaps a larger resolution can come from that kind of flexibility, in the same way that churches in states where same-sex marriage is legal can take a pass.
(More here.)
NYT
In my old neighborhood in a patch at the north end of Spokane, Washington, not only was John F. Kennedy a saint, but the family from which he came was viewed as the norm – that is, a brood of nine or more kids, each a year or so apart. Birth control in the mid-1960s was the rhythm method, and its failed efficacy was evident in the size of the clans. “The I-got-rhythm method,” my dad called it.
Today, it’s the rare Roman Catholic family in America that produces enough children to field its own baseball team. What that tells you is that most young parents in good standing with the church are practicing a method of birth control abhorred by the clerical elite. Specifically, according to a survey by the respected Guttmacher Institute, 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used birth control other than church-approved natural methods (rhythm!).
It’s worth keeping this figure in mind as we parse the latest campaign trail grenade thrown by Republican leaders, ever eager to cast the opposition party as militant secularists. The phony political outrage is one thing. But the policy at the core of the issue – a federal rule that insurance plans, including those at many Catholic-run hospitals and universities, cover birth control – is a step too far. There are ways to resolve this delicate struggle between conscience and accepted medical practice.
The administration has already granted an exemption to institutions that cover a strictly religious employee pool. Perhaps a larger resolution can come from that kind of flexibility, in the same way that churches in states where same-sex marriage is legal can take a pass.
(More here.)
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