Whose Conscience? by Linda Greenhouse
'In the escalating conflict over the new federal requirement that employers include contraception coverage without a co-pay in the insurance plans they make available to their employees, opposition from the Catholic church and its allies is making headway with a powerfully appealing claim: that when conscience and government policy collide, conscience must prevail.
The rhetoric in which this claim is put forward grows more inflammatory by the day. . .
While the policy grounds are fully persuasive – the ability to prevent or space pregnancy being an essential part of women’s health care, one that shouldn’t be withheld simply because a woman’s employer is church-affiliated – the purpose of this column is to examine the conscience claim itself, directly, to see whether it holds up. . .
The court has recently been active on the religion front. In a unanimous decision last month, the justices for the first time recognized a constitutionally-based “ministerial exception” from laws concerning employment discrimination. . .
The present case, in contrast, concerns government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself.”
That language is certainly suggestive of deference, beyond the employment area, to a church’s doctrinal claims to special treatment. But while all nine justices signed the opinion, that doesn’t necessarily mean that all nine would agree on its application to the contraception requirement. The question would be whether a church that has failed to persuade its own flock of the rightness of its position could persuade at least five justices.'
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/whose-conscience/?hp
