This edition of Networthy offers a roundup of commentary on the contraception controversy regarding the U.S. Health and Human Services rule that requires almost all employers to offer contraception in their medical insurance plans.
Early last fall, when it became apparent that the Affordable Coverage Act would require Catholic universities to pay for contraception in their medical insurance plans, Notre Dame President Father John I. Jenkins, CSC, wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urging an exemption for Catholic institutions.
Following the announcement of the Obama Administration’s compromise, which shifts the burden of payment for contraception from the institution to the insurance company, Father Jenkins released this statement.
Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett found fault with the proposed compromise and took the Obama Administration to task in an opinion essay in USA Today.
Also in response to the HHS compromise offer, ND law Professor O. Carter Snead drafted an open letter titled “Unacceptable,” which has been posted at the Becket Fund website and signed by more than 300 scholars and others, including 60 from Notre Dame.
At the CNN website, former non-Catholic Notre Dame faculty member Jennifer Glass offers her perspective in a blog post.
Finally, in his New York Times Opinionator blog, philosophy Professor Gary Gutting reflects on the fact that church teaching on contraception has been overwhelmingly rejected by the laity and what this says about the bishops’ authority on the matter. Is it correct that “what the church teaches is what the bishops (and, ultimately, the pope, as head of the bishops) say it does”?