Since Obamacare was first brought to the public’s attention, it seems like one of the “hot-button” issues has been whether or not public companies and services can be forced to uphold portions of Obamacare if it violates their religious beliefs. The Catholic hospital system is one of these groups that was thrown into the midst of this issue.
The issue has become so heated that it is rumored that many Catholic hospitals will shut down before they will offer services such as abortions. These are rights which are protected under Obamacare, but in protecting them, they are also violating the right of that hospital to be run according to the religious beliefs upon which it was founded.
Many would say that hospitals should fall under the jurisdiction of the state only and that the Church should have no power in these decisions. However, in regards to the Catholic hospital system, the Catholic Church was the one to establish the company. In that case, I would argue that the religious freedom of the company should be respected.
On the flip side of the argument, there are companies that happen to be run by religious families. These are companies such as J.E. Dunn Co.—based out of Kansas—that argue that they should not be forced to provide insurance for abortifacients. However, in this case, I would offer that the state should have the jurisdiction to make an overriding decision.
The reason why I have come to different conclusions is that these two companies differ based on who they were founded by. In order to keep a balance between the church and the state, there needs to be a delineation between places like hospitals which are formally funded and run by a religious institution in and of itself, and a company that merely has a religious family at its head.
My dad is facing a similar problem at his work: too much religion in the workplace. While my dad agrees with the Catholic beliefs that the head of his company holds, he can also see why it isn’t appropriate for his boss to disregard the religions of his employees for the sake of his own. When you go to work for a public company, you have the expectation that the workplace will be a neutral environment, and at some companies, it is not.
The real importance of this issue lies in the protection of the basic rights that each American citizen is guaranteed. If any one person—or government as a whole—takes it into his or her mind that he or she has the ability to decide how to distribute basic human rights, then there is no longer a true democracy.
In the future, the American government just needs to more carefully define the terms of religious freedom when it comes to businesses and civil services. It is in the best interest of the country to sit down and define some more of the grey areas if it wants to move forward with initiatives like Obamacare.
Start with a separation of religiously sanctioned services and move from that point. It will cut a lot of loop-holes out of the equation. Sure, there will still be many questions to be answered and it may seem that it will intrude upon the right of religious freedom of others like J.E. Dunn, but in the long run, there just needs to be a reminder of the guiding lines that protect the secular world as well. I would suggest that companies—privately or publicly owned that are not officially sanctioned and supported by a religious institution—have the obligation to uphold the separation of the church and the state just as the government must also uphold the right to religious freedom.