While the nation is embroiled in a battle over whether Catholic employers can be forced to provide contraception coverage, the Mishawaka, Ind.-based Franciscan Alliance has taken a pioneering step to provide witness to the Catholic alternative to contraception. As of July, the alliance began offering a natural family planning benefit to all employees.
“We have to credit an employee with coming up with the idea. Sometimes the best ideas come from employees,” said Franciscan Sister Jane Marie Klein, chairman of Franciscan Alliance, which operates 14 hospitals in Indiana and Illinois. After an employee raised the possibility, the alliance acted on the suggestion.
Pending the outcome of a lawsuit, however, the alliance will still be required to implement the so-called “contraception mandate” of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Sister Jane Marie says that the NFP benefit will provide employees with “a way to understand how to achieve or avoid pregnancy consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
“We’re just rolling the benefit out now,” she said. She said the alliance’s understanding is that an NFP course costs around $500. The alliance will pay for 80% of that. “We’ll do this twice, if necessary,” she added.
“We will help you achieve your goal in a way that is in accordance with the Catholic spirit and Catholic teaching,” Sister Jane Marie said. She does not know of any other Catholic employer that offers this benefit, but recognizes that it is something that could catch on in Catholic organizations.
Fred Caesar, spokesman for the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said that he knows of no database that indicates whether other Catholic institutions are making an NFP benefit available.
John Brehany, executive director of the Catholic Medical Association, however, said that providing such a benefit sounds like a good idea.
“To help employees to care for and manage their fertility in ways that are effective and ethical, Catholic employers need to provide options that are accessible,” Brehany said.
“Since employees increasingly are being conditioned to get and use contraceptive options via their health-care benefits, it is both appropriate and wise to make NFP instruction a covered benefit,” Brehany said.
The Franciscan Alliance is one of the Catholic plaintiffs that have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the HHS mandate that would require faith-based employers to pay for coverage of contraception and abortion-inducing drugs.
Sister Jane Marie said that, though the alliance was inspired to create the NFP benefit by an employee suggestion, rather than its opposition to the HHS mandate, the benefit helps counter the pro-contraception position.
“The message [in offering this benefit] is strong,” she said.
This is not the first time the alliance has taken a strong stand on the issue of contraception. The alliance ended its association with the Catholic Health Association after CHA’s president, Sister Carol Keehan, a key supporter of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, initially embraced the Obama administration’s “accommodation” on the contraception mandate. Sister Carol has since backpedaled and offered her own ideas on how the administration plan could be made palatable to Catholic institutions.
“We pulled out when Sister Carol Keehan came out and said she represented so many Catholic hospitals and was supported by them. We said, ‘Well, you didn’t ask us,’” Sister Jane Marie said.
Franciscan Alliance CEO Kevin Leahy also blasted the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in February when the LCWR called the Obama administration’s proposed accommodation “acceptable” to religious groups.
“Undoubtedly, the president’s news conference was cleverly staged to divide and conquer,” Leahy was quoted as saying in a Catholic News Agency article, adding that LCWR had “taken his bait and is now trying to convince others that his ruse contains a thread of legitimate compromise — it does not.”
“I think that we have talked a lot about NFP,” Sister Jane Marie said. “We talk about it in our hospitals … and [as] part of our referrals. Now we provide it as a benefit, up to 80%.”
The alliance was founded and is supported by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, who were sent from Germany to Indiana by the order’s founder in 1875 to establish hospitals, schools and orphanages.
Register correspondent Charlotte Hays writes from Washington.
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“Pending the outcome of a lawsuit, however, the alliance will still be required to implement the so-called “contraception mandate” of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
Sounds like the hospital is complying with the Mandate. I thought the hospitals were going to refuse to do so. They must stand up against the mandate and refuse to comply or they will fall like dominoes.
I confess to having reservations with this, since I think third-party payer anything ultimately raises the price of an item and leads to a bureaucratic mess. I didn’t spend anywhere near $500 for my NFP training. Some people may need specialized training—and that is going to cost more surely, but others can, and do, do fine with purchasing the book (with us it was the 3rd Art of NFP), reading it, and doing it. Still this is nice to see, and I’ve never understood why Catholic hospitals don’t offer regular classes to employees and the public alike.
Now: can they start to require an NFP overview “inservice” to the employees and physicians who have hospital priviledges as a condition of employment/association with the hospital? The purpose of which would not to get them to the point where they themselves are users, but just to understand that NFP exists, it has various forms, (Creighton or STM, etc), it works to avoid pregnancy, can be used to help identify some infertility issues, and some of us out here do not want to be sterilized, or encouraged to use the pill every time we go in for a yearly physical.
This is great and I hate to be negative about this. But you have to scratch your head and ask a few questions: Why did it take all of this for a Catholic health entity to offer a benefit like this? Why isn’t this offered by every parish in the country? And why on earth aren’t diocese’s across the country funding this? It strikes me odd that we have to pay to receive instruction to live the church’s teachings.
This reminds me of the scripture where Jesus proclaims to the religious of his day….you put burdens on their backs and do not lift a finger to help them. By the time we get this right, we’ll be several more generations down the road. Geez.
Fantastic idea and truly unharming to anyone who practices NFP. So perfect! With all the “health-conscious” people out there, even if they currently contracept, this is the perfect solution, plus follows the teachings of our Church and therefore, the teachings of Christ.
Great idea :-).
OK!
Does anyone know whether the HHS mandate is supposed to include NFP coverage? It doesn’t seem to be included in “all FDA-approved methods of contraception” (because it’s just facts, no device or pill that needs approval!), but it could be covered under “education and counseling,” since that’s how it’s taught. I can’t find any guidance on this anywhere. I work for a secular employer, so my insurance is going to include contraceptive coverage no matter what; I’m just going to be angry if that means paying (through my premiums) for birth control for my coworkers and paying (out of pocket) for my own NFP expenses.
This is genius. Hopefully, other Catholic institutions will pick up on it. It makes so much sense.
$500 for a course in natural family planning? Why would an insurance company pay that much when there are free instructions on NFP on-line and free booklets about NFP available from most health care centers or at many Catholic parishes. For $15 a couple can purchase Cycle Beads at their local health food stores and get a set of instructions for their use. In keeping with Catholic Church teaching, information about NFP should be available to couples who deliver infants at all Franciscan Alliance hospitals as well as to their employees free of charge. If the Franciscan Alliance is serious about promoting NFP they should put instructions about NFP on each hospital’s Website.
Inspiring and commendable.
This is SUCH good news. NFP (natural family planning) contains so much helpful information for women and couples to better understand their fertility cycle and participate in the spacing of their children.
CYCLE BEADS?!?! I’m sorry Barbara, but Cycle Beads aren’t NFP - they are a gimmic on the rhythm method. Some of us can’t just get instructions online or from a book or use some kind of “standardized” days. I personally have some hormonal problems that I needed both an instructor and a doctor to help sort out. It think that this is a great idea for the employees of Franciscan Alliance. NFP really is a case where it’s about women’s health.
$500 to learn NFP is ridiculous when it can be taught for around $70 or learned from a book. That’s like paying $500 to learn how to breastfeed when most mothers can learn how to breastfeed successfully when they have support from their community, such as La Leche League, or the correct advice and support from those they come in contact with before and after the birth.
Jeanne G: I am sincerely sorry that you have health problems that require special instructions about NFP. It is anxiety-producing to have such a burden. However, CycleBeads were invented a female anthropologist at Georgetown University. On their website the US Conference of Catholic Bishops cites CycleBeads and Sympto-Hormonal urine testing (invented at Marquette University) as acceptable methods of NFP. All types of NFP are ‘gimmicks’ because the use of thermometers, calenders, electronic devices and various methods of testing of vaginal secretions are not usually associated with joyful lovemaking.
@Barbara, don’t assume that every couples’ journey is going to be so cut and dry as to be able to follow instructions from a pamphlet. I’ll speak from the experience of needing specialized help for nine months from a practitioner (not a pamphlet) to understand what the heck was going on with my body before my husband and I were able to conceive. It’s not all about charting…and charting isn’t that easy. It should be monitored to ensure that it’s being done properly. The same could be said for couples trying to avoid a pregnancy. I know lots of families who are open to life but are overwhelmed by the number of children they have and want help spacing out their next pregnancies. They need help in monitoring their efforts through classes and appointments. Above all, why would we groan about these employees having the benefit to improve their health? NFP can reveal so much about a woman’s reproductive health. It’s so counter to other methods. We don’t roll our eyes when someone requests an Xray for a sore elbow. Why do we roll our eyes when woman want to understand what’s going on with their fertility?
Finally A Mother: Congratulations on successful motherhood. As a woman I knew fully how the female aspects of my body functioned long before I married because my mother spoke to me about them and because I also read about them and because in Catholic grade and high school we were instructed about them. Please do your girls a favor and teach them about their bodies so that signs ovulation and the phases of their cycles won’t be a mystery. Your husband should do the same for your boys. And both of you should talk to your children about the bodily aspects/functions of the opposite sex. Then instruction in NFP will have a rational foundation on which to build and should be easier to practice.
NFP needs to be advertised, advertised, advertised!!! Have you ever went into a health clinc only to see a “million” brochures and posters on conventional birth control methods?...than looked to see how many brochures there are on NFP?
If anyone wants to purchase NFP informational Bookmarks and distribute them to their local health clinics…visit http://www.loversintime.com
or OMS.com has a plethora of informational brochures as well.
Hopefully, as the funding has been difficult on my end, some large organization will step up to be sure everyone is provided with the necessary information that NFP is a vialble alternative to conventional BC methods.
NFP takes diciplene, and while we can all agree diciplene is difficult and often undesired, we can also agree that dicipline is usually the best long term solution for results and happiness.
Might they also cover fertility monitors, such as Clear Blue and LadyComp?
@Barbara - Thank you for your kind words of congratulations. I had to chuckle when I read your message because I never meant to communicate that I did not know how my reproductive organs functioned. I apologize for not being clear. Please rest assured that my wonderful mother and all of my teachers did a great job in educating me and I will do the same for my children. What my husband and I paid for throughout our NFP instruction was time and study with a practitioner who was able to help us pinpoint a plethora of small problems (inflammation, cysts, mild endometriosis, mild PCOS, etc.) that were then confirmed with a 28-ultra sound study by a NAPRO OBGYN who was then able to treat me. These appointments with the practitioner added up over time and were expensive but necessary (not just to us but also to the NAPRO OBGYN who was treating me). I couldn’t have diagnosed these things myself. I just want to add that we were very proactive about figuring out the problem before we found this NFP practitioner and the NAPRO OBGYN came to our area. I saw a lot of doctors who said that our only options were IUI or InVitro. All of my problems were mild, not glaring. All the doctors I saw lumped me against a set of averages instead of studying my body and my cycle. The NFP practitioner did not do this. She took the time to study every cycle with us in detail and then continued to work with us as we worked with the NAPRO OBGYN to get to the root of the problem. Anyway, I know everyone has their own story but that’s mine and it’s a big part of why I think what this hospital is doing is great.
Sounds like a plan, but on the flip side doesn’t it just give Obamacare a pass on the mandate?
Barbara: Thank you for your kind words of congratulations on our pregnancy. I had to chuckle when I read your response because I truly never intended to communicate that I did not have a basic understanding of my reproductive organs and menstrual cycle. Please rest assured that my wonderful mother and all of my teachers did a great job educating me. My husband and I will do the same for our children. In fact, it was that solid understanding of biology that tipped me off about the complications I was probably having.What my husband and I paid for through out NFP instruction was time with a practitioner who studied my cycle in detail for a series of months. She was able to pinpoint a number of possible issues (mild PCOS, inflamation, cysts, mild endometriosis, etc.) that a NAPRO OBGYN then confirmed with a 28 day ultrasound study. I was then able to be treated. I could not have diagnosed these things myself. We needed the practitioner’s expertise and help both before, during, and after our work with the NAPRO OBGYN and those appointments added up over time. We easily spent $500 - and it was well worth it because we’re going to welcome this baby into the world any day now. :) I also want to add that we were proactive about my healthcare long before the NFP practitioner and NAPRO OBGYN were set up for practice here in our town. The doctors I saw did not study my cycle. My problems were not glaring. There were lots of little issues that added up and so instead they lumped me against a set of averages and told us our best options were IUI and In Vitro. We kept looking until we finally had the opportunity to work with an NFP practitioner, who was the first person to carefully study my cycle and catch clues as to what was wrong. Anyway, I know everyone has their own story but this is mine and it’s a big part of why I think it’s great that St. Joe Hospital is offering this benefit to their employees.
Oops! I thought my first comment did not get approved. Sorry to “spam” the thread with two.
I can’t think of a more perfect illustration of the motivational link between NFP and artificial birth control than this move by the Franciscan Alliance. I have long believed that NFP has basically come to mean “Catholic” birth control, since the motivation not to have children is the first evil, whether it is accomplished by using NFP or the pill. While artificial birth control methods certainly compound the sin, the first sin, that of refusing God’s gift of children, still remains.
The use of specious window dressing to cover the inherent wrong of NFP does not impress one very much. That it promotes happier marriages, or helps couples have children, are delusions that I refuse to engage in. And - I know - our Protestant friends see through this hypocrisy immediately. If we are honest with ourselves we will have to admit that we use NFP not for “serious or grave” reasons, but largely for frivolous ones. Using it so we can enhance our love life, keeping wifey in her nice high-paying job, buying that SUV we are drooling over or a hundred other less-than-noble reasons are hardly serious, grave reasons.
When we first got married in the early 1970s, yes, we used NFP. And we have regretted the children we have lost ever since. Our reasons then were not noble. Now we face a lonely old age.
Those priests and other religious who promote this should start to take a serious look at the consequences of a Catholic world NFPing itself to death. They had better put aside modern views on the subject, and idiocies like the “theology” of the body, and start to read what the Church has taught on this subject for twenty centuries. Because if they keep telling couples that NFP is just wonderful then they will share in the guilt and will have to answer to God on their judgment day.
We used NFP when we were young. My dear Catholic friends, please don’t practice this. Avoid it like the plague that it is, and accept the children that God sends you. Don’t throw them back in His face.
You have to be kidding if you think that the reason people don’t want more kids is to “keep wifey in that high paying job” or to get “that SUV you’re drooling over.” My husband had a vasectomy because I get suicidally depressed during each pregnancy and for nearly the entire first year postpartum. I’m driving a 2004 Chevy Cavalier with three kids in it and my husband’s car is a 1998 two-door Chevy we were given. I do work but found a way to do so around hubby’s schedule so we won’t need daycare - needless to say my job isn’t high powered and barely pays above minimum wage. My husbands job pays less than $40,000 a year with no health insurance. Needless to say the decision to have more kids is about a lot more complicated real-life issues than the stereotypes to which you’re reducing it. If we had more kids, assuming I didnt have the severe hormonal depression, we would still struggle to feed them and more kids would require getting a larger car which we can’t afford. Furthermore I have no problems with NFP per se but it require abstinence during the only time of the month that I really enjoy sex. I do think it’s reasonable to want to enjoy sex with my husband - I’m faithful to him and I’ve brought three beautiful children into the world. Sex with one’s spouse is not dirty or inappropriate, and people have many good reasons to want to limit their family size. Whether you limit your family size through sterilization, condoms or NFP, it’s all still contraception. Stop trying to pretend that just because NFP is natural contraception that it somehow circumvents prohibitions against contracepting - natural or not, it’s still contraception. It would also be really great if you stopped assuming that everyone who contracepts is selfish or materialistic; some of us struggle really hard to get by with the kids we already have.
Is the hospital complying with the mandate or not? Secondly, it is about time that organizations/companies recognize the importance of NFP.
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