RICHMOND, Va. — Citizens should defy the federal government’s contraceptive mandate, even to the point of going to jail, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said in a recent radio interview.
Cuccinelli, a Catholic who is running this year for governor of Virginia, told conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace that civil disobedience would expose the “tyranny” behind the federal law that would compel religiously affiliated organizations and private businesses to cover contraception, abortifacients and sterilization in their employee health-insurance plans.
“My local bishop said he told a group, ‘Well, you know, I told a group I’m ready to go to jail,’ and I told him, ‘Bishop, don’t take this personally — you need to go to jail,’” said Cuccinelli, one of the first state attorneys general to file a federal lawsuit against the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Cuccinelli's spokesman Brian Gottstein said the attorney general was not available for comment because of the busy state legislative session.
Cuccinelli spoke about the issue in a subsequent interview with The Washington Times.
“I’m certainly not advocating that people go to jail, but religious liberty is why a lot of people came to this country,” Cuccinelli said. “If our government is driving so many people to be contemplating this kind of civil disobedience, I think there’s a good reason to double check and ask, ‘Have we gone too far here?’”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declined to comment on his remarks. However, the attorney general’s statements are in line with a March 2012 USCCB document that warned Catholics to be prepared to engage in civil disobedience if the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate was not rescinded.
“Some unjust laws impose such injustices on individuals and organizations that disobeying the laws may be justified,” the bishops wrote in the message, which was formatted for use as a parish bulletin insert. “Every effort must be made to repeal them. When fundamental human goods, such as the right of conscience, are at stake, we may need to witness to the truth by resisting the law and incurring its penalties.”
The bishops also cited a passage from Rev. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” in which the civil-rights leader noted St. Augustine’s proverb “An unjust law is no law at all.”
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York said in November that the Catholic Church would “not obey” the “immoral” mandate and that the Church was prepared for a long-term fight.
Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput has also mentioned civil disobedience as a possible response for Catholics morally opposed to the mandate.
Support for Cuccinelli
The Catholic Association’s senior fellow, Ashley McGuire, invoked King’s example in defending Cuccinelli, who has come under fire from Planned Parenthood in Virginia for his radio statements.
“As the great civil-rights leader taught this country a few short decades ago, peaceful civil disobedience, even to the point of going to jail, is a powerful way to protest unjust laws,” McGuire wrote Jan. 12 on the association’s blog.
“Pro-abortion activists should expect nothing less from religious believers who cannot and will not violate their consciences, regardless of whether they wear a suit and sit at a desk or wear a cassock and stand at an altar,” McGuire said.
Cuccinelli also quoted Abraham Lincoln’s statement that the “best way to get rid of an unjust law is to enforce it vigorously.” If, indeed, people objecting to the mandate were jailed, Cuccinelli said that would “provide an example of what tyranny means when it’s played to its logical conclusion.”
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said during an interview with the Register that he commended the attorney general’s stand.
“I welcome it. I think it’s excellent,” said Donohue, who noted that civil disobedience, after all legal avenues are exhausted, has a long history in the United States, dating back to Lincoln and Henry David Thoreau in the 19th century.
“It’s a last resort,” Donohue said. “I commend the attorney general of Virginia for speaking plainly. Hopefully, others follow suit, so that he won’t be out there by himself.”
Stephen Neill, editor of The Catholic Virginian, the newspaper for the Diocese of Richmond, Va., told the Register that the attorney general was speaking for himself and that civil disobedience would be a decision left to the consciences of individuals who morally objected to the mandate’s provisions and could not violate their consciences by complying with the law.
“If somebody thought they would be willing to go to jail over it, that would be their personal response,” said Neill, who noted that the diocese is involved in several pro-life activities, including the March for Life.
Hobby Lobby Update
Cuccinelli made his statements just as Hobby Lobby, a for-profit retail chain that has challenged the HHS mandate in court, announced that it had found a way to extend the deadline for compliance with the mandate, thus delaying any possible financial penalties it might be required to pay for refusing to provide co-pay-free abortifacient drugs in its updated employee health plan.
Previously, Hobby Lobby had petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to request a reprieve until the appeals process for its legal challenge to the mandate had been exhausted. But U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor denied that petition, while acknowledging that the appeals process would continue.
Hobby Lobby had faced $1.3 million per day in possible penalties beginning Jan. 1. However, the company found a way to shift the start date for its updated employee health-insurance program by several months, attorneys said.
Religious nonprofits, such as colleges and hospitals, are not required to comply with the mandate until Aug. 1, 2013, because they received a one-year “safe harbor” extension. Meanwhile, non-exempt employers were required to begin providing co-pay-free contraceptives and related services by August 2012, or whenever they subsequently updated their health plans.
There are more than 40 pending lawsuits in federal courts against the HHS mandate, including one filed by the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). The Register is a service of EWTN.
Hobby Lobby intends to continue its own court fight against the mandate during the period before it is required to update its company health-insurance program.
“Hobby Lobby does not provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in its health-care plan,” said Peter Dobelbower, general counsel-vice president, legal, of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., the craft-store chain that is owned by an evangelical Christian family. “Hobby Lobby will continue to vigorously defend its religious liberty and oppose the mandate and any penalties.”
Brian Fraga writes from Fall River, Massachusetts.
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In the Spring, soon after the bishops of the USA came out against the incursions against religious liberties by the Obama admininistration, I used much of the material contained in the bishops’ letter for my Sunday homily. I also read excerpts from MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
I could not count the many, many people who came up to me after Mass and said that they were inclined to have stood up to applaud what I said. Time for the rest of the clergy to publicly take a stand against Catholic bigotry and religious intolerance by this Administration.
This weekend I will preach on abortion. The title of my homily: “Everyday is Newtown in America” referencing the thousand or more pre-born babies killed EVERY DAY by abortion in this country. And the media ignores this holocaust.
Great comment, Deacon Ed! Thank God for courageous priests and deacons like you! I will pray daily for you!
Congratulation Deacon Peitler. If more homilies addressed the realities of life as it is evolving in progressive-secular America, the churches would be filled and the faithful would have the courage to resist the propaganda on mainstream media and stand up for their Faith and the USA.
The Catholic Church will be destroyed in the US. A majority of Catholics voted for Obama a second time so… whatever.
God Bless you Deacon Ed Peitler!
I have a question for Deacon Ed: Under Obamacare, tens of millions of formerly uninsured Americans now have access to health care. I assume that you consider health care a good thing; in fact, I assume you have to consider that a good thing if you yourself have access to health care. Part of the “price” of this new health care is that a small portion of these newly insureds’ health care premiums go toward services like contraception. My question is this: Are you really suggesting that the good of access to health care—which I assume you enjoy—should be denied to tens of millions of Americans simply b/c the health care program under which they get their health care isn’t morally pristine enough? Are you yourself willing to forego your health insurance? I find it mind-boggling that Catholics with health insurance are so cheerful about denying the same good to others, i.e., health care, that they themselves enjoy. This is the deadly sin of envy—wanting to deny another a good that you enjoy. And I don’t want to hear about how the government mandate makes this all different, b/c it doesn’t make it different. If you have health care through your employer, chances are very likely that your plan covers contraceptives, IUDs, and probably even abortion; which means that you are receiving a good for you and your family that you are now wanting to deny to others. Whether the government now mandates what you are already (probably) doing is irrelevant.
Can you imagine if every bishop took time to pray with others outside the abortion clinics across America? We used to have a clinic operating just blocks from our cathedral.God bless our former bishop, but never once that I’m aware of did he join the faithful pro-life folk outside the abortion facility.The St Patrick’s Day parade seemed to be a greater concern of the diocese.
More optimistically, I believe the new bishop actually has been more actively involved in prolife events.
Andy, at this stage of your political/social/economic/moral/intellectual development, you are more interested in argument. I am interested in the truth. I have found it in the FULL teaching of the Catholic faith; I pray you will too.
Good for Cuccinelli. It is way past time for drawing a line in the sand. We cannot compromise on this. If Andy and others really want to see a healthcare crisis in America, just wait till all the Catholic hospitals are shut down for refusing to violate Church teaching. Is Obama really willing to risk this for free contraception—a product you can buy for a few dollars at Walmart?
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Deacon Ed: you are dodging the question. The full teaching of the Church includes the concept of “remote agency” in a participation in evil. My argument (not a dirty word BTW; you engage in it too!) is that paying a premium into a fund that is then used to pay for services that I’m not going to use falls into the category of “remote agency.” If you don’t want to answer my questions, that’s your choice, but your silence doesn’t answer my argument. The nub of my question is: does your insurance policy cover contraceptives? If it does cover contraception, then aren’t you being hypocritcal? If your insurance doesn’t cover contraceptives, etc., are you seriously advocating that those of us whose insurance does cover such things cancel our insurance because of that?
Andy,
One can argue the pros & cons of govt. involvement in healthcare & still agree that mandated healthcare should not include abortion or enforce policies that conflict with the exercise of religious freedom.
But you bring up a good point.I called a large insurance co. once when I was debating if I could afford coverage & they admitted-after several inquiries-that yes, they did pay for “elective” abortion procedures.I also received that reply in writing a few weeks later.So, I guess even if we do not directly participate in abortion, our premium payments can be pooled together with other funds to be used that way.
I decided not to use that insurance provider, but to my way of thinking that would have been a less direct way of participating in an evil than being forced to provide coverage to employees.
When Thoreau advocated this in Civil Disobedience, (and by the same measure Rev. King) he realized that his actions would go well beyond the local meaning of resisting the poll tax–reflecting the nature of being part of a federal system that tolerated slavery. There are many policies of the federal government that several U.S. citizens see as immoral or directly/indirectly responsible for the death of innocent people: the federal and state death penalties, abortion, drone strikes, declarations of foreign wars, lack of protections for citizens and immigrants, gun policies, foreign economic sanctions, etc.
There has long been a small (and relatively silent) population in the U.S. who has disagreed with the government and its questionable policies and have taken peaceful action beyond civil disobedience–refusal to pay taxes, living off the grid (following Thoreau’s example), grass-roots organizations, and so forth…
If the obvious divisions in this country surrounding the so-called HHS mandate lead to civil disobedience, than this will show that it can be an effective and peaceful way to protest an immoral policy; but cynical and divisive forms of political activism will not help the problem.
Civil Disobedience (via Thorea, Gandhi, King) was effective because it touched on issues much larger than the reasons for their arrests: I would urge the Catholic Church to make this about all life: the unborn, the innocents, the condemned, the life of world citizens dying because of drones and economic sanctions…not just the HHS mandate.
God bless you Deacon Ed Peitler. I laugh when I hear “Affordable Healthcare Law”. Affordable - are you kidding me? My premium went up again.
@Andy: insurance and health care are two different things. Everyone has access to health care, and everyone has access to insurance, but perhaps not at the time they would like to recieve health care, or at a price they want to pay (insurance). There’s a LOT of reasons for that.
A sibling doesn’t have health insurance, but even if she had it, she prefers alternative medicine to the standard fare, and the alternative stuff often isn’t covered by standard insurance.
Kathleen: I had similar calls with my insurance provider but I decided to keep my policy in effect. How did you resolve this? Did you get insurance through some other company? BTW: my Church’s policy for its employees does not include contraceptives in its policy but the insurer will provide contraceptives if an employee requests it.
Christian Medi Share is just one company that provides coverage for medical expenses by pooling resources of Christians and is exempt from Obamacare. It does not cover abortions or contracetion which is a major reasons why our family switched. The monthly cost is significantly less as well. Solidarity is a Catholic version that was supposed to be up and running this month. Google them!
Andy ,
I simply continued to go without health insurance & pay out of pocket.With God’s grace, that worked out OK.Later on I found out about the state children’s health insurance program which you pay for on a sliding income scale, so at least my younger children were able to make use of that.It paid for dental care, too.But you know, I’d never thought about it, but I suppose state children’s health insurance might have covered contraceptives or even abortion for teenagers? Things are always a little more complicated than we realize.I guess we just try to do the best we can with the knowledge we have at the time.
God bless!
Andy: You are confusing two separate things.
First, the ACA mandates that these services be included in insurance packages, but does not have to. The US government chose to include them, knowing that they are not intrinsic to women’s healthcare and that they are considered morally wrong by many religious teachings. THAT is the problem. A lot of people seem to have a strange blindness to how the procedures and drugs got in the law in the first place, and to the question of whether Americans have to do everything “the government” says if it is stupid to begin with. We are not allowed to say, “Hey, that does not belong in the law and we will not pay for it?” Since when?
Second, you or me paying insurance premiums through a privately owned company that chose to include those services in its health care plans (and which I have no control over) is a completely different thing than you or me being forced to pay for them for our employees. Do you really not see that? Hobby Lobby is saying: We will not pay for our employees’ early-term abortions. Priests for Life is saying: We will not pay for our employees to sterilize themselves. If you want to get all technical about remote cooperation, etc., you can. But the differences are stark and do not require technical terms to describe.
Response to Andy:
“Under Obamacare, tens of millions of formerly uninsured Americans now have access to health care.”
This is a mash up of unrelated terms that is meant to confuse the issue. Access to a service and having a 3rd party pay for the service are different things. I reject the premise that prior to Obamacare tens of millions of people had no access to health care. Provide data. Meanwhile read this: http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/20/the-myth-of-the-46-million
The 2010 Patient Protection and Afordable Care Act has already reduced access to health care because large employers are cutting work hours to part-time to avoid having to offer coverage, and small employers are unable to hire much needed workers (who need the work) because of the cost of compliance with the act.
“I assume that you consider health care a good thing; in fact, I assume you have to consider that a good thing if you yourself have access to health care. Part of the “price” of this new health care is that a small portion of these newly insureds’ health care premiums go toward services like contraception. My question is this: Are you really suggesting that the good of access to health care—which I assume you enjoy—should be denied to tens of millions of Americans simply b/c the health care program under which they get their health care isn’t morally pristine enough? Are you yourself willing to forego your health insurance? I find it mind-boggling that Catholics with health insurance are so cheerful about denying the same good to others, i.e., health care, that they themselves enjoy.”
You are willing to deny all of us—insured and uninsured—quality health care services. You are willing to have health care rationed to unacceptable levels. Here is something common in Canada’s healthcare system that you want to impose on the 85% of Americans who are happy with their health care: http://timelymedical.ca/faq http://timelymedical.ca/waitlist Price, Quality, or Speed—Pick any 2 but you can’t have all 3. Also, if this “access” to health care is so good in what it purports to do why have over 1,000 companies employing over 3 million people applied for and been granted waivers exempting them from the Obamacare requirements? http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/over-half-all-obamacare-waivers-given-union-members_561115.html Half of them are union supports of the Democratic party.
“This is the deadly sin of envy—wanting to deny another a good that you enjoy.”
No, envy is the resentment caused by another person having something that one does NOT have, but desires for oneself. The sin you describe is selfishness.
” And I don’t want to hear about how the government mandate makes this all different, b/c it doesn’t make it different. If you have health care through your employer, chances are very likely that your plan covers contraceptives, IUDs, and probably even abortion; which means that you are receiving a good for you and your family that you are now wanting to deny to others. Whether the government now mandates what you are already (probably) doing is irrelevant.”
Not all private insurance comanies offer this coverage and the ones that do are most likely mandated by state law. So you are partially right that we are already being forced to comply with immoral laws, but it is by government mandate, which brings us back to civil disobedience if the ballot box fails. http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_ICC.pdf
@Andy: If a family is low-income, and cannot afford health insurance, then they can go on Medicaid, which covers contraceptives. Obamacare will cover them “for what they can afford” which means they won’t be covered for everything. Today doctors will accept only so many Medicare or Medicaid patients….I am sure they will NOT accept certain insurances in the future also. As the Southerners say, “they are between a rock and a hard place” Leave it to the government to make everything complicated.
There seems to be many different arguments going on here. The main point of discussion (and article) centered around the need for persons to engage in pre-meditated civil disobedience so as to protest the federal mandate for employers to provide contraceptive coverage within their insurance plans to all employees. The HHS used Title VII within Civil Rights Act to justify why the Affordable Health Care act should include provisions like contraception coverage. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Health Care act as constitutional.
Many employer-based insurance plans across the country include coverage for contraceptives, including plans that are covering persons who find the idea and practice of contraception to be morally wrong or against the teaching of their church.
Andy makes a good point concerning “remote agency.” If religiously affiliated institutions offer insurance plans that include contraception coverage, the author is ‘implying’ that this violates their right of conscience as a religious community–whether is an assault on religious freedom is debatable (religious practice/expression vs. religious hospitals/universities or businesses owned by evangelicals).
I understand that people are divided about the Affordable Healthcare Act (conservative vs. liberal politics aside), but isn’t this the same issue that’s been at the heart of American individualism:
Citizens want to be responsible for the good things they agree with and not responsible for the policies that their tax dollars help support. They want a sense of responsibility but don’‘t want to be told to do something that goes against their “right of conscience.”
If the Federal government says that you as a business owner, or institutional leader must offer an insurance plan that covers contraception even when you think contraception is immoral, do you HAVE to do it? No. You can pay a fine. You can not pay your taxes. You can not be a business owner. You can practice civil disobedience.
Doesn’t the responsibility lie with all of us? If your insurance covers contraception and you don’t agree with it, are you responsible? Are you responsible for the death of innocent people from drone strikes, war, economic sanctions if you pay taxes? Are you responsible for abortions? Are you responsible for the death penalty? Are you responsible for the lives of others?
If the Bishops want to get civilly disobedient, I’m already to join them.
Back to the premise of this article: We should be prepared to go to jail. Unfortunately this does not appear to be an option. The Obama admin was too smart to allow that PR disaster. The penalties for not complying with the HHS mandate are $100 per day per person - or $36,500 per year per employee. This is true even if the company offers a gold-plated health plan that has everything except for contraception, abortifacients and sterilization. So instead of jail time for the owner, the company quietly gets a fine from the IRS. The will quite legally grab the companies assets to pay the fine - sending the company into bankruptcy. The penalty is complete financial ruin imposed by an oppressive govmnt. There is no penalty short of complete financial ruin. Either comply or be completely crushed. I have always been reluctant to hurl the term “fascist” at a political opponent, but I think we have reached that point.
It is hard for people to perform civil unrest when the government can freeze all their assets.
I suggest that all Christian people store/gather food for a month, then go to the bank, remove their money and then write a letter to the bank headquarters explaining that it is withdrawn in protest of what the government can do against us, in case of civil protest.
Money, and the lack of it, gets the government’s attention.
I’m sure that a Catholic Credit Union would make a good choice for you to put your money later, once we get our point across.
Perhaps, since it seems to be the insurance companies right in the CENTER of all this debate, perhaps we Catholics should start our own Catholic Insurance Company outside of USA’s jurisdiction of what we do or do not cover?
Thank you for the idea Theresa, I do not have insurance and I am not planning to go with the Obamacare, I am willing to go to jail or whatever the government want to do with me, I even have been thinking of going back to my country where I do not have an Obama to tell me what to do.
GOD bless you Deacon Ed Peitler!
Opponents to the HHS Mandate have become a nuisance. Catholics’ opposition to contraceptives, including the morning after pill poses a real impediment to the initiative to provide complete health care for all Americans. Most people don’t really understand how the morning after pill works. In any case, civil disobedience has had its benefits but this is not the right venue for it. No one is being mistreated.
Catholics oppose the Mandate. No choice for Catholics. One size must fit all. The question needs to be Why. Why out of all the possible health services does contraception, including abortion producing drugs have to be mandatory. We get choices in car insurance when that is mandatory; there is usually only a minimum required. Others like property, flood and life are completely optional. Why no choice? The ‘exemption’ is too narrow and needs to cover private employers, not just religious institutions.
I think it’s a valid comment. Segregation would have gone on indefinitely without civil disobedience & sacrifice.
Living comfortably with injustice is dangerous to our souls & our nation.
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