NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Dec. 13 editorial in The Wall Street Journal, where he called for contraceptives to be available for sale over the counter, prompted a wave of criticism from several Catholic officials and organizations.
Though describing himself in the editorial as “an unapologetic pro-life Republican,” Jindal, who is viewed as a potential 2016 presidential candidate, argued that “everyone who wants contraception should be able to purchase it.”
Democratic lawmakers and abortion-rights organizations have framed the religious-liberty objections of the nation’s Catholic bishops over the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate as an attack on birth-control access. Jindal said his proposal would remove politics from birth control, while protecting the conscience rights of individuals who are morally opposed to paying for its coverage.
The only rationale for requiring women to obtain a prescription for a drug that “research says is safe,” the governor asserted, is that “big government” says they should and that large pharmaceutical companies benefit from the status quo.
“It’s time to put purchasing power back in the hands of consumers — not employers, not pharmaceutical companies and not bureaucrats in Washington,” said Jindal, who also chided his Republican Party for being “stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue.”
The Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops have taken Jindal — a self-described pro-life practicing Catholic — to task for his comments.
“Gov. Jindal is taking a political position on this issue and perhaps does not fully understand Catholic Church teachings on this matter,” Ana Toujas, communications director for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, told the Register.
“The Catholic Church does not support artificial contraception. In many instances, artificial contraception can be abortifacient. Rather, the Catholic Church supports natural family planning,” Toujas said.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil” (2370).
The Catechism also states, “Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means ... for example, direct sterilization or contraception” (2399).
Jindal’s communications office did not return messages seeking additional comment about his views.
Lack of Understanding?
Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, told the Register that the Louisiana governor’s proposal may be well intentioned, “but he doesn’t understand this issue.”
Doerflinger said that a central purpose of the federal government’s new health-care mandate, which requires employers to provide co-pay-free birth control, sterilization and abortifacients in company health-insurance plans, is to move women and girls away from what the Obama administration sees as less reliable birth-control methods and toward more permanent and expensive methods that few women now use, such as surgical sterilization, intrauterine devices and long-lasting implantable contraceptives.
None of those methods, Doerflinger noted, can be reversed without further medical intervention. “If daily contraceptives are made available like candy, sold over the counter to young people, then the mandate will still be there and will consist entirely of these even more controversial and long-lasting interventions and of drugs like Ella that cause early abortions,” Doerflinger said.
“This does not solve the moral or policy problems at all,” added Doerflinger. “It makes the worst of it a reality even faster.”
Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told the Register that, while Jindal’s proposal to end “birth-control politics” sounds like a clever idea on first hearing, the governor’s analysis is “actually simplistic and defective on several issues.”
Father Pacholczyk said Jindal fails to acknowledge that birth control is an important subject of public debate because it touches on fundamental human and societal goods such as life, family, children, commitment and women’s health. Jindal also does not acknowledge the safety issues and health issues associated with the pill, he said, and fails to recognize how contraception is only one element of the problems posed by the Health and Human Services' mandate.
Jindal also argued that since abortifacient morning-after pills like Plan B are already available over the counter, then the birth-control pill should be made available in the same way. This is not morally defensible, according to Father Pacholczyk.
“In a pluralistic society like ours, Jindal, a committed Catholic, should not be minimizing medical and moral risks associated with the expanded promotion of contraception, nor encouraging decreased oversight by making it available ‘over the counter,’ but should, rather, opt to confront the fundamental injustice of the HHS mandate itself, arguing for its revocation and abolition,” Father Pacholczyk said. “By focusing on the critical issues of respect for conscience and protection from governmental coercion and intrusion, he could have offered a superior set of insights that would have genuinely advanced the public discourse surrounding contraception.”
Medical Perspective
In his editorial, Jindal cited a recommendation from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to allow women to purchase birth-control pills over the counter. Women currently need a prescription to buy such contraceptives from a pharmacy.
The recommendation was released Nov. 21 and published in the December issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Jindal wrote that contraception was a drug that had been determined to be safe, but some medical experts reject that judgment.
“Making contraceptives available over the counter is generally not a good idea because it is a potent medication that needs oversight,” said Dr. Joseph DeCook, executive director of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
DeCook declined to comment specifically on Jindal’s op-ed, telling the Register that he had not examined it. But he said the potentially harmful side effects of birth control require monitoring by a physician.
“You don’t want to turn this loose on teenage girls or adult women,” he said.
The annual checkup with a physician, when women typically renew contraceptive prescriptions, also “saves lives” because oral contraceptives are contraindicated for many female patients due to the increased risk of cancer, heart attacks and strokes, said Susan Wills, assistant director for education and outreach for the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.
“The visit may also be the only opportunity for doctors to test for and treat STDs,” said Wills, adding that 60 million Americans have sexually transmitted diseases, with 19 million new cases occurring annually.
Wills also noted that the World Health Organization has declared synthetic estrogen — an ingredient in oral contraceptives — to be carcinogenic in humans, raising risks of breast and cervical cancer.
“Instead of basing public policy on insult avoidance and reducing the price of a harmful product, wouldn’t it be refreshing for policy to be based on sound science and the true good of our citizens?” said Wills, reacting to Jindal’s arguments.
In addition to removing contraceptives from the political debate, Jindal said his proposal would also cut health-care costs.
But conservative Republicans and Catholics note that Planned Parenthood and other organizations that support legalized abortion have expressed support for his proposal.
“We welcome Gov. Jindal’s thoughtful contributions to the conversation on women’s health,” Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood's president, said in prepared remarks.
‘Politically Expedient’
Judie Brown, president and co-founder of the American Life League, wrote on her blog that the politics of contraception have become an “endgame” for “quasi-Catholics” in public life who do not want to risk their political careers by publicly defending the Church‘s teachings on life issues.
Paul Rondeau, executive director of the American Life League, told the Register that Jindal’s op-ed is making it “more and more clear” to him that political leaders in the United States will never effectively foster a pro-life culture.
“Anybody truly pro-life and making that kind of statement should know the true nature of contraceptives before writing in The Wall Street Journal,” Rondeau said. “What [Jindal] is really doing is saying, ‘Rather than educate the public as to why this is a bad idea, it’s more politically expedient to sweep it under the rug.’”
“That is what happened in 2012,” Rondeau said, referring to the presidential election. “You couldn’t get candidates to talk about anything other than the economy because they thought it was a winning strategy.”
Register correspondent Brian Fraga writes from Fall River, Massachusetts.
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I am not sure this is a contradiction. Are the bishops currently opposing the sale and availability of contraceptives or their use? Jindal’s idea would moot the HHS mandate and leave sale of contraception to regulation by the state leaving forming of conscience to avoid using them to the Church. We as Catholics have not treated the sale of contraceptives at large in the same way we have treated abortion. It seems unfair to hold Jindal to that standard.
Gov. Jindal is very seriously pro-life but perhaps needs some input from other Catholics on this matter.The average person,Catholic or otherwise,would also be under the impression that oral contraceptives are “safe”, otherwise physicians wouldn’t prescribe them,they wouldn’t be approved for sale, etc.
I believe they’re quite dangerous & increase the spread of STD’s but obviously this is not mainstream opinion.Rather than pounce on Gov. Jindal who’s been a strong pro-life advocate, perhaps this is an opportunity for dialogue & further information.
further, has the Holy Father ever condoned condoms?
While I agree with the criticisms of this proposal, and it is disconcerting, I’m not really critical of Jindal himself, at least not yet. How does he respond to the criticism of his own Church? Does he attempt to implement this rather poorly contrived plan?
The reality, though, is that the President and his party used the contraception issue to further divide Americans, and attract a certain demographic. They rolled out the red carpet for a professional activist who claimed some astronomical cost for contraceptives a year. They baited the Catholic Church and social conservatives in an election year. Contraception (and women in general) were not a public policy issue, but an election campaign issue. At the very least, the proposal does a few things: 1) forces the safety of these drugs to be discussed publicly, 2) removes the issue as an election issue, and 3) potentially brings contraception into public discussion.
Not saying I agree with the idea, but that I can see where it is coming from.
Regardless of the morality of thiss proposal, Governor Jindal’s political reasoning is flawed. How would this render the HHS mandate moot? Is there anything preventing the HHS from forcing health care providers to give free over-the-counter drugs? Just because someone could walk into a drugstore and get birth control without a prescription would not mean the HHS wouldn’t still force health care plans to cover birth control. Since this whole HHS ruling was a gimmick (an evil one) to advance their “Republican war on women” rhetoric, why would they back away from that gimmick just because birth control can be obtained over the counter? Could they/would they not still say that Jindal’s proposal denies women’s right to free birth control, and that he is trying to therefore “deny” women their access to birth control? They will not back away from such a slam-dunk public relations winner just because Jindal thinks he’s come up with a “compromise.” If he thinks this will put an end to Democrats demagoguing the contraceptive issue, he is hopelessly naive.
Gov.Jindal is not being anti-life. These contraceptives are already available just for the asking at no charge to the consumer. The insurance premium payer or the government (us)being forced to pick up the cost. He is just suggesting a clever way to put the cost where it belongs—- on the consumer. To suggest that they will instead opt for sterilization seems pretty far fetched.
Kathleen, although I disagree with a few things in your blogs I feel that your blogs are the least judgemental and I really do enjoy reading your comments. However, as an old OB/Gyn RN, I need to make a correction regarding contraception. Contraceptives do not cause STDS, unprotected sex causes STDS if the male partner does not use a condom. Birth control pills, the Depo Provera, Implanon can be dangerous if you have a history of blood clots, or you smoke. The hormonal contraceptives are not only used for contraception but can correct menstrual problems like cramping and heavy menstrual flow. Most reputable physicians,nurse practitioners take a thorough medical history and do physical exam before they prescribe any kind of medication, including contraceptives and go over the pros and cons of medications and treatment. After working for 20 years as an RN in both hospitals and clinics, I have seen so many teens who have started sexual activity at a young age, getting pregnant and having babies that the can’t even take care of. That’s the reality of life these days. Regardless of how much we talk to our kids about sex, some of them are still going to have sex and I’m of the opinion that contraception should be available to them. I work in the system and I deal with a lot of pregnant teens who can’t even take care themselves much less a baby and these teens are encouraged to put their babies up for adoption but they don’t. They’re encouraged to take prenatal and parenting classes but the majority of them don’t and very few that I know of have abortions. Once the novelty of the new baby wears off, sometimes you have a teen whose baby is crimping their style and they want to go out and have fun with their friends. Here’s where child abuse comes in. I’ve dealt with some of these abused babies as well. As a Catholic I was raised to believe birth control is a mortal sin. I totally disagree.
It is disingenuous of the hierarchy to chastise the governor for his recommendation. Is the church now in a position to determine what ought not be available for purchase whether Catholic or not…worse is the use of medical information regarding contraceptives as deleterious to health. Certainly, the church’s position is not based on a woman’s health, but a belief that contraceptives are an ‘intrinsic evil’. These insertions into the general welfare by church fathers have a negative impact with the end result of fewer people listening.
Give Bobby Jindal a break. It’s not like the Church is giving him a lot of great advice or making the finer points of the issue clear. Maybe he would have been less controversial if he said “I’m not morally opposed to making OTC contraceptives available”.
One of the problems is that BCP’s are potentially harmful enough that physicians shouldn’t even be prescribing them in the numbers that they do anyway. They should never have been FDA approved for contraception. The argument to make them OTC is just as bad as the argument that they should be prescribed by physicians and therefore part of universal healthcare coverage. In fact, if you accept the premise that every woman should have them if she wants them, then making them OTC is a good solution.
Ceci,
Thanks for your comments.I’m sorry if my post was unclear.Hormonal contraceptives don’t cause STD’s directly but can increase the spread of STD’s by depressing the immune reaction. There’s quite a bit of info online that’s easier to find-especially if you have medical experience- than repeat here, but let me know if you need links & I’ll try to provide them. God bless!
Strikes me that Jindal is completely correct. Contraception sale has never been illegal in the US even when its use was held socially questionable by most Americans (say before 1945). It was a political dirty trick as skilled as any cooked up by Carl Rove that Axeldrod was able to turn the outrageous HHS mandate into a “war on women.” Some of the statements above make it appear that there are Catholics that would like contraception to be regulated. That’s political suicide - as Jindal noted. Indeed, making conventional therapies “over the counter”, at minimum for adults, does make the HHS issue either moot or will clarify it into an attempt by the government to make it possible for more women to move toward advanced eugenics methods. That would either solve the issue or make it worth fighting for. And we must remember that because the HHS issue has been bent, it will make Republicans associate it with political defeat. I would very much fear that Sandra Fluke will do to the GOP what the NRA did to the Democrats - when’s the last time you heard of the Demos supporting serious gun control,once when of their bread and butter issues.
The HHS mandate cannot allowed to stand. But that issue is not the same as challenging the legality of contraception - that decision was made long ago. Unnecessary energy put into squabbling about contraception only makes Axelrod’s job easier but also draws attention away from the far more important struggle against abortion.
Gov.Jindal should have get more information about what it is morally right and what is not, many “Catholics” believe in abortion, that something is available does NOT mean that is the right thing to do. Mortal sin rejects God, God does not give us His back, we are the ones that say to God is my Will, not Yours. This is the case of contraceptives or any other intrinsically evil act. Practicing Catholics should know their religion so they would not fall into Mortal sin.
No reason, however grave, can make what is intrinsically contrary to nature to be in conformity with nature and morally right.
Katheleen thank you for your kind comments comments. I’m constantly looking up medications on the internet because of the line of work I’m in. I’m not a floor nurse anymore and case manage kids in foster care making sure that their health care needs are being met. Please keep these children in your prayers. They have not had easy lives. God Bless You and your family.
Ceci,
I’d like to offer a different view about why teens are more sexually active, as well as a different perspective on the contraceptive issue in general. Take it for what it’s worth. As a physical therapy student, I too have a medical background, albeit not as experienced as yours. Human reproduction has a naturally designed end, as we both know: creation of new life. Medically speaking, HIV and other viruses contracted through sex are much smaller than even a minuscule tear in a condom, so why encourage using them at all when adolescents and even adults typically don’t know if their partner even has a disease in the first place? Even a small risk is not worth taking when one’s life can be impacted like that. Further, oral contraceptives are a Group I carcinogen according to the World Health Organization’s research wing. Colleges don’t expose students to fermaldehyde anymore for this reason. Asbestos is condemned for this reason. Why give our daughters something that is proven to cause cancer in humans? That’s not a good medical practice because it is not a necessary treatment in the majority of situations (proper nutrition can sometimes solve irregular menstrual cycles, but even if not, it’s better to not get cancer regardless). We discourage boys from using steroids for sports advancement, so why do we encourage girls to use progesterone and estradiol based pills for pregnancy prevention?
Psychologically speaking, we’re sending the wrong message if we encourage contraceptives, even if as only a last resort. Why? Because the consequence of the action is nullified in the mind of an adolescent. Teens’ prefrontal cortex development is not fully developed yet, so their decision making skills are compromised. They think, sex = kids, but contraceptives = no kids, and mom and dad will never know what I did anyway, so why not? Unfortunately, they don’t really think that they could be the 1 to 5% (or more) exception to the rule. I didn’t have sex as an adolescent because I knew sex = kids and contraceptives were not an option. The consequence was very real to me. As Behaviorists say, “behavior is a function of its consequences.” Take away the adverse consequence (pregnancy), negatively reinforce the behavior (sex). This is one of the biggest reasons why teen sexual activity is higher than it was per-sexual revolution. Granted, it’s just my own hypothesis, but I think the historical trends are too coincidental to ignore contraceptives as sex-behavior altering.
Morally, logically, philosophically, and theologically speaking, utilizing an intrinsic evil method like contraception to do good ( I.e. prevent teen pregnancies and abuse) is a contradiction. Think about it: 1. Evil is the complete absence of good; it’s the complete opposite of good. 2. Contraception is intrinsically evil - in no sexual situation can it be anything but evil. 3. If something is used as a means to achieve an end, its complete opposite will not logically emerge ( I.e. evil cannot be logically used as a means to bring about a good ending to a situation). 4. Therefore, we are forced to conclude that no matter how much contraceptives seem to be able to help, they are intrinsically evil and will do nothing more than produce evil effects. Look at the last 50 years of the pill: high divorce rates emerged, huge increase in STDs, the sxual revolution and increased promiscuity, less and less children per household, increase in cohabitation, fruitless unions seen as good and preferable, which leads to acceptance of homosexual behavior and redefining marriage, abortion becomes legal within a generation of the pill coming into mainstream society, and now HHS - the government is now making our moral decisions for us (also, it might be contributing to the increase in breast cancer). Coincidence? No chance. Pope Paul VI was right, and the Church cannot err on a matter of faith or morals because it is of divine origin.
The latter point is most crucial for us Catholics: do we believe the Church is of divine origin or is it merely another man-made institution that can be wrong on moral issues? Do we have a true Catholic faith (i.e. the Church is infallible, I’m not… Better trust the Church on this one), or do we have an “I’ll decide what is true” American-Catholic faith (I.e. I’m infallible, the Church is archaic and disconnected, so it can’t be right on this one). Jesus Christ told the Apostles, (paraphrased) “I’ll send the Holy Spirit to you, and He’ll lead you into all truth.” I think we should take our Church’s Founder at His divine word and trust that the Church’s teaching is not wrong, regardless of how much we can’t understand it. Let us all make it our goal in the Year of Faith to pray that God strengthens our faith in Him and His Church and that we cooperate with His grace, so that we all may be led more deeply into all truth by the Holy Spirit.
God Bless you.
Jindal means that those who want to follow the Church teachings will not buy the contraceptives and for others, we should notpursue by banning it but only by counseling. Jesus said that to lust after a woman tantamounts to adultery in the heart. We do not ask women not to appear anywhere or do not insist full covering of women like the hijab. Those who know the teachings of the Church will not lust after women and if one lusted, he would repent and confess. The remedy is no ban of women
Artificial Contraception is one of the major proponents of the “culture of death”. Jindal should read Ven. Pope Paul Vl’s Humanae Vitae. If he is honest he will find in this Encyclical where he is mistaken. I do not believe that one can be pro-life and in favor of artifcial contraception at the same time. As both evils go hand in hand.
Mary, you a quite correct when you state; No reason can make what is intrinsically evil morally right.” But, what is happening is the substitution of ‘truth’ for ‘belief’. There is NO truth that contraceptives are an intrinsic evil, only recent disingenuous conclusions. Consider the Pontifical Commission including 16 bishops and cardinals at Vatican II, 9 of whom voted to rid the restrictions on artificial birth control. Several others abstained from voting. That alone refutes contraceptives as an intrinsic evil.
A wise mentor of mine once stated; there are no sins of the subconscious. In that regard, it matters not whether one uses a condom or takes a pill. What matters is the intent not to conceive. A desire to evade conception is the key, not the device, not the implement…a material article is not a sin…the end desire, the end result from any mode to evade conception would be. If and only if contraception or any mode to evade conception were sinful. In accord with church theology, if one thinks what s/he is doing is sinful and does it anyway, whether it in fact is sinful or is not, a sin has been committed. What we are experiencing is nothing short of ‘rationalization’ that contraception is sinful and family planning is not.
God save us from Catholics who publicly display their ignorance of what it means to be CATHOLIC! Would somebody tell Governor Jindal about Blessed Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, for starters?
When a couple says no to God, we will not participate in your showing your Goodness or the possibility of getting another saint. This is serious matter. When “the pill” is used, not only can it kill a baby, but “the pill” is known to be a Type I carcinogen, which means it is known to cause cancer of the breast, uterus and liver. Why would any caring person want to do something that can kill a baby and cause a woman to get cancer?
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