Bishops defended
I write in response to the letter “Bishops wrong on birth control” by Sue Blass on Feb. 24. Ms. Blass attacks Catholic Bishops for opposing the HHS mandate that all employers, including Catholic employers, must cover contraception, abortion-causing drugs, and sterilization.
To begin, I argue against the statement that 98 percent of American Catholic women believe in birth control. This figure appeared in a study from the Guttmacher Institute in April of 2011. Since that time, questions as to the validity of this statistic have brought forth information showing that the data and the study were misrepresented in the media.
Being strongly pro-life myself, I could spend many paragraphs at this point on my moral conviction against abortion. The divide between pro-life and pro-choice is wide, and I am not attempting to solve the issue here in 300 words or less. However, I feel it necessary to counter the statement that “there is no attack on any religion” by enacting the HHS edict.
The Catholic Church has been, now and always, vocally pro-life. At the very core of our religion is the respect for life from the moment of conception until natural death. Forcing Catholic individuals and institutions to pay for the aforementioned services is forcing us to violate our conscience. If this is not an attack on our religion and religious freedom, I do not know what is.
Whether you agree or disagree on abortion, this edict violates our First Amendment right to freely practice our religious beliefs. How can the Catholic Church continue to engage in its mission to protect human life if forced by law to do the opposite?
I end with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, “To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
Dr. Emily Geist
Lewisburg, Pa.
(Former Uniontown resident)