When Garry Gamble encouraged citizens to become informed and participate in our political process, this resonated with me, and I hope with others also. Our freedom and democracy depend on our due diligence. An example comes to mind.
Church and state separation:
Some religiously affiliated institutions have protested the Affordable Health Care Act required inclusion of medically approved, contraceptive options in health insurance plans. These institutions claim that this is an assault on their religious liberty.
Whose religious liberty are they talking about? An institution (hospital, nursing home, university) is not a person; a corporation is not a person. Why should the religious affiliation of an institution dictate the family planning for the employee? Should not each employee’s religious liberty be the consideration?
An employee may choose to abide by the directives from the patriarchy of Rome, Salt Lake City, or Mecca, but the decision to do so should not be usurped by an employer. There are reasons that so many Catholic women use contraceptives, regardless of the edicts from Rome. They choose to take personal responsibility for reproduction, their lives, and their families. They practice personal religious freedom.
My experience in a Catholic community hospital illustrates how a religious organization can infringe on individual liberty. With my husband and doctor in agreement, upon the birth of my second child, our chosen plan for contraception was a Fallopian tube ligation. With IV in place and lying on the gurney, with masked and gloved doctors ready for an emergency c-section, I was informed that I cannot have the ligation without a priest’s written permission. “But I am not Catholic,” I proclaimed.
“That doesn’t matter,” I was told. I was absolutely livid!
So a Catholic priest who I did not know, from a religion which was not mine, held power and control over my body and my medical doctor’s practice. What if I were admitted to a Jehovah’s Witness affiliated hospital and needed a blood transfusion? No institution should be exempt from the democratically determined civil laws and rules which protect individual liberty.
This leads me to urge that each of us, no matter what political party one may support, defend the separation of church and state which protects us all. This separation keeps the government from interfering with worship in churches and keeps religious tyranny from the civil sector.
Geri Jensen
Grand Marais
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