<p>Birth control is a health issue, if it weren’t then birth control pills would be sold otc without a prescription. More importantly, unintended pregnancy is a public health issue, for a lot of reasons.</p>
<p>There are a lot of issues here. First of all, Catholic hospitals are not a purely religious institutions, which right away makes the whole ‘freedom of religion’ argument dubious. Said hospitals employ non Catholics, they serve non Catholics, and of course take government money in performing their services. This is not a church, where such arguments do apply, an employee of a church, which is a purely religious body, has such an exemption. Put it this way, most Catholic hospital are non profits that have boards that have non church members, and their funding primarily comes from the government, private health insurance and money raised for the hospital through fundraising and grants, very little if any of the funding comes from the church itself. If the Hospital were totally run by the church, paid for by the church, and was run entirely by church members (something like a soup kitchen at a church), the religious freedom argument would apply, but at a church affiliated program where much of their activity is non religious based, where most funding is not from the church, it doesn’t apply. </p>
<p>Hospitals like insurance companies are also regulated by the government, and as such there are places where they are required to cover certain things, certain procedures, whether it is religious belief or not. If Christian Scientists took over a hospital and insisted that treatment consists only of things going with their beliefs, they would be in a lot of trouble, especially if they accepted outside funding.</p>
<p>It is also very easy to say things like “well, don’t like the religious hospital, go to another one”. If you live in Northern NJ or NYC that isn’t an issue,. but in many places there just aren’t many hospitals. More importantly, most people these days have insurance that specifies that other than for emergencies, to get full coverage you have to go to a hospital in their network. So what if the only hospital realistically in your area has these religious objections, but that is where your insurance wants you to go? </p>
<p>One of the key rulings on religious belief is that religious belief can be taken into account, but that if it puts undo burdens on others, it has to take a back seat. There are pharmacists who refused to dispense birth control or morning after pills, for example, and the ruling there was as long as there was another pharmacist willing to dispense them, it was okay for the person to refuse; likewise, a worker who let’s say is of a faith that considers dogs unclean, could get an exemption from working with them as long as someone else who was there could do it. A town clerk could say they won’t marry same sex couples, as long as there is another clerk who will, but if they are the only one on duty or available, no. </p>