Let the Little Sisters Serve

Nice little charity you have here Little Sisters of the Poor.  Twenty-seven homes across the nation where all you do all day is care for the elderly and the sick all of your lives…and it’s true, you’ve done this for over 150 years regardless of a person’s capacity to pay or religious affiliation.  Even though you are sisters, your non-profit is not religious enough to warrant an exemption.  We, the government, in an effort to provide affordable health care for everyone, will shut down a non-profit serving the people we’ve claimed the H.S.S. mandate is supposed to serve.  

One has to ask “Why?”

The Little Sisters of the Poor do not want to provide for anti-conception medications for their employees via insurance.   They have up to this point, provided insurance which did not violate the tenets of their faith, and want the same protection they’ve always had, to not be forced even third party, to enable anyone to engage in an action they know through their faith to be immoral.  The government has termed these products to be necessary as part of all health care plans, and thus demands they be provided.  The Little Sisters cannot opt out.  They can only opt to sign a letter saying they understand the products will be given under a third party.   It’s a bit like signing a form to say, I will not provide alcohol, but the caterer I paid for, will supply it to the meeting for those dealing with substance abuse.  

Opponents worry granting the Little Sisters of the Poor their moral objection will create a “slippery slope,” where businesses and non-profits in an effort to reduce costs, will create their own religions that eliminate procedures if the exception is given to these women.   The problem with that “slippery slope” is reality.  The Little Sisters have had insurance without providing for these items for years, out of principle.   Scores of non-profits knew about that option, to provide insurance without paying for birth control and abortifacients, and they did not opt to take the cost cutting measure of a policy that covered less for their employees because they held no moral objection.   Most non profits, most people and many religions, have no moral objection to providing birth control, ergo, granting the Little Sisters an exemption not going to create a stampede of businesses and non profits  suing the government for the right not to provide such services which so many people favor.

However, the slippery slope in the opposite manner is very reasonable if past is prologue.   Today the government deemed birth control pills non-negotionable.  Tomorrow, it may be abortion itself.  Euthanasia is also a likely necessary service if enough people deem it reasonable.  Violation after violation of one’s moral codes will be mandated via the third party thinking system.   IVF, IUD’s, and countless other procedures the Church has deemed morally objectionable, will be demanded under the fig leaf argument that, it’s not me…it’s just the insurance.   Anyone else hear echoes of “It’s not me Kate, it’s my family.” 

Only an irony impaired and power hungry bureaucracy could think persecuting an order of sisters dedicated to caring for the sick and needy would be an imperative demanding a fine of 70 million dollars and a legal battle all the way up to the Supreme Court. Common sense alone would dictate not stopping such people from providing consistent compassionate daily care to countless individuals.   Further, the government has already allotted multiple exemptions and grandfather clauses to corporations, not because of their religious convictions, but political contributions and capacity to provide political contributions.  

So why would the government push so hard against a well-known well established non-profit run by sisters?   It isn’t to bankrupt them.  It’s to make a public example of them to the rest of us.    After all, if these women dedicated to God and serving the poor are not religious enough to merit an exemption for their non-profit, who can stand against the H.S.S. mandate based on their religious convictions.  We must pay for birth control. We must pay for abortifacients. We must pay for abortions.  We must pay for IVF, we must pay for all things, even those we deem objectionable.   Obedience to the state must take precedence to obedience to God, or one’s religion.   Don’t fret little nuns.   We absolve you of any culpability in this action, we’ve declared what you think a sin, to be a right, ergo it is not sinful.   So what if your church says differently.  So what if you think enabling sin is a sin itself. It’s not relevant.  All must serve the state.  

Please, let the Little Sisters serve the poor as they always have.   Tell the court, tell your President, tell Congress to stand with the Little Sisters, and preserve religious liberty for all.