The Rhetoric of Freedom of Religion in the Debate about Contraception Coverage

by Elise M. Edwards
Feminism and Religion

Does freedom of religion include the right to impose your religious views on your employees? Should freedom of religion exempt you from financially contributing to a medical benefit for your employees that you consider sinful?

According to an Associated Baptist Press article, Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, “called a new rule [by the Obama Administration] requiring insurance plans to cover birth control — including those paid for by religious employers that believe artificial birth control is a sin — a ‘horrible decision’ that poses a problem not just for faiths that object to birth control” in the January 28 broadcast of Richard Land Live. Land believes that this policy infringes on religious freedom. (Note that the health care policy does exempt houses of worship and religious organizations that employ primarily those of the same faith, but not organizations like hospitals and colleges that employ and serve people of all faiths, or no faith. An article by Religion News Service, posted here, also on a Baptist media outlet, explains the policy in more depth.)

Land’s argument describes mandated insurance coverage for birth control as a conflict with religious freedom partly because he examines the issue from the position of an employer. It looks different when deliberated from the perspective of an individual with less power (the employee). Consider the case of a woman whose religious beliefs allow contraceptive use who is denied coverage because her insurance plan conforms to her employer’s religious beliefs instead of her own. If she cannot afford to do the family planning measures that are condoned or even advocated by her faith, her free exercise of religion constrained. And must those who do not ascribe to religious beliefs at all conform to the employer’s exercise of religion?
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