Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Tollefsen on healthcare, abortion, and conscience

By Rick Garnett

Following up (sort of) on Michael's link to the recent Commonweal editorial about the bishops' participation in the healthcare debate, here is Prof. Christopher Tollefsen, writing on the dilemma that he thinks pro-life citizens might soon face when selecting health-care plans.

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/06/tollefsen-on-healthcare-abortion-and-conscience.html

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I am posting this for David Nickol:

I have read Healthcare, Abortion, and the Call of Conscience by Christopher Tollefsen, and I do not understand why those who pay part of the cost of their employer-provided health insurance (if the insurance covers abortion) are in a substantially different situation than individuals who will choose an insurance plan under PPACA.

Tollefsen says the following of those who pay toward employer-provided insurance that covers abortion:

Pro-life enrollees do not will such coverage, but accept it as a side effect of their legitimate attempt to provide health insurance for themselves and their families, and such acceptance is perhaps reasonable if they have no other health insurance option (if, for example, their employer offers only plans with abortion coverage).

But he rules out altogether paying into a PPACA plan that provides abortion coverage with an "abortion pool." If the choice is between a superior plan that covers abortion, and an inferior plan that does not, a pro-lifer would be morally required to choose the inferior plan, lest he or she pay into an abortion pool.

But suppose (as Tollefsen does of a PPACA plan) that an employer-provided plan covered infanticide, or unwanted-adolescent homicide, or an unwanted-spouse homicide. Would Tollefsen argue it was reasonable for employees to accept and pay toward such insurance if there were no other option. If employees believe the insurance coverage offered by their employer pays for murder, there is always another option -- the option of declining to accept the coverage and either buying private insurance or doing without insurance altogether. Certainly it is more of a hardship to forgo employer-provided insurance than to choose less desirable coverage under PPACA to avoid paying into an abortion pool. But it seems to me from a pro-life viewpoint, all those paying for abortion coverage, whether through employee-provided insurance or a PPACA plan with an abortion pool, are helping finance abortion. Why should those who accept employee-provided insurance that includes abortion coverage be let off the hook?