Requiring provision

Government obviously must require its citizens to contribute to projects to which some of them object. For instance, there is no tax exemption for citizens who hold a religious or moral objection to supporting an unjust war. Congress must have the power to make certain decisions and a means of collecting money to fund its projects; exempting citizens from paying would create free-rider problems and interfere with necessary congressional powers.

Indeed, the fact that we are required to pay taxes makes us complicit with the government’s actions and encourages us — albeit often with limited success — to hold Congress’ actions to a higher moral standard than we think it should enforce; Most Americans believe that the law should allow some things that are “wrong,” such as the publication of racist and misogynistic books, but because we don’t want to contribute to these wrongs ourselves, we would oppose the use of our tax dollars to fund them.

There will often be disagreements about the morality of a particular pursuit, but liberalism is committed to remaining agnostic on most moral questions and to allowing a plurality of viewpoints. The easiest way to respect such a plurality is to tend to inaction on morally contentious questions. This will sometimes be impossible — when we go to war, for instance — but the problem can often be avoided. When a service can just as logically be provided by an entity other than the government, it should be.

Given the arguments presented in favor of the contraception mandate, it’s unclear why the federal government is better equipped than states or private organizations to ensure access to free contraception. If providing free contraception saves health providers money, surely they will provide it themselves. If employers find that free contraception increases productivity or employee satisfaction, they will presumably choose health plans which include this. Needless to say, it is alarming to think of employers seeking to discourage birth, but it’s unclear from the financial justifications touted about in favor of the mandate why the federal government’s ambitions are materially different.

And the mandate is morally contentious. There are, for instance, many Catholics and Catholic institutions who, for moral and religious reasons, believe it’s wrong to provide their employees contraception. These are not, as Cecile Richards suggested in an interview on March 28, only those who “themselves receive public dollars.” In fact, the mandate would require a private Catholic food bank — funded exclusively by Catholics, with exclusively Catholic employees — to either cover contraception for its employees or to restrict its food provision to a majority-Catholic population. In some ways, this is worse for Catholics than it would be to spend tax dollars on contraception. Even when it comes to morally questionable wars, citizens today are not required to provide guns directly to soldiers, nor to purchase directly for them some plan which provides them guns. Kosher restaurants should not be required to serve pork, nor should PETA issue its employees meat vouchers. Similar to both of these situations, employers who think contraception is wrong should not be required to facilitate its use.

Contraception is already quite accessible and covered by many health plans. Those of us who object to the contraception mandate are not worried that it will cause the rampant use of contraception — its use is already widespread — but that it will require people who find contraception morally objectionable to provide it.

Audrey Pollnow is a philosophy major from Seattle, Wash. She can be reached at apollnow@princeton.edu