Imposing One’s Beliefs On Others Is Not A Religious Freedom

By Michael Bryan

Should these celibates decide who needs birth control?

The recent concern over "religious conscience" brought into focus by the controversy over mandating contraceptive care by self-insuring religious institutions to their employees, and exacerbated by a pending amendment in the Senate which would allow any healthcare insurer to deny any care that offends a moral sentiment, mistakes religious freedom for religious tyranny.

When relgious practices impose on the choices of others, the government has a legitimate role in ensuring that unequal power relationships do not result in imposition of religious beliefs on others in our society. Obama's contraceptive coverage mandate respects freedom of religious conscience by ensuring that employers cannot impose their religious beliefs about reproduction on their employees. When that employer is a religious institution, obviously the temptation of the employer to impose their views is manifest. 

Of course, many in the GOP don't see it that way.

They think that religious freedom only includes the right of religious institutions to impose their views on others, using whatever means of coersion is at hand, including employment, ecomonic power, and contracts. Any move by the government to prohibit such impositions on others is viewed as a "war on religious belief", or some such nonsense…

Here in Arizona, Steve Yarborough and number of primary co-sponsors, including CD4 GOP Congressional Candidate Ron Gould, are bringing this pernicious conceit to Arizona with SB 1365, which would prohibits the government from denying, revoking or suspending a professional or occupational license based on any action deriving from a person’s religious convictions.

That may sound wonderful at first blush to some. The freedom of religion is a cherished right that should be zealously defended. But that freedom includes the right to be free from impositions based on the religion of others. In America, the First Amendment, often referred to as the First Right, includes not only the freedom to practice a religion, but the freedom not to have any religious beliefs imposed on you by others. Religious freedom means nothing if it does not stop any religion from forcing their doctrine on others through their wealth, influence, or numbers (or control of the government…).

This bill is clearly designed to protect a professional from censure if, for instance (he says pointedly), a pharmacist refuses to dispense the "morning after" pill because of a religious judgment. Such legislation has been introduced and advocated in the number of states. A refusing pharmacist could not be punished through revoking his state license under this bill. And that's the whole point.

The true aim of this bill is not to protect religious conscience in an even-handed fashion, the bill is intended specifically to protect anti-abortion activists who chose to impose their faith on patients, specifically women patients. By soft-pedalling their anti-abortion agenda behind the popular idea of "protecting religious conscience", however, the Arizona legislature completely overshoots the mark.

Personally, I don't think a pharmacist with a religious objection to hormonal birth control has any ethical right to deny legal or prescribed medicines to a patient based on their own religious views. While it is certainly not a clear-cut ethical case by any means, most in the profession don't think a refusing pharmacist would be behaving ethically, either. Such a pharmacist might be punished by or even expelled from the profession. Thus the push for exemption laws such as this one. 

The patient's right is the superior one in this conflict. The patient doesn't choose to be a patient of that particular pharmacist in any meaningful sense, whereas the pharmacist chose a profession with known ethical standards and ethical obligations to every patient, scientifically established standards of medical care, and voluntary employment in a context where drugs the pharmacist may have a religious objection to might be dispensed. I would expect a professional to act like a professional and obey the ethical obligations of that profession, as would the profession itself.

But Arizona's legislature wants to intrude into the relationship between professionals and their professional associations. True, the state does have a role through enforcing professional standards through licensure, but the ethical obligations incurred by a professional in choosing the benefits of membership in a learned profession are a matter of freedom of association. The state seeks to tell all professions in Arizona that they MUST accept acts by a member that may be considered unethical by established standards of professional conduct, and cannot effectively punish or expell that member from their ranks. This attacks the most basic and cherished tradition of self-regulation of the learned professions.

This is not a new idea in Arizona, unfortunately. In fact, a similar bill, SB 1288 was passed in 2011. Very much like SB 1365, that bill prohibited the government from denying, suspending or revoking a professional or occupational license, certificate or registration based on a person’s exercise of religion or refusal to affirm a statement contrary to a person’s sincerely held moral or religious beliefs. It also specified that a person’s exercise of religion is not unprofessional conduct.

Governor Brewer vetoed SB 1288 in one of the few courageous and level-headed acts of her Governorship. The Governor’s veto letter regarding S.B. 1288 stated:

“I am supportive of efforts to prevent a person from having to affirm a statement that is contrary to the person’s religious beliefs. I also agree that the government should not restrict an appointment based on the person’s religious beliefs or exercise of religion. However, I believe there needs to be further research and debate on the third provision – that a person’s exercise of religion is not unprofessional conduct and prohibits the State from denying, suspending or revoking a professional or occupational license based on a person’s exercise of religion. This provision is very broad and could provide a mechanism for misuse even with the exemptions for criminal misconduct or sexual misconduct in the bill. This bill could protect conduct that harms the public but cannot be readily addressed if a person claims that the conduct is based on religious beliefs.”

Amen, as it were…

Harms that cannot be readily addressed. Indeed. As my colleague David adriotly points out in his post, "OMG! Steve Yarbrough wants Sharia Law in Arizona!", the effect of this law cannot be readily cabined to Christians only. Any attempt to do so would quickly fall afoul of the Equal Protection clause of the United State's Constitution.

So what the Arizona legislature hath wrought in their wisdom is a situation where any "sincerely held" (and just who determines that?) religious belief allows a professional a free pass to violate the ethical precepts of their profession without any licensing consequences.

Even Governor Brewer has the sense to see that such conduct has a high risk of harming the public. We invest a great deal of power, discretion, and responsibility in professionals. Their choices and actions profoundly affect the lives of those they deal with in their callings. To unmoor that power from any responsibility to their peers, or to the people they serve though the state, in the name of religion is a deeply bad idea. Especially bad because the attempt to do so comes not from any genuine respect for religious conscience in general, but solely from a deceptive intent to attack women's right to control her own body and health.