The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1958-11-07
JOSEPH BREIC-
Catholic Coercion
Is The Cry

It was easy to cry Catholic coercion during
the recent dispute over allowing physicians to pre-
scribe and fit contraceptive devices in hospitals
owned and operated by the City of New York.
1t is always easy, Intentionally or unintention-
ally, to miss the point of controversy, to fog the issue,
and to wander off into arguments over comparatively
irrelevant side issues.
What is difficult is to get people to go to the
heart of a matter, and to keep the discussion center.
ed there, where it belongs.
The fact is that Catholics were not trying to
coerce anybody: to the contrary, they were trying
NEW YORK cITY's municipal hospitals are
public institutions in precisely the same sense as
public schools. They are established and operated in
the name of all the people, with funds obtained by
taxing all the people; and they are under supervision
OF elected or appointed public officials who are re-
SponSlble to the people.
Taxes are paid under compulsion; as the saving
goes, they are inevitable, like death. Nobody is per-
mitted to say, "All right will pay my taxes, minus
the amounts that would be used for such-and-such
purposes, which conflict with my conscience"
The decision of the Board of Hospitals went
against New York's Catholics. These Catholics, there
fore, are now in the position of being forced by their
city government to help to buy contraceptlves and
TO PUT 1T ANOTHER WAY. the government
of New York City is in the contraceptive business.
Catholics hold that government has no business
getting into>that business. AS citizens, it is their right
to object. AS Catholics, it is their duty. If they did
not object, they would be neglecting to bear witness
for God and morality in this particular matter.
10 accuse New YOrkS CaLnOucS OF coercion is TO
turn the reality upside down. What they did was to
speak up against being coerced into paying taxes for
what the New York archdiocese and the Brooklyn
diocese accurately described as "a corrupt purpose"
ATTEMPTS WERE MADE-probably successfully
to make it appear that Catholics were trying to
force their code of morality on other citizens who do
not share it. ~
That is false. For one thing, use of the marriage
right while frustrating Its power to generate life is
a violation Of the natural law which binds all human
beings. But aside from that, there was never any
question of Catholics trying to force anybody, by
legal compulsion, to live up to that moral law.
There are any number Of private clinics (sad to,
say where anybody who wants contraceptives can
get them. free of charge.
IT CAN HARDLY be repeated too often that
what Catholics protested against was the use of pub
lie institutions, supported by the peoples taxes, for
this purpose. What the Catholics tried to do was to
keep their city government out of the cont>aception
business.
Similarly, Catholics would object if it were pro-
posed that government should operate gambling
centers, Or houses of immortality, or opium dens, or
clinics for putting the aged quietly to death. And
certainly in three-quarters of these cases if not in all,
they would have the vigorous support of their fellow
citizens of other religious denominations.
NEW YORK MAYOR Robert F.. Wagner, Jr.,
it seems to me, did himself no honor by refusing to
take a position in the controversy. He stayed out of
it; he said it was a matter for the Board of Hospitals.
THEY'RE the experts" said the mayor.
They are doubtless medical experts. But a mayor
ought to be an expert in the philosophy of govern
ment. And this dispute is much more than a medical
matter. It is a moral matter, and it p~enetrates to the
deepest roots of right thinking about government.
Sooner or later, ! think, Mayor Wagner and a
lot of other politicians are going to be forced to make
up their minds about this kind of question. Hand
washing won't do.
Should a government dispense contraceptives?
Should it force people to pay taxes for such pur-
poses? And if a city physician says sterilization is
medically indicated" what then? Or abortion? New
York's Board of Hospitals has loosened the lid of
a Pandora's box.