Elizabeth Scalia, who writes for US magazine First Things, has written a good piece on the dangers posed by the Obama Administration’s move to force insurers to cover contraception, sterilisation and abortofaecient drugs.

In the US, many, if not most, people have their health insurance covered by their employer. This policy will force Catholic organisations to pay for contraception and sterilisation in violation of the Church’s moral teaching, or to discontinue their employee and student health care plans.

Scalia says that the move represents a fundamental attack on freedom of religion, but also on freedom of thought.

She writes: “’Live and let live’ which is a dandy and peaceable philosophy acknowledging differences of opinion and perspective, is being supplanted by ‘think one way, or else.’”

She also makes the point that once the right to religious freedom is hollowed out by State policy, it becomes much easier for governments to abrogate other fundamental rights.

“It seems that believers—particularly Catholics, Evangelical Christians and the Eastern Orthodox—are entitled to enjoy their freedom of religion, but only so far as advancing policies will allow. Thus is a precedent set that may chip away at one right after another—the right to freely assemble; the right to arm oneself; the right to speak one’s mind.

“We are watching the government initiate an erosion of religious freedom, by narrowing the scope of that freedom until the churches are excluded from the public arena, entirely. Freedom of Religion will soon enough become a right that is protected — but only as long as one keeps it to oneself.”