Discussing the issue on Fox News following the announcement, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee echoed this argument: “I am an employer. So my question is, do I now have the right to say, ‘Look, I don’t want to provide something [like Plan B] that I find morally repugnant and morally reprehensible.’”
Answer: if I had to pay for the Iraq War, then no, you don’t have that right. (By the way, the Catholic Church opposed the Iraq War.)
If you accept the argument that the government can’t make an individual pay for policies he or she finds morally repugnant, then that would mean I shouldn’t have to pay taxes if I am living in a state that executes people, since I find the death penalty morally repugnant. (The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty too.)
Conservatives will argue that paying taxes is different from buying an insurance policy, but really it isn’t. The concept is the same. At times, as citizens of this country we are forced to pay for things we don’t like, or even morally oppose, because our duly elected officials make decisions with which we disagree. The onus is on citizens to persuade the government to abandon policies that we find repugnant or to work to get them out of office.
