The Rights of Conscience

By Cardinal Justin Rigali

On occasion, it is necessary to reflect on some basic concepts which indicate who we are and where we are going. This should be done each day, as we examine our consciences and honestly look at how we are living out the Gospel. It can be done more at length at significant moments in our lives or on a spiritual retreat. This reflection is also necessary for institutions and societies because they are often entrusted with the welfare and protection of individuals.

Recently, in fulfillment of my role as chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, I felt that I had to call attention to a very serious issue that requires reflection as well as action. This issue concerns the “freedom of health care providers to serve the public without violating their most deeply held moral and religious convictions on the sanctity of human life.”

This quotation, which summarizes our message this week, is taken from a letter I recently wrote to all the members of the United States Congress.

Danger of governments imposing arbitrary laws
The imposition of arbitrary laws, which go against what we believe to be both natural and divine law, begins a descent down a slippery slope. When a government begins to treat basic rights as gifts to be bestowed at will by the state and regulated according to the desires of very vocal and well-financed lobbies, we face the danger of creating totalitarian states, such as those which brought about so much tragedy and bloodshed in the twentieth century.

Remember that those regimes generally wound up by determining who was or was not fit to live and then legislating what freedoms the state would bestow upon some people, while denying these same rights to others.

When the basic rights of conscience are not defended, there no longer exists an objective moral basis for law and an all-powerful state is created with no regulation on its activities.

This question has come to the fore based on what purported to be a leaked draft of a proposed federal regulation defending the conscience rights of healthcare providers. These rights have actually been affirmed many times over by numerous laws passed by Congress, beginning in 1973, which have protected the rights of individual conscience. This would mean that a health care worker would not be obliged to distribute literature or recommend the procuring of an abortion or any other procedure which would go against that person’s conscience.

I have pointed out to the members of Congress in the above-mentioned letter that this cause of the rights of conscience can and actually should be a uniting force and not one that should cause further division. I referred to it as a unifying force because it would seem to appeal to those who are placed in both the so-called “pro-life” and pro-choice” categories.

The reason I feel that this issue of protecting the rights of the conscience of the individual should be a unifying rather than a divisive force is because, in many cases, the very same groups which have fought for free access to abortion for those who want one did so based on the very rights of conscience which are now being threatened when they concern others.

You may have seen an unpleasant bumper sticker which reads: “Against abortion? Don’t have one!” The implied message here is that the so-called “pro-choice” groups only want free access to “safe and legal” abortion and do not want to infringe on the rights or “choices” of others.

It has also been claimed by these groups in the past that they oppose any so-called “conscience” clauses because they only represent the concerns of “a tiny minority of religious zealots. Now they have reversed their stand, claiming that conscientious objection to these procedures is so pervasive in the health care professions that policies protecting conscience rights will eliminate access to them” (Letter to Members of Congress).

The protection of everyone’s rights
In 1995, Pope John Paul II gave a very fine homily on the rights of conscience as he reflected upon the life of Saint Jan Sarkander, whom he had canonized the previous day during his pilgrimage to Poland. In speaking of the sufferings endured by many martyrs, both in the distant and more recent past, the Holy Father said: “The rights of conscience must be defended today as well. In the name of tolerance, a powerful intolerance is actually spreading in public life and in the mass media. Believers are painfully aware of it. They notice the increasing tendency to marginalize them from the life of society and what is most sacred to them is sometimes mocked and ridiculed. These forms of recurring discrimination arouse great concern and should be a cause for much reflection” (Homily, 22 May 1995, Skoczow, Poland).

It is my concern, and that of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, that the consciences and rights of those with pro-life convictions who seek medical care should have “access to health care professionals who do not have contempt for their religious and moral convictions or for the lives of their children” (Letter to Members of Congress).

We can see how the arbitrary nature of certain laws, when they are not based upon the natural and divine law, can leave individuals at the complete mercy of the state, of public opinion and well-funded and powerful lobbies. This can result in what can truly be called not freedom for all but tyranny by some over others. Since this issue concerns, once again, a question of the dignity of the human person, it is our responsibility to speak up.

What are we asking for?
We all know that we are not acknowledging the right of the state or any individual to take an unborn life. Until that natural right is also restored to the body of laws of our beloved country, we have to struggle so that yet more rights are not taken away.

These are rights that are even enshrined in the documents that are part of the foundation of our country. The Declaration of Independence states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted.”

Pope Benedict XVI made reference to this portion of our country’s heritage when he said: “I am confident that your country, established on the self-evident truth that the Creator has endowed each human being with certain inalienable rights, will continue to find in the principles of the common moral law, enshrined in its founding documents, a sure guide for exercising its leadership within the international community” (Speech to the Ambassador of the United States, 29 February, 2008).

The purpose of government is to protect the rights given to us by God, not by governments. If governments bestow the rights, then they also have the right to take them away. This brings us back to the “slippery slope” I spoke of at the beginning of this week’s topic.

I know that you will share my concern when you read about these crucial issues. In addressing this topic, we are not responding to the criticism on the part of some legislators of a leaked possible future government document but to truths that are perennially valid and which can and should be defended when they are threatened. Perhaps you might wish to access the full text of my letter to all the members of Congress so that prayer may be accompanied by a complete awareness of what is at stake. You may access the complete text at: http://www.usccb.org/prolife/rigali-conscience071808.pdf.

August 14, 2008