The recent decision by the Trump administration allowing businesses and non-profits with “sincerely held religious beliefs” to withhold contraception coverage is another instance of religious intrusion into health care matters and a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Reproductive health should be governed by medical science, the rights of women (and other patients), and other principles consistent with the secular nature of our Constitution. Withholding contraception coverage from all of one’s employees could not be a clearer instance of imposing one’s religious beliefs on others.
Jews of all denominations by the way can be proud of their long support for these principles. We look forward to seeing forthcoming lawsuits from the ACLU, Americans United, and other groups.
Dr. Richard D. Logan is a volunteer leader of Jews for a Secular Democracy; board president of the Society for Humanistic Judaism; and a retired Professor of Human Development. He has a BA in Anthropology from Harvard College and a PhD in Human Development from the University of Chicago where he studied under Bruno Bettelheim and Lawrence Kohlberg. Most of his career was at UW – Green Bay but he also had appointments at the University of Nairobi and Vassar College, and a sabbatical at the University of Kent in Canterbury England. He has published on adolescent identity, American individualism, the emergence of the self through Western history, and the state of higher education. He also authored a book on the psychology of solitary ordeals, and another on the true survival story of a young girl lost at sea. He also chaired the Faculty Executive Committee. Since retiring he has served on several non-profit boards.