Even if cooperation is remote, HHS mandate is still immoral, explains analyst
February 22, 2012
Some moral theologians have argued that Catholics could be morally justified in accepting the HHS mandate, because they would be required to engage in “remote material cooperation” with the provision of contraceptives. But Robert Miller of Villanova law school finds a flaw in that reasoning. Even if individuals (or institutions) could justify cooperation, he argues, the HHS mandate would remain morally wrong because is forces compliance with a policy that some people find repugnant. He explains:
Even if their cooperation is not culpable, the objecting employers would be cooperating only because they are being coerced into doing so: if they do not comply, then the law imposes on them rather substantial financial penalties. Such a law is morally objectionable even if the coercion involved makes complying with the law morally permissible.
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