Members of the Obama administration aren’t forcing religious organizations to violate their creeds because they are secular fundamentalists who place no value on religious liberty. They are doing it because they operate in a technocracy.
That’s an interesting take. In David Brooks’ view, the Department of Health & Human Services has issued a rule mandating coverage of contraceptives in health care plans “because they [are] a technocracy.” It’s a bit like saying that President Obama decided to intervene in Libya because he is the president. In actuality, the Department of Health & Human Services had very specific reasons for issuing their rule. Here they are:
Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families, is documented to significantly reduce health costs, and is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women. This rule will provide women with greater access to contraception by requiring coverage and by prohibiting cost sharing.
There are three reasons packed in that excerpt. Birth control has health benefits to women and their families, it lowers health costs, and its use is so widespread that the lack of co-pays will save women a significant amount of money. Those are the rationales for this rule.
David Brooks doesn’t like these science-based rationales. For him:
Technocrats are in the business of promulgating rules. They seek abstract principles that they can apply in all cases. From their perspective, a rule is fair when it can be imposed uniformly across the nation.
Technocratic organizations take diverse institutions and make them more alike by imposing the same rules. Technocracies do not defer to local knowledge. They dislike individual discretion. They like consistency, codification and uniformity.
In this case, the uniformly-imposed rule is not based on abstract principles but scientific consensus. Unless women’s health and containing the cost of health care are abstract principles, it’s hard to know what Mr. Brooks is talking about.
I’ll tell you what is an abstract principle: the idea that all sexual activity should be directed at reproduction. So, no masturbation, no heavy petting without intercourse, no same-sex sexual activity, no non-vaginal sex, no pulling out, no effort at preventing conception. And these rules are promulgated by a caste of all-male technocrats who have taken a vow of abstinence. The rules are consistent, codified, and uniform. They are not at all based on science. They have no data to support any claim that these rules will improve human health or happiness, nor is it even clear that the rules are aimed at anything more than regulating sexual activity.
Western Civilization spent many centuries living under these top-down rules that took no account of local knowledge or individual discretion. Then we had a Reformation and an Enlightenment. Then we had government by and for the people, instead of by and for the cardinals and bishops. Then we had science and modern medicine. Mr. Brooks should look around. It’s not the fifteenth-century anymore. It’s not even the 1950’s anymore.
