Re "Bishops draw line in health care fight" (Page A1, Feb. 10): The religious rights of the Catholic bishops end when they begin limiting the rights of others. When the church enters the secular market, it must abide by secular rules or return to its role as a strictly religious organization.
Including contraceptives in healthcare is not a nefarious attack on the church. It empowers women to choose to avoid unwanted, untimely, and risky pregnancies.
We all pay taxes and healthcare premiums that support practices we consider immoral. Transfusions, Viagra, organ transplants, wars, corporate welfare, are all unacceptable to some. That is the price of living in a diverse democracy.
Religious freedom does not mean that institutions can use the secular marketplace to impose their doctrine on others. Giving women the ability to make responsible decisions about when and if to have children in accordance with their own values and beliefs promotes rather than restricts religious liberty.
-- Margaret Loehr, Sacramento
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