The HHS Mandate: Protect Conscience. Protect Humanity.

Center for Morality in Public Life Begins Project Conscience

The recent HHS decision to mandate contraceptive coverage is an assault on conscience, and an attack on a basic human right. By forcing citizens to violate their consciences, the government has imposed itself on the most human aspect of our lives-an area only rightly governed by God, liberty, and the common good.

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Conscience is a funny thing. Sometimes it pricks you. Other times it perches on your shoulder like a cricket. In serious cases, it shows up in the form of two cartoon mice-one dressed as an angel and the other as a devil. According to pop culture, conscience is a shape-shifting part of the human psyche. It shows up mostly when we're about to do bad things-and even celebrities have (and like to talk about) it.

What conscience does is pretty clear. The Disney images we have of conscience-at-work are, strangely enough, pretty accurate. Our experience tells us so.

But what conscience actually is takes more than cartoons to grasp. How can the same thing be a beacon of wisdom, a guide, and totally ambivalent all at once? After all, conscience is above all a personal phenomenon. How can it really, then, be reliable? It's the million-dollar question.

One thing we know for certain: recent months have been some of the worst for conscience in the history of our nation. The Obama administration's decision to force citizens to violate their consciences through healthcare mandates and semantic manipulation has been the object of widespread public outcry. True, many Americans might not know exactly what conscience is, but they certainly know that it should be protected.

With the government-forged blade of social progress cleaving civic requirements from moral obligations, the need to educate on the meaning and importance of conscience is greater than ever. To aid in this effort, the Center for Morality in Public Life has launched Protect Conscience-a digital resource for Americans wanting to inform themselves, and their family and friends, about the role and meaning of conscience in the public square.

Know Thyself

The Delphic oracle preached a simple truth: gnothi seauton-"know thyself." This pithy dictum was at the heart of ancient wisdom: Plato employed it in his dialogues, where it represented the deepest purposes of philosophy and the "good life." Self-knowledge showed the humble, like Socrates, to be heroes. And it betrayed the proud as fools.

Conscience, as we understand it today, is an application of this very principle-con from the Latin "with," and scientia from "knowledge." The type of understanding required for conscience isn't supernatural or inspired, but natural and scientific. It's based in an appreciation of our humanity-not only as a gift from God, but more simply as something fundamentally good in itself.

The reason we understand so well how conscience works is the same reason we understand how breathing or walking work: they're basic human acts that just come with the territory. We breathe and walk every day, and we could give an account at the drop of a hat. The very same goes for conscience. (That's why you don't have to be a faith-filled or God-fearing person to be conscientious. The two aren't related any more than faith to breathing or walking.)

As we saw, though, things get tough when we ask why conscience is important-in other words, just what it actually is. This takes some deeper reflection, since conscience is tied at bottom to the meaning and identity of our very selves. Sure, we know that we breathe, but can we explain just what breathing is; or better yet, why humans have lungs rather than gills? In other words, we can give an account of our human activity, but it's not so easy to give a similar account of our most basic nature.

Happiness is an Individual Thing

Humans are communal creatures. We thrive in company-and by Catholic teaching, we're created in the image of a God who is "company" in himself. But seeking out that destiny-what will make us happiest and most fulfilled-is a radically individual pursuit. "Know thyself" is a singular command. (Can you imagine if we had to "Know thyself and everyone else"?)

Conscience, because it's linked so closely to our human nature, is also singular. There's no such thing as a "collective conscience." Thus, we're left with an individual conscience-our own-to make judgments for ourselves about what's right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral. When it comes to our own personal actions, the dictates of conscience are absolute. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be right and just [i.e., his conscience]" (1778). Of course, we have an obligation also to form our consciences according to what's truly right and just-by study, practice, and prayer. In the end, though, a "human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself" (CCC 1790).

Conscience: A Basic Human Right

The Department of Health and Human Services' heinous mandate requiring American citizens to violate their consciences stands at odds with this basic understanding of human identity. To force someone "deliberately to act against" his or her conscience-provided their conscience does not tell them to do something objectively evil-is an abuse of power and an impoverishment of the law. Rather than upholding the basic right of all people to exercise their liberties in the pursuit of happiness, the HHS has deigned a lesson from on high concerning just what happiness should look like. This is something that falls well beyond the power of the state-and is reserved only to the sacred teaching authority of God, as well as our own personal insights into natural goodness and order.

Some have remarked that the HHS decision, and more-so the White House's recent 'accommodation', reflects the will of the American people as a whole. "If the government mandates healthcare coverage for contraceptives, it's the law, and who is the individual citizen to say its wrong?" But in fact, this is simply not true; for the power to enact laws extends only so far as individual liberties and the common good permit. By refusing to endorse and fund contraceptives, Catholics (and some others to be sure) do not violate any of the personal liberties of others. And their commitment does not undermine-and, in fact, even works to bolster-the common good.

The Obama administration's persistent attack on personal conscience is an attack on a basic human right. Opposition is justified-not only under the moral dictates of religion, but more immediately because of the freedoms guaranteed by in the Constitution, and by our own natural rights as human beings.

Protect Conscience

In response to this widespread need for education on conscience rights and religious liberty, the Center for Morality in Public Life has launched Protect Conscience. Designed to help Americans come to understand, articulate, and defend the role of conscience in the public square, Protect Conscience pulls together the best commentary from around the web to give readers quick access to relevant insight. The project is part of CFMPL's larger initiative in 2012-a symposium on Christian Values & Public Morality, hosted online at the blog, Ethika Politika. By leading discussion in this arena, CFMPL aims to set a new, balanced tone for education on civic virtues and the common good.

At bottom, the HHS mandate has showed us that knowing that conscience is important is no longer enough. Now, we face the real likelihood of losing our grasp on the meaning and idea of conscience all together. Protecting conscience is not only an academic pursuit-it's a moral and American responsibility. And it's something that all of us should be willing to invest in.

The future of our very humanity depends on it.

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