Ann Arbor: Study explores how religion affects women’s attitudes toward reproductive health policies like contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act. New research debunks the assumption that a woman’s religion predicts
her views on policies affecting reproductive health care such as
insurance coverage for birth control.
Even when it comes to policies that have sometimes been characterized
as going against Christian views – such as the Affordable Care Act
mandate for employer-provided contraception coverage– religious women’s
opinions are mixed, finds the nationally-representative study by the
University of Michigan.
Protestants and Catholics were most likely to agree that employer
health plans should cover contraception (66 % and 63% respectively) –
even ahead of non-religious women (59 %) and women of non-Christian
religious affiliation (59%), according to the study. Least likely to
support the ACA requirement were Baptists (48 %) and other Christians
(45 %).
Fifty-six percent of women overall supported mandated health coverage
of contraceptives and less than a fourth believed employers should be
exempt from the law due to religion. The findings appear online ahead of
print this month in international reproductive health journal Contraception.
“We wanted to examine the relationship between religious affiliation and
a woman’s views on reproductive health care policy and what we found
was that one didn’t necessarily predict the other,” says lead author
Elizabeth Patton, M.D., M.Phil, M.Sc., an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of Michigan Health System and researcher with the VA Center for Clinical Management Research.
“Debates surrounding reproductive health care have often been framed
as religious versus non-religious but that’s not an accurate narrative.
Our findings show that religious women’s attitudes toward policies
affecting reproductive health care are much more complex than they are
often portrayed. The differences in opinions about these policies
between religious women and non-religious women are not always as
striking as some may believe.”
The Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage mandate was challenged last year
by the owners of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood who said providing
contraceptives to female employees went against their religious beliefs.
The Supreme Court sided with them, ruling that corporations with
religious owners cannot be required to pay for insurance coverage of
contraception under the ACA.
Just this week, the Supreme Court asked a lower court to reconsider its decision
that barred Notre Dame – a Catholic university – from refusing to
provide contraceptive coverage to employees on religious grounds.
The study found that just 23 percent of women believed religious
hospitals and colleges should be excluded from contraceptive coverage
requirements. The majority of women however disagreed with insurance
coverage for abortion, with just 23 percent supporting abortion coverage
in health plans. When controlling for factors such as income,
education, ethnicity and political party, women who attended services
most frequently (weekly or more, regardless of religious affiliation)
were less likely to support employer sponsored insurance coverage of
contraception and abortion care and more likely to support the exclusion
of religious hospitals and colleges from contraceptive coverage
requirements.
Researchers analyzed data from the Women’s Health Care Experiences
and Preferences survey, which was conducted by the Program on Women’s
Health Care Effectiveness Research of the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynecology at the University of Michigan and includes a
nationally-representative sample of 1,078 women in the U.S. age 18-55.
The study examined associations between religious association (based on
self-reported religious affiliation and frequency of attending religious
services) and attitudes toward employer-provided insurance coverage of
contraception and abortion services.
“When religion enters political discussions, we tend to hear from
politicians, business leaders or church leaders who are often the most
vocal, but these voices don’t represent the religious community as a
whole,” says Patton, who is also a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar
and member of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
“Political debates in the U.S. about reproductive health and religion
continue. These policies primarily affect women – the vast majority of
whom identify with a religion – and we need to ensure their viewpoints
are heard so that misconceptions aren’t perpetuated in these
conversations."
“We need to be aware of the complexity of how religion affects
women’s views so we can design reproductive health policies that truly
reflect the beliefs and desires of most women in our country.”
Additional Authors: Kelli Hall, Ph.D., M.S. and Vanessa Dalton, M.D., M.P.H, both of U-M. Dalton is also a member of the IHPI.
Funding: Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars
Program, Department of Veterans Affairs, NICHD Building
Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health K-12 Career
Development award (K12HD001-438); and Program on Women’s Health Care
Effectiveness Research at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at
the U-M Medical School.
Reference: “How does religious affiliation affect
women’s attitudes toward reproductive health policy? Implications for
the Affordable Care Act,” Contraception, March, 2015:
doi:10.1016/j.contraception.2015.02.012.