Health share organization to pay for natural fertility care and sterilization reversals

July 25, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — The pro-life healthcare sharing ministry operating in unity with Catholic teaching will now pay for natural fertility healthcare and sterilization reversals for its members, it was announced on the 50th anniversary of Blessed Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae.

Solidarity HealthShare informed members of the changes to its guidelines Wednesday, saying it will allow them to share the costs of medically proven procedures, including Natural Procreative Technology (NaPro Technology) and fertility awareness-based training and counseling, making the health share ministry the first to do so.

“Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul was emphatic about the need to defend every life at its beginning and to maintain the unitive and procreative integrity of the marital act,” said Bradley Hahn, CEO of Solidarity HealthShare. “But he also called on the medical community to continue to improve its understanding of fertility and develop natural fertility awareness methods that can help spouses be both generous and responsible with the gift of life.”

“While there have indeed been many advances that can help married couples to conceive or to postpone pregnancy if they have serious reasons to do so,” Hahn said, “Solidarity HealthShare will be the first to make this integral reproductive healthcare eligible for cost sharing for these couples, and we could not be more thrilled to share in the Church’s vision for authentic health care.”

“Solidarity HealthShare seeks to restore and rebuild an authentic Catholic healthcare system that will respect the Catholic Church’s teachings with regard to love, responsibility and the sanctity of all human life, while endeavoring to share the eligible medical expenses of our members,” according to the group’s website.

Solidarity HealthShare was founded in 2015 as an affordable alternative to traditional health insurance that also offers Catholics and like-minded Christians an option that won’t conflict with their moral principles. The healthcare sharing ministry does not subsidize abortion, contraception and abortifacients, and keeps costs within reach for families.

The addition of natural fertility healthcare and sterilization reversal is the next step in meeting the needs of those Catholic and Christian families.

Hahn said Solidarity’s members would share costs for the reversal of tubal ligation and vasectomy procedures, restoring the physical integrity of couples who want to be open to life.

The new member guidelines summarizing the policy change will go into effect on September 1.

Solidarity HealthShare noted specifics of the groundbreaking NaPro Technology and fertility awareness healthcare in its release announcing the guidelines.

NaPro Technology, based on 30 years of research, is “a new women’s health science that monitors and maintains a woman’s reproductive and gynecological health,” according its developers at the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in Omaha, Nebraska. “It provides medical and surgical treatments that cooperate completely with the reproductive system.”

There are several fertility awareness-based methods of achieving or postponing pregnancy that respect God’s design of our bodies and respect the marital act. These methods, often referred to as Natural Family Planning, will now be part of Solidarity’s health share plan.

Hahn also pointed out how the departure from God’s plan for sexuality and life has created damage in today’s culture.

“The gift of sexuality is integral to the human person, and in the marital act the married couple participates in the creative act of the Triune God,” Hahn said. “Our society is marred in innumerable ways by the many effects of the separation of the procreative and unitive ends of the sexual act, some of which Pope Paul predicted in Humanae Vitae.”

“If we at Solidarity HealthShare can play just a small role in helping spouses to live the life-giving teachings of the Church in an integral way,” he added, “we are fulfilling our mission of restoring Catholic healthcare while building community and serving families.”

For more information on Solidarity HealthShare and its offerings, click HERE.

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