The Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released regulations mandating coverage of contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. Under the mandate, the government forces all insurers – including religious insurers to write policies that violate their beliefs; forces all employers – including religious employers and schools to sponsor and subsidize coverage that violates their beliefs; and forces all employees and students as well as religious employees and students to purchase coverage that violates their beliefs.
News of the HHS Contraception mandate led to a massive outcry led by the Catholic Church and then swiftly backed up by leading Protestant leaders including Mega-church pastor Rick Warren who tweeted,
“I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a govement mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29.”
And Richard Land, a pro-life leader who is a top official with the Southern Baptist Church who stated,
“When it comes to abortifacients, and many birth-control methods are abortifacients, this mandate is reprehensible in its demands for people to violate their conscience. We are not going to do this. We have a First Amendment right to freedom of conscience, and we’re going to defend it. If we have to defend it by going to jail, so be it.”
Today, President Obama announced a “revision” of the policy that he stated would accommodate religious freedom within the confines of the bill. He said,
“Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services — no matter where they work. So that core principle remains. But if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company — not the hospital, not the charity — will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without co-pays and without hassles.”
LifeNews reported on Congressman Chris Smith’s immedate reaction to Obama’s announcement. The leading pro-life advocate in the House stated that he was strongly opposed to the revisions:
“The so-called new policy is the discredited old policy, dressed up to look like something else. It remains a serious violation of religious freedom. Only the most naïve or gullible would accept this as a change in policy. The newest iteration of Obama’s coercion rule utterly fails because it still forces religious employers and employees who have moral objections to paying for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception to pay for these things, because it is still the employers who buy the coverage for their employees. Today’s announcement is a political manipulation designed to get Obama past his own self-made controversy and past the next election.”
And then this just in from Nancy Keenan, head of NARAL: Pro-Choice America:
Today, President Obama showed us all that he is firmly committed to protecting women’s health. The Obama administration’s policy will make sure women of all faiths who work at religiously affiliated hospitals, universities, and service organizations will get contraceptive coverage. It guarantees that women will not encounter any barriers from their bosses or insurance plans in getting birth control without a copay.
Jill Stanek has discussed the recent outpouring of support from pro-legal-abortion groups for Obama’s so-called revision of the mandate.
Are you still confused by the mandate? The abortion lobby isn’t. They’re putting their backs behind this mandate because they know that it is being executed in an effort by the Obama Administration to extend an olive branch to their somewhat disillusioned supporters from inside the abortion lobby.
Not only this, but don’t be under the false impression that this is the end of the road for Obama’s mission to take over health-care insurance and to dictate what will and will not be covered. Next on the health-insurance agenda will be a mandate forcing private employers to fund abortion coverage in health-insurance plans for their employees.
Don’t believe me?
NRLC legislative director Douglas Johnson is already reporting that the HHS Contraception Mandate could lay the groundwork for, if elected to a second term, Obama to force insurance companies to pay for more than just drugs that may cause early abortions — but surgical or RU 486 abortion drug-induced abortions themselves.
Welcome my friend. Welcome to the machine.
The point of an exemption (and this compromise) is simply to enable an employer to avoid acting contrary to his or her religious beliefs, not to revisit the merits of the health law or enable employers to undercut it by retaining control of employees’ health plans, limiting employees’ choices to those religiously approved by the employer, and avoiding paying any money to anybody that might someday be used by somebody to provide services to employees not to the employers’ liking.