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Posted on 02/10/2012 5:30:23 PM PST by Rutles4Ever
February 10, 2012
WASHINGTON – The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have issued the following statement:
The Catholic bishops have long supported access to life-affirming healthcare for all, and the conscience rights of everyone involved in the complex process of providing that healthcare. That is why we raised two serious objections to the "preventive services" regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011.
First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans — nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen—to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion. All the other mandated "preventive services" prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease. Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.
Second, we explained that the mandate would impose a burden of unprecedented reach and severity on the consciences of those who consider such "services" immoral: insurers forced to write policies including this coverage; employers and schools forced to sponsor and subsidize the coverage; and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage. We therefore urged HHS, if it insisted on keeping the mandate, to provide a conscience exemption for all of these stakeholders—not just the extremely small subset of "religious employers" that HHS proposed to exempt initially.
Today, the President has done two things.
First, he has decided to retain HHS's nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.
Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:
·It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.
·It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer's policy, not as a separate rider.
·Finally, we are told that the one-year extension on the effective date (from August 1, 2012 to August 1, 2013) is available to any non-profit religious employer who desires it, without any government application or approval process.
These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer's plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.
We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today's proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.
We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government. For example, we renew our call on Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. And we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.
Doesn’t this statement assume we are dealing with an hnest broker? What about Bart Stupak (I know he may have been intentionally blind to what would happen...)? Obama lies, and misrepresents. Anyone remember the meeting years back he had in the Oval Office with business leaders, and when they all left, he lied about what what was said/agreed to? He cannot be trusted.
Bart Stupak.
Does the Church care whether or not I am forced to provide abortion coverage to my employees?
Or, are they concerned with their own freedoms only??
Oh, I agree that the Church is seriously opposed to one specific clause of Obamacare.
They want it excised so they can go back to supporting this wonderful, humane law for the rest of us.
But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer's plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.The bishops are indeed expanding their objection to include everyone who has moral reservations and not just religious institutions.
But I hope I am wrong. Bump for future reference.
Was just flipping the dial, came across a show on MSNBC called...Up Yours with Chris Hayes...pretty laughable, a panel of 5 gay fag dems saying how brilliant Obama was with this issue....
Unflippinbelievable
Thank you for stating (no pun intended) the bottom line. Please post an occasional reminder to us of what is really happening with this issue.
It’s the “Principal” not the money!! The money is still coming from all of us.
Quite frankly, I’m as pissed at these Bishops for letting this go on so long as I am at Barky.
Email to my Mom, who supports this garbage:
“You may want to try re-reading (or perhaps read it for the first time) the U.S. Constitution. You will find nowhere in the constitution the right for all women to be provided free contraception and abortion inducing drugs to be paid for by their employers. You say that it is about women’s rights. Well you need to think a little bit harder about that because women right NOW have the right take these drugs. What is contrary to the constitution is FORCING employers who disagree with contraception and/or abortion inducing drugs to provide these services to their employees. Obama’s position is an UNPRECEDENTED abridgement of freedom. As a business owner, I should not be FORCED to provide these drugs to my employees. If they don’t like it, they are always free to find another job or pay for these drugs with THEIR MONEY, just as I am free to fire them for whatever reason I see fit. Even if you subscribe to the idea that the government should mandate what type of healthcare coverage businesses provide, the last time I checked pregnancy was NOT a disease. These products are purely discretionary and no one deserves them simply because they are alive and they particularly don’t deserve them at MY EXPENSE. This is a question about whether we will continue to be a free people, or whether government will continue to dramatically expand the scope of its power and force people and businesses who do not share its values to tow the line and pay as a result. It sure as hell is NOT about women’s rights, since women RIGHT NOW have the RIGHT to use these drugs if they want to. Familiarize yourself with the Constitution and more particularly what rights it bestows on citizens and what limitations it places on the Federal Government. Then study why it is this has historically been the most powerful country in the world. Your position is indefensible based on the facts and the law.”
“I think that she was Episcopalian.”
Wow — don’t tell me that Episcopalianism is now a religion...
The attack is very laser-focused on Christians in particular.
I have cousins that vote democrat in every election and go to Catholic church every Sunday. They vote for politicians that promote abortion. Why bother going to church if one of the most basic principles is going to be ignored? Don't bother. Don't pretend your Catholic. Your not.
This is way overdue. They have had their heads in the sand, blissfully ignorant for the last 40 years, pretending they could leave the morals in the church and vote for Stalinist goons with clean hands. This has galled me for years.
We need a pic of Obunga dressed as a priest, passing out abortifacients from the alter.
I remember him telling me two years ago that doctors who refuse to treat patients under Obama care should be shot. He was dead serious.
I have to say, he is consistent. We have to remember, many of these people are our friends, and we don't want to offend or appear judgmental. People in Nazi Germany had friends that thought Hitler was peachy kean. If a few had spoken up maybe history would have been different. The Bishops have called this intrinsically evil. A smart man I know said to me that the Bishops will have to draw a line. Be a democrat or be a catholic. You can't be both.
—If the Bishops cave, the nation will be so demoralized I’m not sure we could recover. Seriously.
(No I’m not Catholic, I’m evangelical)-—
If Obama continued down the path of negotiating pseudo-compromises, the bishops’ effort would have dissipated in a fog of offers and counter-offers.
Obama blundered by digging in. Obama’s position is uncharacteristically clear, which allows the bishops the ability to contradict his position in broad daylight.
IOW, there’s a good chance that the bishops’ effort will have a political effect. I only expect it to turn about 2% of Democrat-voting Catholics, who are just cultural Catholics.
The real political benefit will be the galvinization of the Evangelical community.
The Catholic Bishops cannot be taken seriously until they publicly excommunicate every politician that openly supports abortion, birth control, and homosexuality in defiance of their bishop’s correction to the contrary.
And the Pope cannot be taken seriously until he starts replacing American bishops who refuse to discharge their responsibilities in this matter with bishops who will.
Bingo. Everyone worships something... EVERYONE. All these 'secularists' are actually in love with either Leviatham, nature (or the worst of the three) humankind, be it themselves or some psuedo-messiah like Obama.
All of these cold-blooded mandates from an ever-more overbearing and intrusive centralized bureaucracy are, at their heart, a simple case of 'My God is bigger than your God."
I was going to say the exact same thing you did. They made a deal with the Devil and now are shocked that they are being forced to give up their principles. Are the Bishops that blind and stupid?
A semi-literate internet user posted to a local fish wrapper web site that the state should establish minimum I Q scores for parenthood.
The sheeple are eager for their chains.
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