Posted on 01/07/2014 7:06:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It takes some doing to get embroiled in a court fight with nuns who provide hospice care for the indigent. Amazingly, the Obama administration has managed it.
Its legal battle with the Little Sisters of the Poor is the logical consequence of Obamacare’s conscience-trampling contraception mandate. The requirement went into effect January 1, but Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a New Year’s Eve injunction against enforcing it on the Little Sisters.
They are Catholic nuns who follow the doctrinal teachings of the church and therefore oppose contraceptive and abortive drugs and sterilization, all of which Obamacare mandates that employers cover in their insurance plans. Given the ongoing delays, waivers, and exemptions associated with the law, it would seem natural simply to let the Little Sisters go about their business of pouring out their hearts for the sick and dying.
When the contraception mandate first caused an uproar, the administration contrived a so-called accommodation for religiously oriented groups (actual churches have always been exempt). But whoever crafted it had a sick sense of humor. The very same document by which a group registers its moral objection to contraceptives and abortifacients also authorizes the insurer to cover them for the group’s employees. What the accommodation gives with one hand, it takes away with the other.
The Little Sisters refuse to sign such a document. They happen to be in an unusual situation because they get their insurance from another religiously affiliated organization opposed to contraceptives and abortifacients, so it may be that these drugs don’t get covered no matter what. But the Little Sisters can’t be sure of this — the regulations are complicated and subject to change.
Regardless, they don’t want to sign. They want no part in authorizing coverage of contraceptive or abortive drugs. Enthusiasts for the mandate scoff. What the nuns are objecting to, they insist, is just a piece of paper.
Just a piece of paper? So is a mortgage. So is a wedding certificate. So is a will. How would the board of directors of NARAL react if the government forced them to sign a “piece of paper” tacitly condemning contraception or abortion? Would they shrug it off as a mere formality?
The Little Sisters deserve deference. Their religious sensibility is different than — and, one hazards to say, more finely tuned than — that of the mandarins of President Barack Obama’s administrative state. In a dispute over what their conscience tells them to do or not to do, the Little Sisters are better positioned to know than anyone else.
Besides, who is harmed if the Little Sisters don’t provide contraception coverage? They are a voluntary organization. They aren’t imposing their views on anyone. Who, for that matter, is harmed if a secular organization run by people with moral objections to contraceptives and abortifacients refuses to cover them? Employees are still free to go out on their own and get contraceptives, which are widely available. If this sounds like an outlandish imposition, it is what people managed to do throughout American history all the way up to last week.
The contraception mandate has always had a strong ideological impetus. Opponents of the mandate “want to roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius notoriously declared in 2011. “We’ve come a long way in women’s health over the last few decades, but we are in a war.” By this bizarre way of thinking, a small congregation of nuns that cares for the most vulnerable is somehow complicit in a war on women’s health.
Instead of respecting the moral views of the Little Sisters, the administration hopes to grind them under foot by force of law. For shame.
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com.
I am on the side of the nuns.
However, I have one question to ask them and the voting Catholics in America.
How many of you voted for Obama at least twice and helped him by reelecting pro abortion $inators and Congre$$its like Pelosi and Reid?
Not enough coffee this morning I guess
Jesus aid it
It’s one of the Beatitudes
I have omre answer for you
You can hate catholics all you want and with bigotry common here not listen to what i have to say, but what I am going to say is true:
46% of Catholics did not vote for Obama. That’s a lot more than Freepers ever give credit to.
George Weigel says there is no Catholic vote. Catholics do not vote in a bloc. His view is that there is a practicing religious bloc. In that case, these nuns could use support, as 46% of Catholics who did not vote for Romney, including, likely, these practicing religious habit wearing nuns could use support and not anti catholic bigotry at the moment
And before you spread any more of it, why don’t you ask them directly. Their home base is in Denver
You are wasting your time asking Catholics who voted for Obama why they did it. You may as well ask them why they identify themselves as Catholic.
The answer is always the same: “I was born a Catholic, and I as born a Democrat” Amen.
Unfortunately they are not practicing Catholics and only know they were baptized. Since Democrats continue to give away goodies to them they think they are good Christians to vote for the Dems.
OK, OK! I actually do know an elderly couple at my parish who are daily Mass goes. They are staunch Democrats, and would “never think to vote for a Republican.” So, my above statement is only half true. I do stand by my belief that they are born Catholic and Democrat - and they think the two are the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes
It's recorded in Matthew... but you're right, it's from the Sermon on the Mount...
Thanks for the clarification.
I like Charlie Daniels - glad he’s with us.
Happy, fortunate and blissful are those nuns.
BO will continue to be baffled by them.
Baffled are the power hungry, I guess.
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