Posted on 01/21/2012 4:50:46 AM PST by IbJensen
WASHINGTON, January 20, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - After being deluged with complaints from outraged religious groups, Obama’s health department has dug in its heels, saying its decision to force employers to provide abortifacient birth control drugs will continue as planned - although faith-based groups will be given a year reprieve. In response, U.S. Catholic bishops have not minced words, vowing to fight the order as “literally unconscionable.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Friday that faith-based entities like hospitals and universities will have until August 1, 2013 to provide employees with free birth control as part of their insurance packages. The mandate will also force such groups to pay for sterilizations and, because the FDA has approved abortifacient drugs such as Ella as “contraception.”
The mandate is being implemented as part of the new health care legislation that was passed in March 2010 despite vigorous opposition from U.S. Catholic bishops, who called it dangerously open to being used as a means of spreading abortion.
“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Archbishop Timothy Dolan.
NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation’s top abortion lobby, immediately celebrated the announcement and called on abortion supporters to thank the administration for defeating “a pressure campaign from anti-contraception groups.”
“With your help, we stood up to the large, well-funded groups that tried to put their anti-contraception beliefs ahead of women’s health,” NARAL president Nancy Keenan told supporters in an email. “We also kept the pressure on the Obama administration, and, clearly, our message was heard.”
But Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, indicated that the Catholic Church would not go down without a fight.
“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Dolan.
“To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable,” he continued. “It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty.”
Click “like” if you want to end abortion!
Other faith-based groups reacted in dismay, with many seeing the decision as equivalent to the administration declaring war on religious groups that oppose the drugs.
“It is the greatest irony, that by worshiping the cult of ‘choice’ the Obama Administration has determined that religious organizations lack the freedom to act in fidelity to their beliefs,’” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic university watchdog group. “The White House has sold the First Amendment for a few pennies of political support from the ACLU and the abortion lobby.” CNS has noted that several Catholic universities have already spoken up in protest against the coming mandate.
“If the Obama Administration cannot respect the First Amendment of the Constitution, then we must take this fight to the courts and win,” Reilly said.
The press office of the USCCB didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) said it was “deeply disappointed” in the decision. “The HHS rules trample on our most cherished freedoms and set a dangerous precedent,” said Galen Carey, NAE Vice President for Government Relations.
NAE notes that, if the unprecedentedly narrow “religious exemption” to the mandate is allowed to remain, it may be adopted in other areas of law, leading to further erosion of conscience protections.
Why can't Xanax be free? Or high blood pressure meds? Or cholesterol meds? Or any other meds? Why just birth control? Am I wrong in thinking that if you want to buy it, use your own money??
I don’t blame Obama for this, I blame his voters.
She had zero to collar a Kenyan
Drive out the competition. Those losing insurance will go to government care.
The Republican behavior and lack of action while in control of the House, Senate and Presidency have a lot of responsibility for the USA having a President Obama.
Because we have friggin Nazi’s running the country.
First they mandate Free Birth Control. Soon they will Mandate it’s use.Like China and their 1 child policy.
A government that will force this diktat on churches is a short step from determining who lives and who dies. If they thought they could get away with it, they would march every Freeper off to reeducation camps.
Send her back to Topeka.
Do you know if HHS “authority” to implement this outrage came from Obamacare?
FOLLOW THE MONEY!
This is all about where you who labor in the private sector, where your tax dollars go to. Tyrant Obama (and witch Sibelious) want to defund the right and defund the religious and have atheists, ACORN and black+minority+leftist churches get that money. Take away these services jobs and Federal funding. Any Catholic and Baptist services that get defunded....Those tax dollars will now go to Planned Parenthood and other commie lib groups
More commie + atheist + Obama_the_Muslim oppression. Catholics and Baptists pay taxes and deserve to get them back for these programs. Obama_the_Muslim wants to screw them
Executive Order 13535— Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Consistency with Longstanding Restrictions on the Use of Federal Funds for Abortion
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (Public Law 111-148), I hereby order as follows:
Section. 1. Policy. Following the recent enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “Act”), it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding Federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment. The purpose of this order is to establish a comprehensive, Government-wide set of policies and procedures to achieve this goal and to make certain that all relevant actors — Federal officials, State officials (including insurance regulators) and health care providers — are aware of their responsibilities, new and old.
The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges. Under the Act, longstanding Federal laws to protect conscience (such as the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. 300a-7, and the Weldon Amendment, section 508(d)(1) of Public Law 111-8) remain intact and new protections prohibit discrimination against health care facilities and health care providers because of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.
Numerous executive agencies have a role in ensuring that these restrictions are enforced, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Office of Personnel Management.
Who would know?
Remember ‘We have to pass the bill in order to see what’s in it”.
The ‘bill’ is so large that no one has gotten through this hard to understand pile of paper that is designed to further ruin our lives and our nation.
I’m sure the moslem religious organizations are exempt from this. There were granted an exemption from complying with obammacare.
Every single mandated provision of a real insurance contract carries with it an implied risk and an associated periodic cost. If, for example, government requires coverage for something that 25% of insured are going to claim and that claim averages $40/month, that requires that every premium will be $10/month higher just for that provision.
We cannot get to lower health care costs by mandating insurance provisions that are routine elective items for large numbers of those insured. This violates the very idea of “insurance”. But I am not surprised. Liberals live in a world where they will even bend the definition of concrete words and concepts in order to get to their end goal.
While advocates and designers of ObamaCare claim they want to “bend the cost curve downward”, they are going in the wrong direction in many so ways. May the Supreme Court drive a stake through the heart of this vampire on our economic and personal liberty soon.
Perhaps the Bishops should begin very public excommunications of all “Catholics” involved starting with Nancy Pelosi. I wonder if the old bell, book and candle ritual of excommunication is still practiced?
The marxist in the WH has declared himself emperor, and his lackeys are doing his bidding. Now, just what makes these morons think that welfare queens are going to use birth control. The last thing they want to do is control what makes them their money.
More intrusion into our lives. President Bush wanting to wiretap terrorists seems so mild compared to what the commie-n-chief is doing. We desperately need to get that scum and his cronies out of office. The only thing is....what do they have planned before the elections....marshall law?
If I were a governor here’s what I’d say:
Since Obama doesn’t want us enforcing federal immigration laws we will not enforce this law either.
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