Protection of Conscience Project News
Service, not Servitude
Sisters for Life, a Catholic religious order in New York City, has protested the Department of Health and Human Services regulation that will force them to buy insurance coverage for surgical sterilization, contraceptives, and embryocidal drugs. [Statement]
The Archbiship of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, has described the Obama administration’s plan to force universal insurance coverage for surgical sterilization, contraceptives, and embryocidal drugs an “aggressive attack on religious freedom in our country.” He warns that debate about the details of the plan and the administration’s promises of accommodation, while useful, risk obscuring that fundamental issue. Reflecting on a pattern of prejudicial conduct of the administration, he suggest that it is “to put it generously – tone deaf to people of faith.” [philly.com]
The Catholic Medical Association states that the proposed accommodation being offerd by the Obama administration to employers who object to providing insurance coverage for surgical sterilization, contraceptives, and embryocidal drugs “appears to fall far short of addressing the fatal flaws in the original rule.” [CMA news release]
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has issued a statement responding to President Obama’s announcement that the HHS regulation that stirred a firestorm of protest will be modified. The bishops note that they were not consulted by the administration, that the details of promised modification are unclear, and that it will require “careful moral analysis”. However, based on their initial understanding of the proposal, they state that it “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.” They insist that only the revocation of the HHS mandate will afford “the only complete solution to this religious liberty problem.” [USCCB statement]
Eternal Word Television Network, a Catholic broadcasting corporation founded by a nun, Mother Angelica, has sued the US federal government because the Obama administration’s birth control mandate will force it to provide insurance coverage for surgical sterilization, contraceptives and embryocides. Priests for Life, a Catholic group dedicated to pro-life work, including support for Catholic teaching against contraception, has announced that it will sue for the same reason.