Mitt Romney, one of the front-runners seeking nomination as the Republican Party’s candidate in the 2012 presidential election, has spoken out in support of Catholic bishops opposing the Obama administration’s regulation that will force employers with over 50 employees to provide insurance coverage for surgical sterilization, contraceptives, and embryocidal drugs. He states, “Such rules don’t belong in the America that I believe in.” [Romney Blog] However, opponents may recall that, while governor of Massachusetts, he refused to exempt Catholic hospitals from a requirement to dispense the morning-after pill to rape complainants.[Boston Globe]
Tag: HHS preventive services mandate (USA)
Erroneous assumptions illustrated by editorial
In an editorial titled, “Birth Control: Now a human right,” the Charleston Gazette has expressed support for the Obama administrations regulation that will force objecting employers to provide insurance coverage for “contraceptive services.” The editorial illustrates five common unexamined and questionable assumptions frequently made by opponents of freedom of conscience in health care.
- First: it assumes that ‘birth control’ and ‘contraception’ are equivalent terms; they are not.
- Second: it assumes that contraception is a form a health care, something that many objectors deny.
- Third: in failing to recognize the distinction that objectors make between contraception and treating illness or injury, it draws the erroneous conclusion that they might refuse to treat sexually transmitted diseases.
- Fourth: it asserts that birth control (by which it clearly means contraception) is a “human right,” although this has not been legally established.
- Finally: it suggests that employers who do not pay for employees’ birth control are interfering with their freedom.
Speaker of U.S. House considers HHS mandate unconstitutional
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner has stated that he believes the HHS “preventive services” contraceptive mandate violates the U.S. constitution, and expressed hope that the Obama administration would reconsider it. White House Press Secretary said that the issue was not being reconsidered: ” the decision has been made.” [ Associated Press]
Rubio Introduces Bill To Repeal ObamaCare Mandate Against Religious Freedom
NEWS RELEASE
Rubio: “This is a common sense bill that simply says the government can’t force religious organizations to abandon the fundamental tenets of their faith because the government says so.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) today introduced the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012, a bill to repeal a new ObamaCare mandate that violates the religious liberties and conscience rights of faith-based institutions by forcing them to offer employees insurance coverage for contraceptives.
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services finalized a new mandate that would require most church-affiliated organizations to offer their workers private insurance coverage without out-of-pocket charges for birth control. The administration ignored efforts by numerous faith-based organizations to be granted an exemption on religious grounds.
“The Obama Administration’s obsession with forcing mandates on the American people has now reached a new low by violating the conscience rights and religious liberties of our people,” said Rubio. “Under this President, we have a government that has grown too big, too costly and now even more overbearing by forcing religious entities to abandon their beliefs. This is a common sense bill that simply says the government can’t force religious organizations to abandon the fundamental tenets of their faith because the government says so.”
The text of the legislation is available here.
National Conscience Protection Grassroots Campaign Launched
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Matt Smith (202) 521-9828
Catholic Laity can receive toolkit to contact Congress
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Catholic Advocate, a leading grassroots organization in Washington, D.C., today launched a nationwide campaign providing resources for faithful Catholics wanting to speak out against the recently announced Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) final rule affecting conscience protections in health care coverage. The ruling forces organizations providing health plans to cover contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization regardless of their religious beliefs.
“One of the options to address this attack on people of faith is to directly contact our elected officials in Congress to let them know our dissatisfaction with this decision,” said Catholic Advocate President Matt Smith. “Our goal is to have at least 100,000 faithful Catholics participate each month until Congress acts.”
On the day of the HHS announcement, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) called the laity to this action when he said, “Let your elected leaders know that you want religious liberty and rights of conscience restored and that you want the administration’s contraceptive mandate rescinded.”
Catholic Advocate is asking for at least one leader per parish in this country to sign up at www.ProtectOurConscience.org. There they will have access to a grassroots toolbox to answer the call to rally faithful laity to reinstate our conscience rights.
“There are 17,782 parishes in the United States,” added Smith. “If faithful Catholics were able to average 115 letters per parish to their Representative and each Senator, Capitol Hill would receive over six million contacts on this issue. We would send a powerful message that cannot be ignored.”
A primary focus of this nationwide grassroots campaign is building additional support for H.R. 1179/S. 1467 – the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act introduced by Representative Jeff Fortenberry (Nebraska, 1st District) and Senator Roy Blunt (Missouri) respectively.
The legislation amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) “to permit a health plan to decline coverage of specific items and services that are contrary to the religious beliefs of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan or the purchaser or beneficiary (in the case of individual coverage) without penalty.” It also applies similar guidance to state health insurance exchange programs and becomes retroactive to when PPACA was signed into law by President Obama.
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