http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=19054
President Obama’s false claim to respect conscience rights will again be contradicted today when a committee charged with implementing Obamacare is set to announce that all health insurance plans, no matter who provides them, must cover “the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.”
Among other things, this apparently means that Catholic entities will have to provide coverage for “full” reproductive counseling and education (presumably including abortion promotion), and for drugs that destroy early embryos such as the new drug “ella” that kills embryos after implantation, and for abortifacients including IUDs, and for contraception, sterilization and birth control.
If entities wish to not violate their conscience by providing these things, they would have to not provide their employees with health coverage at all, and thus face fines under the Obamacare mandate that they do provide coverage. So much for expanding health insurance coverage–this mandate will pressure Catholic institutions not to offer any health insurance at all.
Sterilization is a particularly troubling item in this mandate from a legal standpoint, since the earliest federal conscience laws that were supported by Democrat stalwarts such as Ted Kennedy specifically make sure that Catholic institutions do not have to provide sterilizations. The Obama administration recently claimed to support the enforcement of those specific laws, and in signing Obamacare the President claimed to respect those laws. Now his administration proposes to compel the same entities to pay for sterilizations.
Left-leaning Catholics who have carried Obama’s water for this long will again have to face reality, ignore it, or spin it away. Since most of them dissent from the Church’s teaching on birth control anyway, and alongside that position don’t care about drugs destroying early embryos, it would be sad but not shocking to see them defend this conscience violation mandate. After all, such groups including at Commonweal and Vox Nova helped cause this mandate by supporting Obamacare without conscience protections, and they attacked real pro-lifers (like the USCCB) who insisted that such protections be put in before the bill should be supported and who specifically warned that this mandate would occur.
President Obama’s false claim to respect conscience rights will again be contradicted today when a committee charged with implementing Obamacare is set to announce that all health insurance plans, no matter who provides them, must cover “the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.”
Among other things, this apparently means that Catholic entities will have to provide coverage for “full” reproductive counseling and education (presumably including abortion promotion), and for drugs that destroy early embryos such as the new drug “ella” that kills embryos after implantation, and for abortifacients including IUDs, and for contraception, sterilization and birth control.
If entities wish to not violate their conscience by providing these things, they would have to not provide their employees with health coverage at all, and thus face fines under the Obamacare mandate that they do provide coverage. So much for expanding health insurance coverage–this mandate will pressure Catholic institutions not to offer any health insurance at all.
Sterilization is a particularly troubling item in this mandate from a legal standpoint, since the earliest federal conscience laws that were supported by Democrat stalwarts such as Ted Kennedy specifically make sure that Catholic institutions do not have to provide sterilizations. The Obama administration recently claimed to support the enforcement of those specific laws, and in signing Obamacare the President claimed to respect those laws. Now his administration proposes to compel the same entities to pay for sterilizations.
Left-leaning Catholics who have carried Obama’s water for this long will again have to face reality, ignore it, or spin it away. Since most of them dissent from the Church’s teaching on birth control anyway, and alongside that position don’t care about drugs destroying early embryos, it would be sad but not shocking to see them defend this conscience violation mandate. After all, such groups including at Commonweal and Vox Nova helped cause this mandate by supporting Obamacare without conscience protections, and they attacked real pro-lifers (like the USCCB) who insisted that such protections be put in before the bill should be supported and who specifically warned that this mandate would occur.