Opposition to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ order that health-care providers affiliated with churches or religions–meaning mostly Catholic hospitals–provide birth control or abortion services that conflict with their religious beliefs has officially gone bipartisan.
First, as might be expected, House Speaker John Boehner, who is himself Catholic, spoke out about the order today:
“I think this mandate violates our Constitution,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said Thursday. “I think it violates the rights of these religious organizations. And I would hope that the administration would back up and take another look at this.”
He’s right, of course, this does violate the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment, and you don’t need to be a legal scholar to see that. They’re being ordered by the federal government to do something that is in direct opposition to their religious beliefs, and that’s a restriction on their free exercise of their religion.
What’s interesting, however, is that a Democratic group is also speaking out against Sebelius’ order:
Also joining in disapproval was a group that includes Democratic lawmakers who helped engineer final passage of the health care law. The group, Democrats for Life of America, represents anti-abortion lawmakers who provided the margin of victory in Congress.
“Forcing religious institutions to provide insurance coverage for services that are directly in opposition to their moral beliefs is very clearly wrong,” said Kristen Day, its executive director.
For whatever reason (feel free to use your imaginations here), DFLA hasn’t yet posted this opposition on their website, but an item from November on their front page is also of interest (bold in original):
The PPACA included a provision to mandate that insurance plans include free contraception coverage. The law also proposed to continue to allow those employers who oppose those types of birth control that cause abortions of new embryos, to continue to provide insurance to their employees, but would be exempt form providing contraception coverage. This was part of the agreement reached between pro-life Democrats and the Obama administration.
“I would have never voted for the final version of the bill if I expected the Obama Administration to force Catholic hospitals and Catholic colleges and universities to pay for contraception,” said former Pennsylvania Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper. “We worked hard to prevent abortion funding in health care and to include clear conscience protections for those with moral objections to abortion and contraceptive devices that cause abortion. I trust that the President will honor the commitment he made to those of us who supported final passage.”
Women’s groups scored a tremendous victory with a contraception mandate that requires all health insurance companies to provide free birth control. Some groups, such as Emily’s List and NARAL, are attempting to push the mandate even further by forcing those who oppose contraception for moral reasons to include free birth control in their plans as well. They are also using scare tactics to convince their supporters that they are in jeopardy of losing coverage for birth control.
“The campaign by Emily’s list to scare women into thinking that they will no longer have access to birth control is as dishonest as the Republican campaign to convince voters that the PPACA funds abortion,” said Day. “The PPACA does not fund abortion and not one woman will lose access to birth control under the new law. In fact, women will now receive free birth control under that law.”
Given that so far the President hasn’t himself spoken about this as far as I can find (if I’m wrong, please post in the comments and I’ll add an update), it seems that he’s not yet honoring the commitment that Congresswoman Dahlkemper spoke about. Whether or not he eventually does will depend largely on how loudly those in his own party push him on this issue.
(cross-posted at Conservative Wanderer)
“I trust that the President will honor the commitment he made to those of us who supported final passage [of Obamacare.]” Ha, ha, ha! It was nothing but Obama’s personal, verbal commitment. The DFLA could have stood their ground and insisted on a pro-life bill, but that would have jeopardized their Obamessiah’s takeover of medicine.
They chose their Obamessiah over all their (supposed) principles. Now they are just flapping their gums in an election year.
Democrats for Life in America = Democrats that the party allows to pretend to be pro-life since they come from heavily Catholic districts. PRETEND being the operative word here.
Well, if it’s OK to force American Catholic institutions to provide birth control, don’t be surprised when those institutions are told what form of birth control to provide. It won’t be the pill–it’ll be abortion. After all, it’s the
revenue generationbirth-control method most favored by the libs, and they’re calling all the shots here.Absolutely.
That’s why I, though not a Catholic, agree with Speaker Boehner on this one, and why I picked this story for my first Tatler post.
The church–any church–needs to be free to follow the dictates of its own religion within reason (i.e. no bigamy or murder or anything like that), and choosing not to provide birth control or abortion is “within reason” to me, especially when there’s so many other places people can get those services if their faith (or lack thereof) permits.
What’s ironic is, if this policy of forcing religious institutions to provide birth control or abortion stands–and I hope it doesn’t!–it may end up taking business away from Planned Parenthood. I doubt Catholic hospitals will give as much do Democrats as their reliable donation launderer PP will, so it could end up hurting the Democrats just a little bit.
Eeep! Even on my own posts I can’t edit my own comments.
I meant, “I doubt Catholic hospitals will give as much to Democrats as their reliable donation launderer PP will…”
That’s what I get for commenting after working the day job since 0500.
No worries–and welcome to PJM. Enjoyed your first post, looking forward to more.
I get so irked when pro-abortionists accuse the Catholic Church of being anti-medicine because it’s anti-birth control and anti-abortion. The Catholic Church did more for the field of medicine than most secular organizations combined. It initiated physician training, invented the modern hospital, and in the US, it built and ran a majority of public hospital facilities for a very long time. If that’s anti-medicine, then I’m Santa Claus. Geez!
Amen!
I spent several years working for a health care company that was part of the Providence Health & Services family, and that’s a Catholic corporation, being a joint project of the Sisters of Providence (hence the name) and the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary.
To be perfectly honest about it, the Catholic dedication to health care puts small-p protestant churches like mine to shame… but I’m very glad their hospitals were there when I needed them.
There is no such thing as Democrats for Life. They sold out their principles when they helped ram through the health care law. Obama’s word means nothing. The man is a liar.
Liberals love to say, “Don’t like abortions, Don’t Get One!”
I guess they say don’t get one because they are ruling out the concept of, “Don’t like abortions, Don’t Provide One.”
My expectation is that administrators at Catholic health care facilities will probably cave on this issue if it’s not rescinded. I hope I’m wrong, but the example set by academics at Notre Dame going against doctrine was shameful, and since the Church is plainly split down the middle care providers can be expected to take the easy way out and not make waves. Which will sadden me. Oh, for a lay-Catholic with character who would take the way of civil disobedience and push it. The headlines if that were to occur would cause even more elite incumbents in DC to fold their tents and retire.
Seems it’s the Catholic insureds leading the charge–and like you said, not Notre Dame. I recently read of a small Catholic college in the South (the name escapes me) which is frothing mad and filing all manner of lawsuits.
So … DFLA supported ObamaCare and worked to get it passed, but now they want exceptions for the parts they don’t like or don’t think should apply to them or their favored supporters? Good work, DFLA.
Either that or they’re making a stink now so they can go to the voters in November and say, “see, we did all we could do to fight this policy!”
If I were represented by a Democrat (I’m not), I wouldn’t buy that.
Can someone tell me what the difference is between what Romney did as Gov of MA and what Obama is doing? I can’t see any as they both did the same thing. A Catholic Hospital is not proving any of these things – what they are having to provide if for the insurance that their employees receive contain these things like every other insurance. Now they can opt out and not take any federal funding or reimbursement for services but then that would cost them dearly.
But we do need these social wedge issues from the rabid right wing wacknuts don’t we.