160-Plus Bishops Speak Out Against HHS Mandate
The Obama administration has misled the public about the meaning of its new contraception coverage requirement, according to a fact sheet released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Health and Human Services’ new mandate “forces religious insurers to write policies that violate their beliefs, forces religious employers and schools to sponsor and subsidize coverage that violates their beliefs, and forces religious employees and students to purchase coverage that violates their beliefs,” the conference declared on Feb. 6.
The bishops’ clarification came less than a week after an Obama administration official defended the mandate, which requires most employers and many religious institutions to cover contraception and sterilization in their health plans, in a Feb. 1 White House blog post.
Several points in the bishops’ statement, entitled “Six Things Everyone Should Know About the HHS Mandate,” responded directly to points made by Cecilia Muñoz of the White House Domestic Policy Council in her online statement on “Health Reform, Preventive Services and Religious Institutions.”
In her defense of the federal rule, finalized Jan. 20, over objections by Catholics and other groups, the administration’s domestic-policy council claimed that “churches are exempt from the new rules.”
She also denied that the policy would cover abortion-causing drugs and cited statistics from the Guttmacher Institute to support the claim that “98% of Catholic women have used contraception.”
These claims, according to the U.S. bishops, are either false or irrelevant.
“The mandate does not exempt Catholic charities, schools, universities or hospitals,” they explained. “These institutions are vital to the mission of the Church, but HHS does not deem them ‘religious employers’ worthy of conscience protection.”
Health and Human Services will allow certain religious ministries to opt out of the mandate, but only if they primarily employ and serve members of their own faith for the purpose of inculcating religious values.
Other faith-based institutions, the bishops argued, would lose their religious freedom “precisely because their purpose is to serve the common good of society” by serving people of all beliefs.
The White House official also claimed that “drugs that cause abortion are not covered by this policy.”
The bishops said this statement is false.
“By including all drugs approved by the FDA for use as contraceptives, the HHS mandate includes drugs that can induce abortion, such as ‘Ella,’ a close cousin of the abortion pill RU-486,” they maintained.
The White House has sought to focus attention on the freedom of individuals, stating that “no one will be forced to buy or use contraception” under the rule.
In response to this assertion of private choice, the bishops’ conference reminded the public that the mandate forces institutions “to pay for things they consider immoral,” since they must “sponsor and subsidize coverage” of contraception, sterilization and abortifacients.
The U.S. bishops also responded directly to the White House’s claim that 28 U.S. states already require insurance companies to cover contraception.
Health and Human Services’ new mandate, they pointed out, “is much stricter than existing state mandates,” because its exemption, which was allegedly drafted by the ACLU, has previously been implemented in only three states.
“Even without a religious exemption, religious employers can already avoid the contraceptive mandates in 28 states by self-insuring their prescription-drug coverage, dropping that coverage altogether, or opting for regulation under a federal law that pre-empts state law,” the bishops noted.
But the new federal mandate “closes off all these avenues of relief.”
Catholics and non-Catholics of various political stripes have already spoken out against the mandate, adding their voices to those of more than 160 U.S. bishops.
In correspondence made public on Feb. 6, Pepperdine University professor Doug Kmiec, a prominent backer and former appointee of the administration, rebuked the president, saying he may withdraw his endorsement in 2012 over the contraception-coverage mandate.
In other news, the editorial board of USA Today disagreed with the Obama administration’s claim that its recent contraception mandate respects the religious freedom of groups who will be forced to comply with it.
The board said that justifications offered by Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “sidestep the central issue” of religious freedom.
Sebelius penned a Feb. 5 article in USA Today arguing that the narrow religious exemption included in the recent contraception mandate is an attempt to “strike the right balance” between respecting religious beliefs and providing “preventive health services.”
USA Today ran an accompanying editorial article arguing that the Obama administration has “failed” to strike this balance and has instead devised a policy that is “contrary to both Catholic doctrine and constitutional guarantees of religious freedom.”
In her article, Sebelius defended free coverage of “preventive services” as “one of the key benefits of the 2010 health-care law.”
She argued that “virtually all American women use contraception at some point in their lives” and that contraception has health benefits but is often prohibitively expensive.
USA Today responded in its editorial that good medical intentions “are not sufficient grounds to override religious freedom.”
It noted that the government is free to, and in fact, already does, promote contraception in other ways that do not coerce religious organizations to violate their teachings.
Sebelius said that the administration recognized that “many religious organizations have deeply held beliefs” opposing the requirements of the mandate and has provided an exemption for “religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith.”
The editorial acknowledged that an exemption exists for many “churches and other houses of worship,” but observed that this exemption does not extend to “organizations that employ or serve large numbers of people of different faiths,” which is a defining element “of many Catholic colleges, hospitals and charities.”
Sebelius also justified the mandate by arguing that 28 states already “require contraception to be covered by insurance” and eight of these states do not allow for a religious exemption.
The editorial responded by pointing out that the majority of these states have even “broader exemptions” than that offered by the federal mandate, and several others that do not have an explicit exemption still provide ways for organizations with moral objections to “get around the mandate.”
“The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom deserves more weight than the administration allowed,” the editorial said.
It added that individuals freely choose employers and should therefore be able to choose to work for an institution that does not offer free contraception coverage.
The board argued that the government “should never try to force a religiously affiliated institution to violate a central tenet of its faith.”
USA Today editors urged the Obama administration to “reopen discussion with those affected” negatively by the mandate and seek a compromise that will “widen the exemption in a suitable way.”
Yet another important update on Feb. 6:
The U.S. bishops are united in their resolve not to comply with the HHS mandate requiring Catholic organizations to provide insurance coverage for contraception and sterilization, according to Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind.
“We cannot and we will not comply with this unjust federal order. We cannot and we will not accept this egregious affront to our religious liberty,” Bishop Rhoades said in a Feb. 2 statement to be read at all parishes in the diocese.
The mandate’s implications are “grave,” he added. It negatively impacts the Catholic Church and “strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty.”
The Department of Health and Human Services’ new rule requires almost all employers to provide insurance plans that cover sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacient drugs. Its religious exemption will not cover most Catholic institutions like health systems, universities and charities.
“In the coming months, we must focus our energies on fighting this unjust mandate and defending our religious liberty,” Bishop Rhoades said. “I exhort all men and women of good will to be engaged on this issue.”
“We must hold firm and be courageous in this matter. We must be united in our defense of the religious liberty granted us by God and protected in our nation’s Constitution.”
The bishop previously criticized the mandate at a Jan. 26 press conference.
“We will not comply with this. We will not violate our conscience,” he said. “The U.S. bishops are united in this, and I think that this refusal to exempt religious institutions that serve the common good, which we are doing, is really an unprecedented decision.”
The rule is unprecedented in that it attempts to force religious institutions, other institutions and individuals to do things Catholics consider immoral and sinful, he added.
“We made it very clear to the administration we can’t violate our conscience, (but) that didn’t seem to matter to them,” the bishop said.
Albert Gutierrez, president and CEO of Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center, said at the same press Jan. 26 conference that both his hospital and the Catholic Health Association are “disappointed” that the definition of religious employer was not broadened by the HHS.
“This was a missed opportunity to be clear on appropriate conscience protection,” Gutierrez said.
Bishop Rhoades urged Catholics to “pray hard” and to ask political candidates about their position on religious liberty in general and conscience protection specifically.
His Feb. 2 letter exhorted Catholics to commit themselves to prayer and sacrifice for truth, justice and the restoration of religious liberty.
He recommended Catholics and others visit the U.S. bishops’ website to learn about the mandate and how to support the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which would reverse it.
More than 150 U.S. bishops have spoken against the mandate.
2/7/12 (CNA)
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