Obama Does Not Widen Religious Exemption for Contraceptive Mandate
"I'm not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers & sisters to practice their belief against govt pressure," Rick Warren tweeted. "I'd go to jail rather than cave in to a govement [sic] mandate that violates what God commands us to do. Would you? Acts 5:29."
The administration's January 20 decision to uphold but delay the implementation of the original mandate surprised many, including several people who had previously supported the health care bill.
The Becket Fund filed lawsuits on behalf of Colorado Christian University (an evangelical Protestant college), Belmont Abbey College (a Catholic college), and the Catholic media network EWTN.
"From what we've seen so far is, this is not a compromise," said Eric Baxter, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. "It looks more like a political decision to quell the issue before the election."
The administration reportedly made calculations to determine whether the mandate would impact Obama politically, pitting pro-choice supporters against Catholics, who are seen as a potential swing vote. Senior adviser David Plouffe, according to Politico, "concluded that the vast majority of Catholic voters, who don't adhere to the church's dictates on birth control anyway, wouldn't punish Obama for his decision."
Under the mandate, covered contraceptives would include ella and Plan B that work by making it unlikely that an embryo will be able to attach to the wall of the uterus, which many evangelicals consider abortifacients.
A recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that while 55 percent of Americans support a requirement that all businesses provide contraception coverage, only about a third support requiring church insurance plans to provide birth control.
"The good news, the White House is listening. It's a little late, but it's a start," said Leith Anderson, president of the NAE. But it's unclear whether the shift goes far enough. "I don't see a great deal of movement on the extension of the exemption. It's going to take until after the weekend to figure this out."
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Related Elsewhere:
Christianity Today reported how Protestants are increasingly joining Catholics in protesting the Health & Human Services mandate.
Previous coverage of health care, contraception, life ethics, and politics includes:
Your Insurance May Already Cover 'Abortion-Inducing Drugs' | Health and Human Services ruled last week that insurance plans must provide contraception with no copayment. (August 12, 2011)
Reforming Health Care Reform | How states are blocking abortion coverage. (June 29, 2010)
Health Care Reform Enacted—Now What? | Activists react to the new health care law and reignite a movement for immigration reform. (March 26, 2010)
CT covers more political developments on the politics blog.
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Joan Ludvik
I have to wonder what is really behind the churches aversion to allowing hormone tharapies to women while at the same time covering viagra for single men or even married men who's wives do not want sex. I wonder about the hipocracy of a church to delegate how an employee chooses to start a family while at the same time does not require and pay for a funeral and burial of any stillborn child or even miscarriage. If they truely believe in life at conception why do they not demand that death certificates be issued to any child who miscarries at any point after conception. Keep in mind this issue is only with the FOR PROFIT businesses the church runs not the actual church or charity orginazation.
Joan Ludvik
The real problem here is the exemption the churches have that allows them to be self insured. Ordinary corporations are no longer able to do this because self insuring puts the employee in the position of having to share their private medical records with the employer. It is our constitutional right to have privacy in our medical treatments. More than 25yrs ago I was put in theis position when Frito-lay- a division of Pepsico was self insured. I started tearing muscles and tendons and ligaments at work. I had to see the company approved doctor who never told me I had a condition called psoriatic arthritis and would not be able to do physical work anymore. I was forced out of my job and never got the treatment that would have allowed me to have a normal life. Self insuring allows an employer to make life decisions and medical decisions based on how it will affect their bottom line. No employer including a church should ever have the right to choreograph anybodys personal decisions
Carlos Ramirez Trevino
In spite of the fact that as citizens we should take advantage of the opportunity to participate in government and influence its course, have I misunderstood the meaning of Grace? Haven't we been saved by God's Grace and not by our efforts to conform society to our way of thinking or to the conduct we expect of the transformed? Has the church gotten too involved in politics? Is that part of the idolatrous apostasy? Are we getting too caught up in the affairs of this world, forgetting the cross that is set before us? Are we now depending on the law? What ever happened to Grace? I feel the church has become too closely identified with politics once again. If the Catholic Church was the 1st Empire, Evangelicals are quickly becoming the Second. Do we still have a Christ centered church?