Thank you for continuing to fight for religious liberty. Your voice is a very strong voice in the community, so we thank you for your efforts.

Blessings in your efforts! Thank you for fighting the good fight!

“Sadly, throughout this proposed rule, the government continues to make the erroneous assertion that contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs are health care. They are not.”  For Catholics.  For non-Catholic Americans, they certainly are.  Has this issue now transitioned into Catholics defining health care for the rest of the country?

Grace: Contraception and sterilization should not be part of preventive health care because pregnancy is not a disease.

Our present administration has done a good job trying to convince the populace that contraception and abortion come under the guise of health care for women .  Conceiving and giving birth to children does not constitute disease, illness or wellness to the human body.  Contraception and abortion are contrary to God’s natural law and are thus considered evils.  Thank you, EWTN, for defending God’s principles.

Grace, I fear you have missed the point. The issues are of faith-filled importance to Catholic dogma. They are protected by the Constitution. It is fair, legal and morally right for the Catholic Church to promulgate and defend its beliefs. Non-Catholics can join the Church’s efforts; in fact some have. I must ask: Has the government transitioned into defining Catholic dogma?

I am Catholic American with many non Catholic American friends, who agree that this is not health care.  Health care is when you help someone to be healthier. Like blood pressure meds to maintain blood pressure. Those meds are not being paid for. How about insulin for a serious diabetic, that is not paid for. Those are real health issues. The side affects from being on the pill bring on many risks for increased cancer, just to name one. Having a baby does not. Women Catholic or non Catholic, want to be healthy .. Who wants a bad investment, no one.  Education, learning the true facts, reading the fine print etc., to be able to make a wise decision. And being Catholic, I believe God also gave women a natural way of family planning. Again education, knowing our bodies, respecting our bodies and the gift God gave us when he created us .. The privilege of being a woman!

Um no Grace, contraception, sterilization and abortion are not health care for anyone.  Contraception and sterilization STOP reproductive organs from functioning properly.  That is not health care.  Do I even need to explain why abortion is not health care?  It is not Catholics who are trying to define health care but Obama and his mindless followers like you who are trying to define health care and redefine the employer/employee relationship.

Family planning products are not health care period, not just for Catholics. It makes as much sense to call family planning products health care as to call economic planning products health care. Yes, I might feel healthier if I can use TurboTax—it might alleviate my anxiety and help me control my finances. That might improve my health. But should my health care plan cover it? Should the govt make sure I get free Turbo Tax? Family planning products do not prevent disease. They do not cure disease. They aid you in planning your family size. Just because you ingest, implant or chemically alter something in order to control a human function doesn’t mean it is health care. I take caffeine to control my level of alertness and help me plan my day. Should I get free caffeine through my health care provider ? I think not.

How can killing people by abortion be healthcare?

Besides the fact that these things do not constitute health care, some artificial forms of contraception are actually classified by the CDC as Class 1 carcinogens along with asbestos and tobacco products. And they are all certainly widely available and inexpensive to anyone who would trust their physician to prescribe a carcinogen for them. And quite the opposite of one of the above statements, the government is trying to define how religious Catholics can be. Conscience rights that have been a part of the American way from its founding are now being willfully trampled. Again, this not a contracepton issue, this is a religious liberty issue. If this is allowed to stand, what comes next.
When Roe v. Wade legialized abortiion, we were told it would be done only in rare and extreme cases.  55 million deaths later, profit making abortion mills are performing abortion-on-demand for the most selfish and petty reasons.  All the while, contraception proponents tout how “the pill” drastically reduces the need for abortion. Somehow, the numbers just do not illustrate that.
May God bless our nation. We have left Him out of our lives and this is what has happened.

It’s the SAME EXACT PROPOSAL from February 2012. Catholic organizations need not pay or provide coverage because through some Obamagic it will be provided free through insurers which rho ugh Obamagic won’t pass on the cost in prices elsewhere. Heck, it’s been a year and they still haven’t updated their proposal to address self-insured organizations.

“Sadly, throughout this proposed rule, the government continues to make the erroneous assertion that contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs are health care. They are not.”  For Catholics.  For non-Catholic Americans, they certainly are.  Has this issue now transitioned into Catholics defining health care for the rest of the country?

They shouldn’t be regarded as healthcare by anyone. All three comprise obvious evil behavior.

Please just let me know when it becomes sinful a problem so that I can cancel my coverage.
God said these times would come but so will He come again.

Health care, Grace, is the cure, treatment or prevention of sickness and infirmity.

Obamacare violates our Constitutional principles and basic principles of the Catholic Church.  Refer to “Bill of Rights” and to the Catechism of the Catholic Church Para. 1883&1885; wherein it specifies the principle of subsidiarity stating, “Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative.  The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism.”  As the Declaration says, “Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
Thank you EWTN for your huge efforts to defend our religious liberty.
Wrote a “poem” sometime ago, stapled it in my pocketsize Constitution for ready reference. Well rec’d.  Recently up on you tube.  Each line is a factual reason “to alter or to abolish” Obamacare.  You can see/hear “Dad on Obamacare”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PrNgqNYfJk

“Has this issue now transitioned into Catholics defining health care for the rest of the country?

Since when is fertility a disease? When is it natural to take drugs that cause abortions? It is unhealthy to force one’s body to be infertile by feeding it chemicals that may cause strokes, blood clots, etc.  Read the literature that comes with the prescription.
Natural Family Planning is an effective birth control method that does not cause these risks. If you don’t want to have an abortion because you are unwilling to be a mom, abstain. That is the only method that is fool proof.
Abortion should not be a back up plan for contraceptive failures. All methods of contraception fail at times. None of them are fool proof. I know people who are the result of contraceptive failures.
Who are you to decide what others have to pay for? Who are you to define the morals of a group of people?

murder and deliberately hampering in other ways with the gift from God that allows us to bring forth life is not healthcare.  Quite frankly, I don’t see how anyone can claim to be Christian and be “pro-choice” which is synonymous with pro-death.  This so-called healthcare is yet another example of humans thinking they know better than God what is best for themselves.  The Bible is full of examples of what happens when we adopt this sort of attitude.  The results are never pretty.  It’s not just a Catholic thing.  We’re the largest Christian group.  Take us out and the rest will be like ducks in a shooting gallery. Be thankful someone is standing up for your rights, even if it’s not readily apparent what those rights are.

Forge on Christian soldiers. 
I’m disturbed to see a post where Grace fails to see that this is NOT healthcare.  (Grace is such a beautiful and meaningful name.)  Too many times I’ve wondered if on a spiritual level the use of contraception distorts logic and puts the scales of Paul into action by the enemy.  Now in the face of excuses there is also illogical thinking.  The scarier thing is that more and more people will be coming up the pike who will be vested with legal power and also have a similarly faulty view.  ie. the Sibilius, Biden, Puglosi, and Flukey Fem to come.  That’s no problem for Grace; that’s a problem for devout Catholics.  As we see with the HHS Law, our religious freedom to practice Christian tenets along side those who may think like Grace challenges our 1st Amendment right.  Who will define the 1st Amendment as the constitution is obviously (?) becoming more and more ‘organic?’  EWTN is a convicted challenger to those who have the audacity to dictate a law which crosses into religious tenets; and into what Catholics deem as a sin- whether others believe it or not.  EWTN is going for the 1st Amendment Right, namely, leave us alone; and let us practice our religion as it is intended; not as the government deems it.  Pray for ‘grace.’  Forge on Christian soldiers.

It is so sad that so many have been deceived by Satan’s lie that it is not a child and it is okay to destroy that life.  The safest place for a child should be it’s mothers womb.  I don’t believe that medications that destroy life should be in the healthcare category.  They don’t help people they harm the woman as studies show the link between long term use of contraception and breast cancer which a Federal study confirms. Catholics are not imposing our will on others, this is a human rights issue taking the life of a child should concern us all. We need to pray for hearts and minds to be changed.

am very sad to read this. Birth control has seized the minds of a ‘bad generation’.. from those some 50 and up, including the President. It separates sex from love, it makes people objects, it causes all and any type of sexual activity, with children, gives countless STD’s. .. but Yuppies refuse to see it. IT has been noted that once sex is removed from its purpose of reproduction, it ‘kills’,, does not give life,, and this was well known in past civilizations. EWTN should not have to pay for it. In my neck of the woods, an incontrovertible and alarming fact is that one in 120 adults in the city of Toronto has the hiv virus…. wreckless sex is everywhere, and most people seem to be ignoring it. .. and this is a society where signs ‘wear condoms’ is everywhere. .. so much for that!. .. SEx is an inner, self-disciplinary affair.. government should mind their own business.
But your now twice elected president is a Yuppy. .. and Catholics of some kind voted for him twice! how sad, how strange.. he blew the economy, employment, the debt, Benghazi, immigration, religious liberty,,what can we say.
What is the connection?.. I would say that , the President, like many of the priests , theologians and bishops (and many other groups) has no sense of sin..that notionn has gone, of transgression, of Jesus’ Sacred Heart being hurt, of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, of pious obedience to his law of love,, it is gone.. hence, the vast majority of clergy sex abusers were indeed “yuppy age’.. and that’s what the Pres and his supporters have in common. And so they sleep in the same nasty bed, and have corruped our societies, our families,, we must stop that….
I am with EWTN,, you help us so so much. Stick with the youth,, they are better CAtholics, better people,, many are wounded, but we can help them. Fight the good fight!....do not pay for contraception…. I’m sure you wont’... I pledge you my prayers.

The controversy over the Contraception Mandate seems to be missing what to me seem like fundamental points.  First is what should be covered by health care.  The reality on that is that what is included within health care coverage is ever evolving.  When I and my siblings were born, and in fact up to the late 1970s, the delivery of a baby was not covered by health insurance.  The full cost of the delivery was born by the parents, with no insurance coverage whatsoever.  That was changed by government mandate.  What that indicates is that these coverage mandates are really not about rights, but simply a matter of public policy.
Second, there seems to be serious confusion over the difference between a right and an entitlement.  Since Griswold in the early 1960s, there has been no debate that the use of contraception is an individual fundamental Constitutional right.  No one, whether Catholic bishops, Christian employers or anyone else, is suggesting that there should be a law prohibiting anyone from getting contraceptives if they so desire.  The debate seems to be whether the existence of a fundamental right creates a fundamental entitlement to have someone else pay for the exercise of that right.
The argument that the existence of a fundamental right leads to the requirement that someone else should pay seems on its face to be absurd.  Under the Second Amendment, I have the right to purchase and own firearms.  I doubt if anyone would seriously suggest that the government could mandate my employer to purchase firearms for me or cover the cost of firearms under the Second Amendment.  Yet, the many comments I have seen opposing the rights of religious organizations to not reimburse for certain contraceptive services are making that argument: How can the Catholic Church keep its employees from having access to contraceptives by not paying for them?  Just because it is a right does not mean someone else should be forced to pay for it.
Finally, is it wise or fair policy to provide free contraceptives?  Here, I look at the issue from my own personal health perspective.  I am a diabetic cancer survivor.  I am not overweight.  I exercise vigorously several hours a week.  I did not choose either cancer or diabetes.  In order to maintain my health, I need to take several medications and have several tests.  Under my health insurance, which is a very generous state provided plan, I still incur approximately $2000 a year in out-of-pockets to keep me healthy and out of the hospital.  Is it fair to require large co-pays for those who are managing chronic illnesses they did not choose or cause by lifestyle choices while mandating no out of pockets whatsoever to support lifestyle choices?
It is disappointing to me that Obamacare is diverting so much effort and resources over contraceptive mandates and litigation while the cost of healthcare incurred by the chronically ill continues to rise.

Those who want “contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs” can obtain them for themselves and not force anyone who objects to these so-called “healthcare” (which have nothing to do with “caring for health”) in paying for them. Read our Constitution’s first amendment: FREEDOM of RELIGION! If you are a pagan and want to live as one then pay for your pagan practices yourself.

Contraception, abortions, and sterilization procedures are no more health care than liposuction and face lifts.

If the mandate attacks ewtn’s ability to function, move it to another country like Canada.

Abortion and contraception are most certainly NOT healthcare.  Abortion always kills at least one person, and chemical contraception has many side effects, including strokes, depression, and later infertility, to name a few. Whether Catholic or non-Catholic, these are the facts.  The other issue is whether believers should be forced to pay for these deadly and harmful practices. Absolutely not!!

Thank you EWTN!  May God bless and forgive America.

Response to Grace, Friday, Feb 1, 2013 6:24 PM (EDT):
Has this issue now transitioned into the Obama Administration defining health care for the whole country?  Has this issue now revealled how the Obama Administration defines the first Admendment to the U.S. Constitution?  We all can see the lives of innocents killed in school shootings, why can we not see the lives of innocents killed by abortion-inducing drugs and abortions?

@Grace: contraception, sterilization and abortifacients are *not* health care and never were. They aren’t medically necessary to sustain human life. Rather, they take away human life. Regarding those too sick to carry infants, the decision to have intercourse or not is the time to decide, not after the child is conceived. It’s no longer just your body anymore. Remember, your rights to your body end where another persons rights begin.

Grace—the federal government is trying to tell Catholic organizations how they may exercise their faith.  EWTN is not trying to prevent the company you run from providing abortion and sterilization to your employees free of charge.  EWTN are trying to not have to do this themselves.
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Yes, HHS does say insurers “… would experience lower costs from improvements in women’s health and fewer childbirths.”
A healthy woman is fertile, except in opposite land where pregnancy is a disease and people are a plague.

50% of Catholics agree with Obama.  What a disgrace!!

It definitely is not “healthcare” and neither is giving money to Nascar or a Hollywood group but that also is in the HHS Mandate. The HHS Mandate is: “the Government wanting more control”. Obama wants this country to be like Europe or Canada. Rich Canadians come to the U.S. for their healthcare. Our healthcare will be just like theirs when Obama get through with us. You get what you pay for.
What I have always wondered, and no one has ever mentioned, is: who wrote the thousands of pages of the HHS Mandate? Who has read all of it? What else is in it? No one has ever answered these questions. [except Pelosi who said we will know what is in it when it passes and we still don’t]
As an elderly person, I resent FREE contraception, etc., free money to Nascar and others and yet most of us elderly cannot afford dental care, WHICH IS FOR OUT HEALTH. So, how concerned is Obama for healthcare…not at all…it is all CONTROL! [he wants young kids to stop having children out of wedlock with his birth control and he wants the elderly to die because they cannot chew their food}  ;o)  T’aint really funny people….a kind of euthanasia, maybe?
[no more unwanted babies and age limit on the elderly…....

Sad, yes; erroneous, no. This is a continuation of the vicious attack on the Catholic Church by an administration determined do away with any organization which it perceives as having authority which could interfere with its own intent to rule. It includes many who say they are Catholic.
complete31

Many people are puzzled by the Catholic Church’s teaching against contraception.

But, in a lot of ways the teaching makes sense.

For those who wish to learn more about the Church’s teaching on contraception, an excellent commentary and further resource links can be found here:

http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-catholic-church-opposes.html

You have my prayers EWTN.

pregnancy is not a disease.
Or, at least it did not used to be!!

Grace: no, they are not health care. Health care seeks to make a dysfunctional part of the body function normally. Contraceptive pills start with the backwards assumption that a healthy fertility is itself a problem to be fixed. Generally speaking, medicine restores functionality to a dysfunctional body part, whereas poison causes a healthy part of the body to stop functioning properly. That is what contraception does.

This has nothing to do with a papal bull or theology. It’s simple logic of what is or is not medicine. As a non-Catholic (who will be happy to be an RCIA candidate this fall), I must say that you can’t make a Catholics vs non-Catholics distinction here so monolithically.

To Grace:  “Has this issue now transitioned into Catholics defining health care for the rest of the country?” 
Why not?  After all, the President and HHS think they have the right to define what is religious.  Aside from the gross exaggeration and absurdity of just such a conclusion on your part, since when are Catholics therefore responsible to pay for abortion and contraception services for others, clearly defined as immoral by its doctrine.  There was a time when all of Christianity was on the same page.  Anyway, who put the hot poker in the eye whom?  Seems to me the Grand Inquisitors of old have become the Progressives of today.  You dare to not goose step follow our liberal doctrine, then we’ll MAKE you.  No doubt, so-called progressivism has become the religion of promoters of such malicious, malignant mandates, perhaps yourself included.

Grace raises an important point. If health care is defined as “prevention and treatment of disease”, then contraception (as contraception) is not a health care service—because pregnancy is a natural and healthy process. The Catholic Church is the largest single provider of health care in the world—and therefore has actively and positively defined what health care is for hundreds of years. In addition, the Catholic Church has always held that contraception (which has been around for 1000s of years) is intrinsically evil. Up until about 1930 all Christian religions were in agreement on this point of morality. This is no longer the case. But the Catholic Church hasn’t changed anything. Rather it is the other way around: other people are demanding that the Church change. Pardon the crass analogy, but it seems that a farmer’s pragmatic and calculating control of reproduction in his herds is similar to government’s view of contraceptives (and related practices like abortion and sterilization) as necessary for a society that has reduced sex to entertainment. Calling it “health care” is a euphemism not unlike calling the termination of an unborn child “a choice” or “a right”.

Grace, Birth control prevents pregnancy.  Pregnancy is not an illness nor is it a disease.  That’s why birth control is not health care.

Has this issue now transitioned into Catholics defining health care for the rest of the country?
—“Grace” (6:24 PM)

No it has not. Reality defines health care.  And in reality, “contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs” cure no diseases and do not improve health.  The science is settled on that.

Of course, Obama continues the Democrat War On Science so reality, science, and truth are only obstacles to him - not goals.

Catholics are not defining healthcare for the rest of the country. The country is redefining healthcare for everybody. What the Catholic Church IS reaffirming is the words of the US Declaration of Independece, ” and they are endowed by their Creator with certain INALIENABLE rights among them being LIFE, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness”. What part of this does the ” progressives” in our society and government not understand? Substituting moral obligation and responsibility with legislation seem so in vogue today. I seem to remember St. Augustine’s words,” Right is right, even if nobody is doing it, wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it!”  If it takes the Catholic Church, or any persons of good will and sanity to point out that abortion is the murder of the most vulnerable of human beings, then so be it. The forces of death will NEVER silence the voice of reason and morality no matter WHAT they might or might not “mandate”.

@grace: The items in question are no more “health care” than is a trip to a tattoo parlor. The goal of health care is to either maintain good health or treat poor health, and ethically, no treatment can be done at the expense of another individual’s life. This is not a Catholic issue, although as an institution, the Catholic Church is one of the few that understands this.

I don’t know if there are any other elderly on this blog, so I feel I should speak for them..I will be 86 yrs old in April…I am fortunate that I am not on any medication…so far.
@Diego Delosrobles: Many people think that the government takes care of the elderly through Medicare….I pay Medicare over 104.90 per month, (over 1,000 per yr) plus my supplemental insurance which is 210.30 per month (over 2,000 per yr.) So we elderly are not getting anything for nothing.
Next: I will never understand how Medicare bills the government. I have had pernicious anemia for 32 yrs and have had a B-12 injection every month and doing great. When I was young and my husband living and working & we had good insurance, that B-12 inj. cost 10.00, the ins. paid 8.00 and I paid 2.00. Today my doctor bills Medicare 73.00,for the shot; Medicare approves 22.75 and pays 18.20,(80%) my supplemental pays 4.55.  In other words, for my doctor to get 22.75 for the shot, he has to bill Medicare 73.00.
Leave it to the government to make a mountain out of a molehill.
This may be getting away from the subject of contraception, but it is in the HHS Mandate that Medicare coverage will be cut by quite a lot.
Also I do believe that most people on this blog realizes that if you are not Catholic and you believe in abortion, that is your liberty to do so, but the Catholic Church, and any Catholic Organization should not be liable to pay for anyone’s abortion or abortifacients through insurance because it is against our beliefs, and therefore against our religious freedom. That simple.

I see 4 categories of medical or medical-like activities.

1) Preventative: proactive (ex ante) care to reduce the incidence or probability of future illness or disease.  The new Obamacare rules require health insurance companies to cover preventative care at no copay, which will financially coerce the people to undertake preventative care, which is supposed to reduce disease rates.

2) Restorative: ex-post care to treat an illness or injury, to restore a person to original condition, or regular function.  Insurance covers this, with a copay.

3) Elective: Procedures to enhance or modify performance or appearance.  This includes most cosmetic surgeries.  Not covered by insurance.

I don’t see abortion or contraception fitting in to any of these categories.  An important point with category 1: do not conflate prevention of pregnancy with prevention of illness.  Pregnancy is not an illness.  As a compromise, contraception should at least be in category 2 although it should really be in Category 3.

God bless you, Mr. Warsaw, and the whole EWTN/National Catholic Register family! Your ministry is a blessing to SOOO many people, myself gratefully included. Keep up the Lord’s work!