WASHINGTON — Health-insurance plans must provide birth control and surgical sterilization as “preventive care” for women, with no co-pays, according to a directive issued Monday by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, pro-life groups and religious-freedom advocates immediately criticized the Aug. 1 decision, expressing alarm about its narrow exemptions for religious groups, and calling on supporters to back a bill before Congress that would strengthen exemptions for employers who oppose surgical sterilizations and contraception.
“Although this new rule gives the agency the discretion to authorize a ‘religious’ exemption, it is so narrow as to exclude most Catholic social-service agencies and health-care providers,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
“For example, under the new rule, our institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics,” Cardinal DiNardo noted in a published statement.
Marie Hilliard, director of bioethics and public policy at The National Catholic Bioethics Center, expressed dismay at the “apparent utter disregard for the protection of conscience exhibited in the final regulations, implementing the rules for group health plans and health-insurance coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
“Every insured, insurer, employer and policy implementer included under the health-care reform mandates would be coerced into cooperating through insurance premiums, tax dollars or through actualizing policy mandates in these state-driven and ideologically based violations of a true understanding of human reproduction,” said Hilliard.
“These regulations reflect an utter disregard for the foundational principle of the very government promulgating them, that is, that conscience is sacrosanct. We are left to ask, When did we lose the respect for conscience which drove the very founding of our country?” she added.
Unanswered Questions
The HHS guidelines were slated to be released on Aug. 1, and religious organizations and pro-life groups had already taken note of troubling signs that the federal government would ignore their moral concerns and approve new directives that might force Catholic institutions to close their doors or end medical benefits for their employees, as some agencies have done.
Still, Church organizations and pro-life groups scrambled to issue a timely response to the new standards, and acknowledged that several key questions had not been answered. For example, the HHS statement noted that the department would consider comments about religious freedom and conscience issues — even as HHS noted that the deadline for comments had passed.
Further, while the new standards will take effect in January 2013, health plans that do not already provide such services may not have to provide them for some time — at least until the plan undergoes some changes.
Meanwhile, even as some medical experts noted that “free” contraceptives would not effectively stem the problem of unintended pregnancies, federal authorities promised to promote the new services to increase awareness that they were available.
In his public statement, Cardinal DiNardo expressed the frustration of many bishops who had initially applauded efforts to expand health coverage to an estimated 30 million uninsured patients — until concerns about the funding of abortion under the proposed health bill prompted their opposition.
“Could the federal government possibly intend to pressure Catholic institutions to cease providing health care, education and charitable services to the general public? Health-care reform should expand access to basic health care for all, not undermine that goal,” said the cardinal.
The administration backed the new standards as a breakthrough for women.“These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need,” said Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, in a published statement.
That argument was embraced by family-planning groups. In a fundraising letter, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, told supporters:
“It’s a sweet victory, but we need your help with one more thing. For the next 60 days, HHS is accepting public comments on their ruling, as well as a proposal that would allow some religious employers to deny women access to this vital health-care service.” In the letter, Richards urged supporters to ask HHS to block the exemptions: “Tell them that you wholeheartedly support no-co-pay birth control and that all women, regardless of their employer or insurer, should have access to birth control if they want or need it. “
Religious Exemption
But Catholic coalitions and pro-life groups charge that the administration’s approach to establishing the contraception mandates ignored their concerns, while giving priority to family-planning groups like Planned Parenthood, which was formally invited to participate in public hearings that reviewed expert testimony on proposals for mandated services. USCCB representatives at the hearings sought to challenge the suggestion that “pregnancy was a disease” and thus required “preventive services.”
Monday’s statement from the U.S. bishops noted that the full range of contraceptives approved by the FDA that would be available without any co-pay included “drugs which can attack a developing unborn child before and after implantation in the mother’s womb.”
For religious-freedom experts, the HHS directives reflect a disturbing legislative and legal trend that increasingly seeks to exclude Church-affiliated organizations that serve nonbelievers as well as Catholics. In recent cases involving Catholic Charities in California and New York, religious exemptions have been limited to programs that exclude nonbelievers. Subsequently, religious-freedom advocates were dismayed when the Supreme Court declined to consider appeals.
The HHS rule “contains a feeble religious exemption that protects only institutions that employ and serve members of their own faith. It offers no protection for the vast majority of religious schools, hospitals and charities that are open to all, as if teaching children, healing the sick and feeding the hungry weren’t religious practices. And it does nothing to protect individual believers,” said Seamus Hasson of the Becket Fund, which provides legal counsel on religious-freedom cases.
“By offering religious exemptions only to organizations that do not reach out to the world, Secretary Sebelius may not have cured the common conscience, but she has certainly done her best to quarantine it,” said Hasson.
He echoed Cardinal DiNardo’s call for Catholics to back the passage of the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179), introduced by Reps. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., and Dan Boren, D-Okla. The legislation would “prevent mandates under the new health-reform law from undermining rights of conscience.”
Cardinal DiNardo stated that the “administration’s failure to create a meaningful conscience exemption to the preventive-services mandate underscores the need for Congress to approve the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act.”
Register senior editor Joan Frawley Desmond writes from Chevy Chase, Maryland.
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Does Catholic charities support President Obama’s contraception mandate?
I can understand the Catholic Church and their stand against abortion..I do not see how the use of a contraceptive that prevents ovulation can be considered immoral. The egg is not fertilized because there is no egg present during intercourse. Here is why I object to The Catholic Hierarchy’s teaching on birth control.One: They are not against birth control as long as it is the rhythm method and/or abstinence.Two: Their ruling places women’s health at risk. In the statement by Catholic Bishops upon President Obama’s implementing that provision in The Affordable Care Act (which he has to do because Congress passes the laws and the President MUST carry them out under the Constitution)they do not believe pregnancy and/or its prevention is a health issue. This is absolutely not true. Ovarian Cysts (life threatening), endometriosis, debilitating menstrual cramps, the prevention of pregnancy that places a woman’s health at risk or the child(diseased hearts, cancer with chemo and radiation therapy, parents carrying known genetic defects that could be passed to a child),women that have had difficult births requiring reconstructive surgery due to damage to the bladder and anal areas, women with the RH negative blood factor, fallopian tube pregnancies (life threatening.)..While women of the Catholic faith may be willing to risk their health to follow the teaching of the church..it should not be forced upon her and is especially harmful to women in third world countries.Why can’t the Catholic Hierarchy okay birth control methods/meds as long as it is not harming/eliminating a fertilized egg. They did away with fish on Friday and a woman having to cover her head during Mass. Can a women receive absolution if she uses birth control to reduce the risk to her health?
No business should be forced to provide anything at “no charge.”
Like I said one must change hearts and believe in the culture of Life Pax Tom
Don’t like gay marriage; don’t get one
Don’t like cigarettes; don’t smoke them
Don’t like abortions; don’t get one
Don’t like sex; don’t have it
Don’t like drugs; don’t do them
Don’t like porn; don’t watch it
Don’t like alcohol; don’t drink it
Don’t like guns; don’t buy one
Don’t like your rights taken away????????? Don’t take away someone elses
Don’t like contraceptives; don’t use them and leave health care and health insurance alone.
As I posted else where, a lot of Catholics in the U.S. use contraceptives:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,869536,00.html
Why not ask some of them if they don’t want their insurance to help pay for it?
Lroy I agree , however if the choice is ffered say no. We must change peoples hearts. God Bless Pax Tom
Unfortunately, my health insurance already covers birth control and sterilization (no opt-out). All the major insurances have it whether you like it or not. I have too many health issues to drop policy.
What we all can do is simply refuse such treatment. Perhaps if we didn’t take advantage of “free preventative care” it wouldn’t matter if the policy has it or not because no one would use it.
I cant get my asprine covered and now I have to pay for contraceptives ?
Well, this is really the change that I didnt vote for - Oblablablablabla.
For those who may not be aware, the first irony in these guidelines is that coverage for “contraceptives” is being mandated in a policy that purports to promote “health.” A recent and well-regarded study in fact found that recent use of oral contraceptives is the biggest risk factor for all breast cancers, and, after age and family history, early or recent use of oral contraceptives (along with abortion) is the biggest risk factor for triple negative breast cancer - the most serious variety. I don’t know how one can avoid concluding that promoting oral contraceptives is tantamount to shooting oneself in the foot if breast cancer is something that the government wishes to reduce. (Though neither breast cancer nor artificial contraception would be considered problematic if simply reducing the population is the primary goal.)
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/18/4/1157.full (see Table 1)
Must I remind all that this is aCatholic website and the position is always the culture of life. Pax Tom
Why is the RCC docrine (that is IGNORED by most members - LOL) in any way relevant to the HC coverage of NON-catholics?
It is NONE of your business.
The Americans were quick to acuse China over its treatment of groups like the Falun Gong. Now China will have good reason to accuse the US of being a Human Rights abuser if it tramples on the religious Rights of its citizens.
To all Above, Yes, this is a Catholic website; however, each follower of any faith stands before God one day, not before a blogger. I applaud a government who finally will give women some healthcare coverage that is long overdue. What the government of the people, for the people and by the people is trying to do is foster a health-Care environment for all. Whichever side you support, you can do more than blog; you can write your representatives.
God Bless you Kathie, you are brave and right stick to your values as a good Doctor. No one should make you violate your pro life position. Life is the only choice all others are a compromise to that or simply death
Pax
Tom
AS a prolife physician, I suppose that rather than being denied positions because of my religious beliefs (and people wouldn’t believe how often that happens!) I will now be fired.
TO WPRjr you sound like someone who would have been part of the National Socialist party of Germany or perhaps active during Chinas cultural revolution. The Church is always pro life
When will the Bishops ever learn…“You can’t dance with the devil”? Unless you follow Christ to Calvary, you are not his disciple.
wprjr you sound like someone I heard once in the cultural revolution of China perhaps the National Socilist under Adolf show us some love Pax Tom PS this is a Catholic web site ??? did you know
...long over due. The major problem confronting the world is overpopulation. All other problems cascade from overpopulation. Look at the geography of the world 100 to 150 years ago, and compare it with today. All the harbors of the world are polluted, world population will reach 7 billion this fall, people are starving, inadequate health care(and people on this blog have the moxie to dispute health-care in this country),climate change,disposal of refuse, disease resistant bacteria…but what do we get from an anachronistic religion; resistance to population control, stem cell research, obstruction to same sex marriage. As Carl Sagan, so well stated, religion is the main obstacle to progress and enlightenment. Now as we run out of real estate, and true issues of ‘simply too many people’, no politician would dare honestly delve into this…too many nut cases and other irresponsible groups would prevent the election. We act and think like all this is for us, the hell with wild life and the environment. Are we populating heaven or populating hell. It takes no brains to procreate; all life does it. It takes brains to prevent the mindless corruption of the planet by overpopulation. In the 1890s we had the robber barons and the know-nothings…that is what is being reinstituded with the likes of the Tea Party and organized religion.
It seems pretty transparent to me: 2012 is coming. Planned Parenthood and groups like it are possibly this administration’s only hope. A desperate power grab.
Does anybody believe that Hitler is really dead? His “legacy” is here with the evil one: Obama. It won’t be too much longer when Obama will be in full charge of your lives. How many of our bishops from the last 50 years will need to answer to Jesus for their ungodly actions/inactions? We need to impeach and imprison Obama now!! Wake up America. +JMJ+
Well, all the Catholics who heard the man say “Yes we can!!” and thought they were voting for social justice nirvana, State-style, are getting exactly what they deserve. Actually, I’d bet that many of those who voted for the man are secretly thrilled that this latest State intrusion is in place, though their public pronouncements may come out otherwise.
If you voted for Obama, and you’re shocked, shame,shame. Those of us from Illinois WARNED you about this man. You chose instant gratification and the “candy man” to anyone with the courage to speak out from a moralistic point of view.
Oh,and, as to complaining to the HHS…good luck with that. Kathleen Sibelius is Catholic..and no bishop dares stand up to her, or any of the other powerful and elite in Washington.
We have brought this on ourselves. GOD help us.
Does anyone know where and how to contact legislators about the freedom of conscience act? I’d like to contact them about it.
I read about this regulatory decision in the AM newspapers. The WaPo reported “just the facts” in about 3 sentences with the rest of about 10 column inches in praise. The WSJ was more balanced. When I read it, my first reaction was “What about me, a man?”. Do I get condoms, vacs,etc free? My second reaction - will this cause the USCCB to finally get out of bed with the Democratic Party? I knew this was coming when health care was nationalized. Why not the bishops?
c matt, eliminating employer-provided coverage could be a good effect of this measure, since that helps put people more in touch with the cost of their care and thereby helps put downward pressure on the cost of health care services in general. But of course if the plans available on the individual market must also provide coverage for artificial contraception and sterilization, the economic benefits are outweighed by the moral (and to some degree economic) costs.
I suppose one way around it for employers (but most likely, only small employers) would be to do away with healthcare coverage altogether, and simply give employees the money in wages that would have been spent on premiums. Teh employees could then either decide to purchase coverage on the open market (which would probably contain these requirements) or put the extra wages nto a health care savings account and bypass the insurance industry altogether. Perhaps a voluntary co-op of sorts could be formed, but at some point insurance regulators would likely come in. Can’t have people doing things on their own without the gubmint in control.
How does one contact HHS to say we disagree with all this? I’m on their website but can’t find anywhere to comment on this issue?
To those who supported Obama and the government takeover of healthcare, this development should come as a shock, not with elation, for any government that can mandate that coverage be provided can also mandate that coverages be omitted. As our nation heads further down the road of fiscal insolubility, many things considered normal to have will become extreme luxuries, not the least of which will be affordable healthcare for all. To those of the episcopy in America who aided the passage of this legislation which now forces employers (of which I am one) to provide this benefit which is morally objectionable: are we, who must provide this, now in the position of committing a perpetual mortal sin, from which we can not extricate ourselves? Since there is little likelihood that any conscience exemption will be provided for private employers who provide health coverage for their employees, it seems like we will go to our graves knowing that we were the cause of the death of many. To say that this bothers me greatly, expresses it too little. And how long will it be before this administration (or any other that comes after it) decides that abortion is a right and it must be covered as well? What recourse do we have now? God help us all.
I want to know if the Catholic Church could use this issue to sue the Federal Government in regards to the interference of practice of Religion? At the same time could they claim contraception and abortion as unconstitutional in the first place? IS there a way, somehow to use this opportunity to strike down Roe vs. Wade?
As Archbishop Chaput so aptly noted “If we claim to be Catholic, then American Catholics, including public officials who describe themselves as Catholic, need to act accordingly. We need to put an end to Roe and the industry of permissive abortion it enables. Otherwise all of us - from senators and members of Congress, to Catholic laypeople in the pews - fail not only as believers and disciples, but also as citizens.” One thing should now be perfectly clear to those 54 percent of Catholics who voted for Barrack Obama and Joe Biden; at best these Catholics bought into the moral relativism argument where Obama’s professed opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and his advocacy of affordable universal health care insurance all polished with the chrome of hope and change outweighed his historic support for the abortion industry, planned parenthood, LGBT & homosexual marriage etc.
Well you can put idealistic social justice things into a pot and make a fine and wholesome soup and such soup recipes are in general fairly forgiving but there is an old Polish Proverb which roughly translated says: Do not pee in the soup! Two years into his term these progressives now have quite a different soup to swallow; with the extra Libyan War there are 3 wars ongoing; with ObamaCare we have the de facto obliteration of conscience clauses everywhere, fully funded RU486, the end of the Mexico City Policy, full knowledge of the fact that first and foremost Mr. Obama is unabashedly and unashamedly wholly on the side of the abortion industry and has done more than any other American politician to advance the culture of death. While there may have been an excuse for hope that there would be change in his behavior Mr. Obama has unmasked his “above my pay grade” agenda. Everyone now knows that Obama has and will pee in the soup and the Health Department needs to close him down. Every Bishop in every Diocese should make it perfectly clear to every Catholic that there are certain things that ARE beyond the pale. The “bundling” of social justice issues with the pee of abortion and the murder of conscience clauses is beyond the Pale.
The fruits of the government taking over healthcare. This is a sad day for Catholic charities in the US.
Is there any way to see this as anything but a blatant attempt to drive a wedge between religious organizations and the American public?
Obamacare is confirming to the American people what this diabolical act promised back in 2009. What’s amazing to me is how Obama got the public endorsement from Sr. Carol Keehan of Catholic Health Services which was in defiance of the USCCB. According to polls, Obamacare got a 50-50 Catholic vote. Catholics have a chance to over turn this Diabolical Act come 2012 if they can let go of their hardcore allegiance to the Marxist Democrat Party and vote Pro-Life.
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