{"id":7111,"date":"2012-01-21T18:57:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-22T02:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=7111"},"modified":"2012-01-23T19:01:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-24T03:01:47","slug":"obama-birth-control-mandate-is-final-catholic-bishops-vow-to-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/obama-birth-control-mandate-is-final-catholic-bishops-vow-to-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama: Birth Control Mandate is Final; Catholic Bishops Vow to Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Archbishop
Archbishop Timothy Dolan<\/figcaption><\/figure> by Kathleen Gilbert –<\/p>\n

After being deluged with complaints from outraged religious groups, Obama\u2019s health department has dug in its heels, saying its decision to force employers to provide abortifacient birth control drugs will continue as planned – although faith-based groups will be given a year reprieve. In response, U.S. Catholic bishops have not minced words, vowing to fight the order as \u201cliterally unconscionable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Friday that faith-based entities like hospitals and universities will have until August 1, 2013 to provide employees with free birth control as part of their insurance packages. The mandate will also force such groups to pay for sterilizations and, because the FDA has approved abortifacient drugs such as Ella as \u201ccontraception.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mandate is being implemented as part of the new health care legislation that was passed in March 2010 despite vigorous opposition from U.S. Catholic bishops, who called it dangerously open to being used as a means of spreading abortion. <\/p>\n

NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation\u2019s top abortion lobby, immediately celebrated the announcement and called on abortion supporters to thank the administration for defeating \u201ca pressure campaign from anti-contraception groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith your help, we stood up to the large, well-funded groups that tried to put their anti-contraception beliefs ahead of women\u2019s health,\u201d NARAL president Nancy Keenan told supporters in an email. \u201cWe also kept the pressure on the Obama administration, and, clearly, our message was heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, indicated that the Catholic Church would not go down without a fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,\u201d said Dolan.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other faith-based groups reacted in dismay, with many seeing the decision as equivalent to the administration declaring war on religious groups that oppose the drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the greatest irony, that by worshiping the cult of \u2018choice\u2019 the Obama Administration has determined that religious organizations lack the freedom to act in fidelity to their beliefs,\u2019\u201d said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society, a Catholic university watchdog group. \u201cThe White House has sold the First Amendment for a few pennies of political support from the ACLU and the abortion lobby.\u201d CNS has noted that several Catholic universities have already spoken up in protest against the coming mandate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Obama Administration cannot respect the First Amendment of the Constitution, then we must take this fight to the courts and win,\u201d Reilly said.<\/p>\n

The press office of the USCCB didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) said it was \u201cdeeply disappointed\u201d in the decision. \u201cThe HHS rules trample on our most cherished freedoms and set a dangerous precedent,\u201d said Galen Carey, NAE Vice President for Government Relations.<\/p>\n

NAE notes that, if the unprecedentedly narrow \u201creligious exemption\u201d to the mandate is allowed to remain, it may be adopted in other areas of law, leading to further erosion of conscience protections.<\/p>\n

HT: LifeSiteNews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Kathleen Gilbert – After being deluged with complaints from outraged religious groups, Obama\u2019s health department has dug in its heels, saying its decision to force employers to provide abortifacient birth control drugs will continue as planned – although faith-based groups will be given a year reprieve. In response, U.S. Catholic bishops have not minced … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113,133,142,15,24,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-persecution","category-leftist-hypocrisy","category-leftist-tyranny","category-moral-issues","category-religion-in-america","category-roman-catholic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}