They don't want to comply, fine. Then let them be deprived of all government monies, and their tax exempt status, if they wish to function free of either government control or privileged status.
Catholic outcry over Obama administration's birth control decision could be factor in presidential race
By James Rosen
February 06, 2012
FoxNews.com
Catholic pulpits and pews are increasingly inflamed with talk of a war on religion after the Obama administration's recent decision on employers' birth control coverage.
“There can be no doubt that religious liberty in our country is in jeopardy,” Monsignor W. Ronald Jameson warned on Saturday from inside Washington’s historic Cathedral of St. Matthew. “This is the time to speak up. This is the time for all voices to be heard.”
Jameson’s dire warning to the Catholic faithful was focused on the controversial ruling that President Obama made last week, mandating that all employers, as part of the 2010 health care overhaul, must cover in full the cost of female contraception. The Roman Catholic Church, as a matter of doctrine, opposes the use of birth control.
In an op-ed published Monday in USA Today, the president’s top health official, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, defended the ruling as striking the right balance between respecting religious freedom and providing critical health services to women.
“This is not an easy issue,” Sebelius wrote, adding that the Obama administration had taken pains to make allowances for the church. “We specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith. This exemption includes churches and other houses of worship, and could also include other church-affiliated organizations.”
In a rebuttal editorial published on the same day, however, USA Today condemned the rule as “bad policy and bad politics.” If enacted, the paper’s editors said, Catholic-run institutions that employ diverse populations “would be put in the impossibly awkward position of facilitating contraception even though the church teaches that it is ‘intrinsically wrong.’”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney also noted the exemption, but told reporters Monday: “Those institutions where women of all faiths, many faiths work need to have the same kind of coverage that all other American women have.”
Leading Catholics and other religious figures pointed out that large Catholic-affiliated organizations – schools and colleges, hospitals, charities and the like – employ tens of thousands of people of all religious faiths, and as such will not qualify for the administration’s exemption. The White House and HHS, in turn, have granted such organizations an extra year to come into compliance with the rule.
On the campaign trail, the Republican presidential candidates have turned the issue into a rallying cry. Front-runner Mitt Romney on Monday used Twitter to appeal to Catholic voters and link them to a petition his campaign crafted. “If you've had enough of the Obama Administration's attacks on religious liberty,” Romney tweeted, “stand with me & sign the petition.”
That was mild compared with the strong medicine doled out by Newt Gingrich. “The Obama administration has declared war on religious freedom in this country,” the former House speaker sternly told reporters in a news conference in Las Vegas on Saturday night. “This is a decision so totally outrageous, an illustration of such radical secular ideology, that I believe [the church’s] hierarchy will oppose it every inch of the way.”
In an interview with Fox News religion correspondent Lauren Green, John Garvey, the president of Catholic University of America, framed the issue more charitably. “I don’t think that this is a case of the government as out to get religious institutions, as though they’re the focus of its attack. It's more a kind of lack of concern or appreciation for real religious concerns and values,” Garvey said.
“It shows an attitude on the government's part that religion is something we'll protect if it's just happening in church on Sunday, or in the mosque on Friday, but if it has to do with your daily activity or the life you want to lead, it's not something we want to protect.”
What remains uncertain is whether President Obama, who won the Catholic vote in 2008 by a 9 percentage-point margin, will pay a political price for the ruling this coming November.
Even if Gingrich’s prediction of robust opposition from the church hierarchy proves true – and the nationwide spate of sermons devoted to the topic over the last two weekends suggests it will – the predilections of ordinary Catholic parishioners appear more difficult to gauge. Polling conducted by the Pew Research Center has found Catholics as evenly divided over the legality of abortion, for example, as the rest of the country.
However, the importance of the Catholic vote cannot be underestimated. Of the 68 million Catholics in America, roughly 35 million voted in 2008, accounting for 27 percent of the total electorate. And a review of data from seven battleground states – Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin – shows Catholics comprising roughly one-quarter or more of the electorate in each.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/06/catholic-outcry-over-obama-administrations-birth-control-decision-could-be/print#ixzz1lfEWTlCL
Chicago Tribune, December 9, 2005:
BOSTON — Gov. Mitt Romney abandoned plans Thursday to exempt Roman Catholic and other private hospitals from a new law requiring them to dispense emergency contraception to rape victims.
Romney had initially backed regulations proposed earlier this week by his public health commissioner, Paul Cote, who said the new law conflicted with an older law barring the state from forcing private hospitals to dispense contraceptive devices or information.
The Republican governor, who is considering a run for president in 2008, said at a news conference Thursday morning that he asked his legal advisers to review the matter after members of both parties criticized the regulations. He said the lawyers determined that the new law superseded the old law and that all hospitals should be required to offer the so-called “morning-after pill.”
“On that basis I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view,” Romney said.
“I think it’s, in my personal view, it’s the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape,” he added.
The new law takes effect Dec. 14. Passed this summer by the Legislature, the law states that the pill must be available to “each female rape victim.”
CENTENNIAL, Colo. – With the U.S. economy improving, Mitt Romney is expanding his focus to other areas of attack against President Obama, and on Monday honed in on a social issue – contraception – that he has rarely discussed on the stump.
At a high school in Centennial, a Denver suburb, Romney took aim at recent regulations requiring women’s contraceptive services to be covered by insurance policies under the Affordable Care Act. The Catholic Church had sought a broad exemption for the many Catholic institutions in the country to recognize its canonical opposition to artificial birth control. Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services excluded only “religious employers” that primarily employ members of their own faith communities.
The exception protects those who work directly for Catholic churches, but not Catholic universities, hospitals or social-service agencies. Catholic bishops are pushing back on the issue, contending with some telling their parishes to "defend the faith” while others say they won’t comply with it.
Although the White House has sought to point out that the policy does not require individuals to use or prescribe contraception, Romney charged it was an example of President Obama's war on religious liberty.
“Think what that does to people in faiths that do not share those views; this is a violation of conscience,” he said. “We must have a president who is willing to protect America's first right, our right to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.”
He added, “The Creator gave every human being his rights. I’m just distressed as I watch our president try and infringe upon our rights. The First Amendment of the Constitution provides the right to worship in the way of our own choice."
The Obama campaign swiftly took issue with Romney's remarks, noting that since 2002 -- when Romney became Massachusetts’ governor – the state has required health plans to cover contraception on the same terms as other outpatient services, and offered the same religious exemption as the Obama administration.
“It's the ultimate hypocrisy that Mitt Romney is hitting the president for the same birth control policy he oversaw and protected as governor," Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, said in a statement. "The problem for him is that women are on to him. The trust of voters is priceless in elections, and unfortunately for him it can’t be bought.”
Romney has never used such strong language talking about reproductive issues on the stump, and has generally avoided the topic in public. During a January debate, Romney brushed aside a question about whether he would support a state ban on the sale of contraceptive drugs and devices as a "silly" non-issue.
A Romney aide said the reason the subject was raised Monday because it was part of current events. The aide referenced an editorial in the Washington Examiner earlier in the week, in which Romney wrote: “My own view is clear. I stand with the Catholic bishops and all religious organizations in their strenuous objection to this liberty- and conscience-stifling regulation."
Catholic leaders and the GOP presidential candidates have intentionally distorted the Obama administration’s new rule requiring employers and insurers to provide reproductive health benefits at no additional cost sharing. Conservatives are seeking a way to politically unite Republican voters around a social issue and portray the regulation as a big government intrusion into religious liberties. In reality, the mandate is modeled on existing rules in six states, exempts houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of faith, and offers employers a transitional period of one year to determine how best to comply with the rule.
It’s also nothing new. Twenty-eight states already require organizations that offer prescription insurance to cover contraception and since 98 percent of Catholic women use birth control, many Catholic institutions offer the benefit to their employees. For instance, a Georgetown University spokesperson told ThinkProgress yesterday that employees “have access to health insurance plans offered and designed by national providers to a national pool. These plans include coverage for birth control.”
Similarly, an informal survey conducted by Our Sunday Visitor found that many Catholic colleges have purchased insurance plans that provide contraception benefits:
University of Scranton, for example, appears to specifically cover contraception. The University of San Francisco offers employees two health plans, both of which cover abortion, contraception and sterilization…Also problematic is the Jesuit University of Scranton. One of its health insurance plans, the First Priority HMO, lists a benefit of “contraceptives when used for the purpose of birth control.”
DePaul University in Chicago covers birth control in both its fully insured HMO plan and its self-insured PPO plan and excludes “elective abortion,” said spokesman John Holden, adding that the 1,800 employee-university responded to a complaint from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission several years ago and added artificial contraception as a benefit to its Blue Cross PPO.
Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn., offers employee health insurance via the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, a consortium of Christian Bible and other private college and universities. Its plan excludes abortion, but probably covers artificial contraception as a prescription drug, said C. Gregg Conroy, the executive director of the TICUA Benefit Consortium.
Boston College, the six former Caritas Christi Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, and other Catholic organizations that are located in one of the 28 states that already require employers to provide contraception benefits could have self-insured or stopped offering prescription drug coverage to avoid the mandate — but didn’t do so. Instead, they — like many Catholic hospitals and health care insurers around the country — chose to meet the needs of the overwhelming majority of Catholic women and offer these much needed services.
The rule would not compel Catholics to violate their consciences. It would not mandate that Catholics use the coverage to apply to anything that would violate their religious beliefs or consciences.
I find this analogy, offered by Michael Brendan Dougherty, flawed and misleading.
To mandate that a Kosher deli serve pork, would effectively exclude the main group of consumers the deli was created to serve--those who follow dietary laws and who could not dine in non-Kosher eating establishments. It would be exclusionary and disadvantaging to this entire group. Those who wish to eat pork, are not disadvantaged by the fact they cannot obtain pork in a Kosher deli, they free to eat elsewhere where that menu item can be found.
Catholic leaders begin birth control fight with White House
(United Press International, February 7, 2012)
Catholic leaders said they will challenge the Obama administration over a provision in the U.S. healthcare law that requires employers to pay for birth control.
The leaders said they would rally the nation's 70 million Catholic voters to stop enforcement of the provision that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charitable organizations to buy birth control pills and morning-after drugs and provide coverage for sterilization for their employees, WCBS-TV, New York, reported Monday.
"Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church," Catholic League leader Bill Donohue said.
Donohue said he thought the matter would be "fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets."
But supporters of the provision said they'll go against the church and back the rights of employees at Catholic entities to have birth control and other services paid for by their employers.
"The Catholic hierarchy seems to be playing a cynical game of chicken and they don't seem to care that the health and well-being of millions of American women are what's at stake here," National Abortion Rights Action League President Andrea Miller told WCBS.
WCBS said it was told U.S. bishops were considering a march on Washington, bringing in people from across the country to protest the law.
New surveys: Catholics want birth control coverage
By Cathy Lynn Grossman,
USA TODAY
Feb 07, 2012
Pundits and bishops warn President Obama he could lose the white Catholic vote over requiring a contraception option for insurance plans. But Catholic women say they want birth control covered in employee health plans.
The pivot point is how you see this. Is it a battle over birth control -- used by 98% of U.S. women at some time in their lives -- or over government intrusion into the right of religious organizations to live by their teachings?
The Catholic bishops, backed by conservative evangelicals, say the Obama administration shouldn't include contraception coverage as part of free preventive care options in employers' health insurance plans.
Hence the showdown: As our editorial Monday says, religious liberties fight or, as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says, a free choice issue.
And here's where the Catholic women come in. According to the Public Religion Research Institute poll released today,
A majority (55%) of Americans agree that "employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost." Four-in-ten (40%) disagree with this requirement.
Key breakdowns
•58% of all Catholics agree employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception. That slides down to 52% for Catholic voters, 50% for white Catholics.
•61% of religiously unaffiliated Americans say employer plans should cover contraception.
•50%of white mainline Protestants want the coverage. However, for evangelical Protestants, that drops to 38%.
And perhaps of greater note among election-watchers:
Women are significantly more likely than men to agree that employers should be required to provide health care plans that cover contraception (62% vs. 47% respectively).
A second poll, also released today from Public Policy Polling, has similar findings. This poll, conducted at the request of Planned Parenthood, finds
...a majority of voters, including a majority of Catholics, don't believe Catholic hospitals and universities should be exempted from providing the benefit.
...Independent voters support this benefit by a 55/36 margin; in fact, a majority of voters in every racial, age and religious category that we track express support. In particular, a 53 percent majority of Catholic voters, who were oversampled as part of this poll, favor the benefit, including fully 62 percent of Catholics who identify themselves as independents.
Of course, no church takes its doctrines from public opinion polling, so these polls will have no impact on the views from bishops who see requiring contraception coverage, as Sister Mary Ann Walsh memorably commented, like requiring a Jewish deli to sell pork chops.
But the numbers might bring pause to pundits mulling the "Catholic vote."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2012/02/contraception-catholic-bishops-obama-hhs/1
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most health insurance plans will cover women’s preventive services, including contraception, without charging a co-pay or deductible beginning in August, 2012. This new law will save money for millions of Americans. But more importantly, it will ensure Americans nationwide get the high-quality care they need to stay healthy. Under this policy, women who want contraception will have access to it through their insurance without paying a co-pay or deductible. But no one will be forced to buy or use contraception.
On January 20th, Secretary Sebelius announced that certain religious organizations including churches would be exempt from paying their insurers to cover contraception. Other religious organizations, including those that employ people of different faiths, can qualify for a one-year transition period as they prepare to comply with the new law. In recent days, there has been some confusion about how this policy affects religious institutions. We want to make sure you have the facts:
Churches are exempt from the new rules: Churches and other houses of worship will be exempt from the requirement to offer insurance that covers contraception.
No individual health care provider will be forced to prescribe contraception: The President and this Administration have previously and continue to express strong support for existing conscience protections. For example, no Catholic doctor is forced to write a prescription for contraception.
No individual will be forced to buy or use contraception: This rule only applies to what insurance companies cover. Under this policy, women who want contraception will have access to it through their insurance without paying a co-pay or deductible. But no one will be forced to buy or use contraception.
Drugs that cause abortion are not covered by this policy: Drugs like RU486 are not covered by this policy, and nothing about this policy changes the President’s firm commitment to maintaining strict limitations on Federal funding for abortions. No Federal tax dollars are used for elective abortions.
Over half of Americans already live in the 28 States that require insurance companies cover contraception: Several of these States like North Carolina, New York, and California have identical religious employer exemptions. Some States like Colorado, Georgia and Wisconsin have no exemption at all.
Contraception is used by most women: According to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, most women, including 98 percent of Catholic women, have used contraception.
Contraception coverage reduces costs: While the monthly cost of contraception for women ranges from $30 to $50, insurers and experts agree that savings more than offset the cost. The National Business Group on Health estimated that it would cost employers 15 to 17 percent more not to provide contraceptive coverage than to provide such coverage, after accounting for both the direct medical costs of potentially unintended and unhealthy pregnancy and indirect costs such as employee absence and reduced productivity.
The Obama Administration is committed to both respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventive services. And as we move forward, our strong partnerships with religious organizations will continue. The Administration has provided substantial resources to Catholic organizations over the past three years, in addition to numerous non-financial partnerships to promote healthy communities and serve the common good. This work includes partnerships with Catholic social service agencies on local responsible fatherhood programs and international anti-hunger/food assistance programs. We look forward to continuing this important work.
USCCB Spokesman: Hawaii Bill 'Not Much of a Compromise' to Fix Contraception Mandate
(by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND, National Catholic Register, 02/07/2012)
As religious groups maintain their drumbeat of opposition to the new federal rule mandating contraception coverage for all private employer health plans, some commentators have identified Hawaii’s bill as a possible “compromise” that could address criticism.
But a key official in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says the Hawaii bill — repeatedly cited in media commentary — would not resolve the conference’s concerns and would, in any case, be overridden by the federal rule.
“I’ve reviewed the Hawaii law, and it’s not much of a compromise,” said Richard Doerflinger of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities and the bishops’ chief lobbyist on life issues in the nation’s capital. “The Hawaii contraceptive mandate has many of the same features as the new federal mandate.”
Like the federal rule, he said, the Hawaii bill “covers all FDA-approved ‘contraceptives’ (including drugs that can cause an abortion); and the religious exemption is very narrow (though it does not include the requirement that the religious organization serve only people of its own faith to be eligible).
“It adds an extra feature — the requirement that any religious organization that is exempt must still tell all enrollees how they may directly access contraceptive services and supplies in an expeditious manner.”
In other words, the Catholic Church must directly send women to drugs and devices that are morally wrong and can do harm to them.
Doerflinger also raised an additional concern about the federal rule that has received little attention: Catholic institutions will be required to make referrals for services the Church deems morally illicit.
“From the Obama administration’s press release of Jan. 20, it seems this referral requirement is about to be added to the federal mandate, actually making it worse,” he said.
Hannah Smith, the senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said her public-interest group was still evaluating the Hawaii bill. “We are looking into the Hawaii issue more deeply,” said Smith. “The Hawaii plan sounds better than the federal mandate. Still, many employers may continue to object to being forced to tell people about ‘alternate ways’ they can violate Church teaching. As I understand it, the Hawaii plan would force religious employers to tell people where else they could get these drugs and services, which is objectionable as government-forced speech.”
A number of commentators — on television shows and on newspaper editorial pages — have cited the Hawaii bill as a workable solution, accommodating the administration’s desire to increase access to contraception while addressing the concerns of religious groups.
In his widely linked column that criticized the controversial federal rule as “botched,” E.J. Dionne, a self-identified liberal Catholic political commentator, proposed a “compromise idea” initially floated by Melissa Rogers, the former chairwoman of Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
“In The Washington Post’s ‘On Faith’ forum in October, she pointed to a Hawaii law under which religious employers that decline to cover contraceptives must provide written notification to enrollees disclosing the fact and describing alternative ways for enrollees to access coverage for contraceptive services. The Hawaii law effectively required insurers to allow uncovered individuals to secure this coverage on their own at modest cost,” wrote Dionne.
“Unfortunately, the administration decided it lacked authority to implement a Hawaii-style solution. The Obama team should not have given up so easily, especially after it floated a version of this compromise with some Catholic service providers who thought it workable,” he said. “Obama would do well to revisit his decision on the Hawaii compromise.”
The Hill mentioned the Hawaii bill in a story today that cited Obama administration officials saying that “it was too early to say whether an optional “rider”— offered in states like Hawaii — would be included in the plan.”
Television talk shows have referenced the Hawaii bill, but Doerflinger contends the discussion is “irrelevant.”
“The administration says it is making no more changes to its mandate. The laws of Hawaii and every other state, and their exemptions, will be overridden by the sweeping national mandate,” stated Doerflinger.
But is that the case? With the unexpected backlash from religious groups, some commentators say the White House may still back down, if only to prevent the electoral consequences of Catholic “swing voters” shifting to the GOP ticket.
Today, The New York Times addressed this issue in a post, “White House May Look to Compromise on Contraception Decision,” that quoted Obama’s senior campaign adviser, David Axelrod. On MSNBC this morning, Axelrod said the president would “look for a way” to address Catholics concerns.
“We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventive care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions,” Axelrod said.
He then repeated the administration’s claims that bolstered its position and good-faith effort to identify workable solutions. The USCCB characterized those arguments as “false” in a statement released on its website this week.
The story in the Times noted that “Mitt Romney, the president’s likely Republican opponent in the fall, seized on the issue in a campaign appearance in Colorado late Monday evening.”
Romney has initiated a petition campaign, reported the Times “to stop the attacks on religious liberty,” signaling that his campaign has made the issue a priority.
“The Obama administration is at it again,” Romney says in the introduction to the petition. “They are now using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away.”
But some pollsters and commentators suggest that while the Obama campaign may have miscalculated the extent of a Catholic backlash, it’s still possible that they have decided to accept the outcome. After all, those swing voters no longer provide the reliable base of support they once did in elections before they brought President Reagan to victory.
But what if the White House identifies a “compromise” measure that appears to address the concerns of religious groups and thus provides cover for the administration? Politically, the Hawaii bill may serve that purpose without really changing anything.
I think the administration is in the right of it but they may be forced to reach some kind of appeasement.
I'd rather the Obama administration did not cave in on this issue, but it is a Presidential election year, and this has become a political football...
Pretty much since the beginning of time, people have looked for ways to control their own fertility—from jumping backward seven times after sex, to using elephant or crocodile dung as suppositories, to drinking mercury and donning reusable condoms. And for just as long, there's been a veritable crusade against (mostly) women's efforts to control reproduction. From the book of Genesis to the 21st Olympiad, here are some noteable moments in the war on contraception.
1000 A.D.
Contraception gets medieval: European woman wear bones from the right side of black cats around their necks to stave off pregnancy.
1554
John Calvin calls masturbation "monstrous" and withdrawal "doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring."
c. 1500 B.C.
The book of Genesis describes God killing Onan after he "wasted his seed on the ground" during coitus interruptus. Thoughtfully rendered in LEGO here by Brendan Powell Smith.
1789
In his memoirs Casanova describes condoms as "English riding coats" and the utility of the lemon rind as diaphragm.
1839
Charles Goodyear invents vulcanized rubber, which means flexible condoms, henceforth reducing breakage and eventually paving the way for ribbed, scented, glow-in-the-dark, studded, and even tobacco-flavored rubbers.
1914
Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, but before that she got in trouble with the law for creating propaganda such as the above. In 1914, she coined the term "birth control."
1920s
Enter Prohibition, the Depression, and contraceptives sold as feminine hygiene products. Douching with Lysol was promoted as a way to "help protect your marital happiness."
1944
Engineer Gilmore Tilbrook patents the Rythmeter, which was subsequently promoted to
the Catholic Church's 21,535 priests and educators in the United States.
1940s
During World War I, more than 18,000 doughboys came down with a fight-stopping ailment: STDs. By World War II, the military had an aggressive campaign going, including the training film USS VD: Ship of Shame, which urged sailors to "put it on before you put it in."
1960
Approved in 1960, within two years more than 1.2 million women were on
the high-dose oral contraceptive.
1967
The Black Power Conference denounces the pill as "genocide."
1968
Feature film Prudence and the Pill is released; in it, five women take the pill and
comedically become pregnant.
1975
Radio stations steer clear of Loretta Lynn's "The Pill,"; but it still becomes a top-5 country hit: "This old maternity dress I've got/Is goin' in the garbage/The clothes I'm wearin' from now on/Won't take up so much yardage/Miniskirts, hot pants and a few little fancy frills/Yeah I'm makin' up for all those years/Since I've got the pill."
1975
Esquire, historically hostile to vasectomies, endorses the jockstrap for its spermicidal effects.
1988
To repent for taking the pill, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar "asked God to bless them with as many children as he saw fit." They now have 19 and counting.
1995
The Today sponge goes off the market, causing Elaine to panic and hoard in Seinfeld's "Spongeworthy" episode.
1999
The FDA approves the prescription emergency contraceptive Plan B. Phyllis Schlafly calls it an "abortion-inducing drug."
2002
$4.95 for a three-pack, a KISS condom offers "a wicked red latex coated with a special tongue lubrication." Variety not pictured: Love Gun Protection.
2007
Fox, which ran a condom ad just 10 days after Magic Johnson announced he had HIV in 1989, rejects Trojan's pigs in a bar commercial, saying, "Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy."
2009
The Austrian co-inventor of the pill laments low birth rates caused by childless Europeans who want "to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it."
2010
In Vancouver, more than 100,000 condoms handed out to Olympians weren't enough to last two weeks; a last minute shipment provided additional coverage.
Well, the resolution of this question is simple as well: detach insurance from employment. If the Catholic church were not in the business of providing insurance to its employees, none of this would be a problem. Of course, the alternative is universal health insurance, but I suppose we all have to make sacrifices.
Gingrich claims religious liberty as pillar of campaign
(Courtney Holliday, FirstAmendmentCenter.org, February 8, 2012)
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich’s stances as a presidential candidate and actions in Congress have implicated a few key First Amendment issues.
Gingrich was not heavily involved with First Amendment issues during his tenure (1979-1999) in the House of Representatives. However, he did support at least two First Amendment-related initiatives, school vouchers and religious freedom, and continues to do so, in his 2012 Republicans presidential campaign.
Gingrich co-sponsored the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which provides that the “government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless it can show that the burden is “in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” The law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1997 as applied to state and local governments but is still applicable to the federal government.
Gingrich led the House in passing legislation to provide school vouchers for students in Washington, D.C. The bill, vetoed by President Bill Clinton in May 1998, would have allowed children to use the vouchers for religious and other private schools. After the veto Gingrich said the students in D.C. were “at risk of being destroyed by bureaucracies that refuse to reform.”
With Gingrich as speaker, the House passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which became law in 1996. DOMA amends U.S. Code by adding a section that defines ‘marriage’ as a “legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” and ‘spouse’ as a “person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” Though Gingrich takes credit for DOMA in campaign materials, he did not co-sponsor the bill and was absent from the vote.
On the issue of public records, Speaker Gingrich spoke on behalf of a House resolution to make material from the Judiciary Committee’s investigation of President Clinton public after a report from Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. Even though grand jury testimony is not typically a public record, once Congress received such material it could decide whether or not to make it public. The House Judiciary Committee ultimately decided to release Clinton’s grand jury testimony and 2,800 pages of supporting documents.
Gingrich has made religious liberty a pillar of his campaign. In December 2011, he announced that he would propose an executive order creating a presidential commission on religious freedom. On his 2012 campaign website, Gingrich lists “Protecting Life and Religious Liberty and Standing Up to Activist Judges” as one of his primary issues.
Gingrich claims that “secular radicals are trying to remove ‘our Creator’ — the source of our rights — from public life.” Among his goals:
“Protect religious expression in the public square such as crosses, crèches, and menorahs.”
“Protect the rights of home-schooled children by ensuring they have the same access to taxpayer funded, extracurricular educational opportunities as any public school student.”
“Protect the rights of teachers to use historical examples involving religion in their classroom [and to answer] questions about religion or [discuss] it objectively in the classroom.”
Gingrich continues to advocate for school vouchers, and includes “empower[ing] parents to pick the right school for their child” as part of the education plan described on his website.
Gingrich has been vocal in his support of initiatives opposing gay marriage and abortion. In December 2011, Gingrich wrote to the Family Leader, a Christian-based family values organization, that “as President, I will vigorously enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which was enacted under my leadership as Speaker of the House, and ensure compliance with its provisions, especially in the military … I will support sending a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification. I will oppose any judicial, bureaucratic, or legislative effort to define marriage in any manner other than as between one man and one woman.”
He also wrote that he would reinstate President Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City policy, which does not allow abortions overseas to be funded by U.S. taxpayers, and that he would “defund Planned Parenthood so that no taxpayer dollars are being used to fund abortions but rather transfer the money so it is used to promote adoption and other pro-family policies.”
In saying that he would also defend religious liberty and “free expression of believers,” Gingrich wrote that he would “promote legislation that protects the right to conscience for healthcare workers so they are not compelled to perform abortions and other procedures that violate their religious teachings.”
In January 2012, Gingrich was criticized for his comments in South Carolina regarding Islam. Asked whether he would endorse a Muslim presidential candidate, Gingrich said, “It would depend entirely on whether they would commit in public to give up Shariah … . A truly modern person who happened to worship Allah would not be a threat; a person who belonged to any kind of belief in Shariah, any effort to impose it on the rest of us, would be a mortal threat.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations responded by accusing Gingrich of “segregat[ing] our citizens by faith” and arguing that following Shariah law is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.
During the controversy in 2010 over plans to build an Islamic center near ground zero in New York City, Gingrich said locating it there was akin to placing a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.
The Religious Exemption to Mandated Insurance Coverage of Contraception
(Adam Sonfield, MPP, AMA Journal of Ethics, February 2012)
Accepting the recommendation of an Institute of Medicine (IOM) expert advisory panel, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011 designated contraceptive services, supplies and counseling as women’s preventive health care that private health plans are obligated to cover without consumer cost-sharing under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). In announcing its decision, HHS also announced its intent to exempt certain religiously affiliated employers from this requirement. A substantial body of evidence indicates that expanding insurance coverage of contraception has considerable potential for improving its use and, in turn, a host of subsequent health outcomes, in the United States. At the same time, the unilateral decision by HHS to include a religious exemption raises serious questions—namely, whether it is merited at all and, when it is finalized, whether it appropriately balances the beliefs, rights, obligations, and needs of all affected parties.
The goal behind the ACA provision on preventive health care services is to eliminate financial disincentives to using effective preventive care, thereby improving health. Numerous studies have found that even modest cost-sharing requirements can dramatically reduce use of preventive health services, particularly among lower-income Americans.
The ACA refers to three sets of existing guidelines on preventive care that include, among many others, services such as breast and cervical cancer screening, screening and counseling for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), vaccination for human papillomavirus, specified aspects of prenatal care, and reproductive health counseling for adolescents. During consideration of the legislation in December 2009, the Senate approved an amendment that added “women’s preventive care and screenings” as a fourth category of mandated preventive services, to fill gaps in the existing three. Although those three sets of guidelines include a range of services for women, none of the three is designed to meet all of women’s preventive health care needs.
Because there were no comprehensive guidelines on women’s preventive health to draw upon, HHS turned to the IOM to evaluate the evidence and advise it on what services should be included. The resulting recommendations include “the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling”. They also specify well-woman visits, counseling and equipment to support breastfeeding, and screening and counseling for domestic violence, as well as enhancements to insurance coverage related to HIV, other STIs, cervical cancer, and pregnancy care.
The new requirements affect private health plans starting in August 2012, except for those that have been “grandfathered”—exempt from the requirement—so long as they make no significant, negative changes, such as cutting benefits or raising cost-sharing. HHS projects that most plans will lose grandfathered status by making those types of changes within a few years.
The HHS decision builds on major changes in private-sector contraceptive coverage over the past two decades. Since the late 1990s, 28 states have required plans to cover contraception when other prescription drugs are covered. And in December 2000, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission first made it clear that an employer’s failure to cover contraception when it covers other prescription drugs and preventive care violates protections against sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. By 2002, the vast majority of private insurance plans were covering a comprehensive array of contraceptive services and supplies, a substantial shift from coverage practices in 1993, when the issue was first studied.
The result of the new requirement, therefore, will be to close most of the remaining gaps in coverage, such as in the individual and small-group markets, and bring private insurance in line with Medicaid’s decades-old practice of exempting family planning—along with other key services, such as pregnancy-related care—from cost-sharing.
In doing so, the requirement has the potential to provide the substantial benefits for the health and well-being of women and families that come from helping women plan and space their pregnancies. Correct and consistent contraceptive use dramatically reduces the risk of unintended pregnancy: in any given year, the two-thirds of U.S. women at risk (i.e., sexually active, fertile, and not seeking to become pregnant) who use contraception consistently and correctly throughout the year account for only 5 percent of unintended pregnancies. Numerous studies, in turn, point to a causal link between pregnancies that are too close together and three birth outcomes that influence the future health of the child: low birth weight, preterm birth, and small size for gestational age. Similarly, unintended pregnancy has been linked to delayed initiation of prenatal care and reduced breastfeeding after a child is born—maternal behavior that can influence health outcomes throughout the child’s life. Moreover, unintended pregnancy can hinder women’s educational and financial success and deprive women and couples of the ability to prepare before having children.
Despite the well-documented benefits of contraception, many women face problems using contraceptives consistently over several decades. The result is that nearly half of U.S. pregnancies—more than 3 million annually—are unintended, and unintended pregnancy rates increased by 50 percent among poor women between 1994 and 2006. Although there are myriad reasons behind these statistics, cost is one important access barrier, particularly with respect to long-acting, reversible methods (such as the IUD and the implant) that are extremely effective and cost-effective in the long run, but have high up-front costs.
Removing that barrier not only makes it easier for women to use contraception, but also allows them to choose the most effective methods. Three recent studies have found that lack of insurance is significantly associated with reduced use of prescription contraceptives; one of those studies found, for example, that after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics and self-reported overall health, uninsured women were 30 percent less likely to report using prescription contraceptive methods than women with private or public health insurance. And several other studies showed that when out-of-pocket costs were eliminated, women’s use of long-acting methods increased substantially.
In recognizing contraceptive services as an important aspect of preventive care, the IOM guidelines are in harmony with numerous precedents from federal programs, including Medicaid, the federally qualified health centers program and HHS’s Healthy People goals for the nation. They also concur with the position of the American Medical Association and many other health care professional and health promotion associations, such as the March of Dimes and the National Business Group on Health.
When it made its decision in August 2011 on women’s preventive services, HHS also put forward an exemption to the required coverage of contraception for health plans provided by “religious employers”. That key term is defined as an organization that has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose, primarily employs and serves people who share its religious tenets, and is a nonprofit organization under sections of U.S. law that refer to “churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches” and to “the exclusively religious activities of any religious order”. The language mirrors the religious exemptions to contraceptive coverage laws established, and upheld by courts, in California and New York. Public comments on this proposal were accepted through September 2011.
Reproductive health advocates and clinicians have criticized the decision to establish a religious exemption at all. They noted that such an exemption was called for repeatedly during ACA debates by policymakers and advocates opposed to contraception, but Congress did not agree to include one for contraception, despite including several other religious exemptions as part of the ACA.
In fact, the decision by Congress not to include a religious exemption in this case was far from unprecedented. Nine of the 28 states that have required insurance coverage of contraception have done so without including any religious exemption for employers. Neither are religious employers exempt from the Title VII protections against sex discrimination.
Finally, these critics point out that the definition of religious employer established by HHS is not precisely tailored to its stated purpose, to “provide for a religious accommodation that respects the unique relationship between a house of worship and its employees in ministerial positions” (emphasis added). Rather, this exemption would also affect numerous other employees, including clerical and administrative staff, cafeteria workers, and custodians.
The Catholic hierarchy and some conservative “pro-family” groups—which oppose contraceptive use more broadly on doctrinal or social grounds and objected to its inclusion as required preventive care—have criticized the exemption from a different perspective. They argue that it should encompass a far broader range of employers, including religiously affiliated schools, universities, hospitals, and charities that serve and employ the general public, suggesting that the current definition of “religious employer” could force them to limit whom they hire and serve. Such groups also assert that the exemption should be expanded to include insurers and even individual purchasers with religious or moral objections, arguing that a requirement to provide or purchase coverage for contraception amounts to religious discrimination and violates their conscience rights. Some have also called for an exemption for health care providers, although the coverage requirement imposes no obligations on clinicians or institutions to provide the care itself.
These arguments do not stand up well to scrutiny. Although the founders or sponsors of an institution may have a religious motivation, it does not follow that the institution is serving a religious function per se. Religiously affiliated schools, hospitals, social service agencies, and insurers serve and employ members of the general public and are a part of the public arena, with an obligation to abide by public rules.
Moreover, it is not clear why the religious beliefs of any employer or insurer should take precedence over those of its employees or enrollees. Expanding the exemption would affect millions of teachers and guidance counselors, doctors and nurses, clerks and janitors, by interfering with their access to preventive health care that they deem necessary and in line with their own religious and moral beliefs. Indeed, the opposition to contraceptive use by some religious leaders does not reflect the beliefs of the laity: 99 percent of U.S. women who have ever had sex with a man have used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning, and that figure is virtually the same across religious groups, including 98 percent among sexually experienced Catholic women. For those employees who do adhere to their employer’s religious position on contraception, providing coverage of contraception would not in any way force them to use it in violation of their beliefs.
Objections to financial entanglement with someone else’s use of contraception are also problematic. It is difficult to see why an employer has any more right to veto an employee’s use of her health benefits than it does to veto her use of her salary, sick leave, or other aspects of her compensation for the same contraceptive services. Moreover, everyone paying for insurance is paying for some services they expect never to need or use, and allowing individuals to pick and choose what specific benefits to cover would undermine the ability of insurance to pool peoples’ risks. That type of self-selection is what leads insurers to impose the sort of restrictions on coverage—such as limitations for preexisting conditions or maternity care—that the ACA was designed to eliminate.
The benefits to women and families of the contraceptive coverage requirement will be undercut by a religious exemption, and simple math says that the broader the exemption, the greater the potential harm. In that regard, an HHS announcement in January 2012 that it would retain the narrow definition of a religious employer exempt from the coverage requirement that it proposed in August 2011 is highly significant. The HHS press release also announced a 1-year grace period (until August 2013) for compliance with the requirement for other nonprofit employers certifying that, based on their religious beliefs, they do not currently provide coverage of contraception. (Final regulations have not been issued as of this writing but are expected shortly; in addition, HHS could choose to release additional subregulatory guidance.)
Meanwhile, the fact remains that some people will be harmed even by the narrow religious exemption to the contraceptive coverage requirement. In implementing the requirement and the religious exemption, HHS could and should mitigate harm by explicitly including three key protections.
First, employees and their dependents should still be able to acquire coverage for contraception without cost-sharing through an alternate means. Under several state laws, for example, enrollees of an employer invoking a religious exemption are given the right to purchase contraceptive coverage directly from an insurer. In its January 2012 announcement, HHS pointed to safety-net providers, such as community health centers, as an alternative source of affordable care for those women affected by the religious exemption.
Second, any entity invoking a religious exemption should be required to provide advance notice of that decision. That includes notice to current and potential enrollees about what is excluded and alternate means of accessing coverage and notice to the appropriate regulatory agency, certifying eligibility for the exemption to allow for transparency and enforcement. The January 2012 announcement addressed this issue in part, stating that HHS intended to require employers who do not cover contraception to notify their employees.
Not addressed at all by HHS so far, however, is the critical issue of enforcement of the religious exemption and the preventive services requirement more broadly. For the religious exemption specifically, that includes guarding against abuse, such as allowing ineligible employers to invoke the exemption (for example, by acquiring health coverage through another organization that does qualify for the exemption).
Such protections would constitute the minimum effort necessary to uphold and honor the beliefs, rights, obligations, and needs of all affected parties.
Faced with growing criticism, the White House indicated a willingness to review the issue but insisted that women be allowed free access to birth control. One possible solution could be to make contraceptive coverage available to employees of religious institutions without their employers' direct involvement.
"We are very sensitive and understand some of the concerns that have been expressed," White House press secretary Jay Carney said. "The president takes those concerns very seriously."
Carney said Obama remains "very aware of and engaged in this issue" as the administration seeks to allay the concerns expressed by religious institutions. "We're not trying to win an argument here," he said. "We're trying to implement a policy that will affect millions of women."
That means removing the provision from the health care law altogether, he said, not simply changing it for Catholic employers and their insurers. He cited the problem that would create for "good Catholic business people who can't in good conscience cooperate with this."
"If I quit this job and opened a Taco Bell, I'd be covered by the mandate," Picarello said.
