Tag Archives: Plan B

News

Democrat Barbara Boxer: right to be insured trumps religious liberty

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From the Washington Examiner.

Excerpt:

Senator Boxer warned yesterday that if the HHS contraception mandate was repealed it would set a dangerous precedence of religious rights trumping the right to be insured.

On MSNBC’s Politics Nation with Al Sharpton last night, Boxer affirmed that under the proposed amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt, an employer would not be forced by the government to pay for medical practices against his religion.

“I mean, are they serious? Sharpton exclaimed, “How do you make a law where an employer can decide his own religious beliefs violate your right to be insured?”

“Oh absolutely,” Boxer said, “Let’s use an example, let’s say somebody believes that medicine doesn’t cure anybody of a disease but prayer does and then they decide no medicine.

“No medicine!” she exclaimed, “Under the Blunt amendment, they could do just that.”

Senator Harry Reid announced yesterday that he would allow a vote on the Blunt Amendment. The vote allows Senate Democrats such as Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia to register a protest vote against the HHS contraception mandate.

Fascism is the ideology that states that the worldview of the government, especially on questions of religion, morality and meaning, should be pushed down onto individuals by force. The Democrat elites, including Obama, are pro-abortion. And now, they want to force you to be pro-abortion, too – by forcing you to subsidize the abortions of others, even if you have a conscientious objection based on your religion. Your money isn’t your money – it’s Obama’s money. You just earn it. But Obama spends it. And if he spends in subsidizing abortion, and you don’t like it, then tough luck for you. That’s how secular leftist Democrats think.

Podcasts

William Lane Craig discusses recent challenges to religious liberty

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Listening to William Lane Craig talk about current events and its relevance to theological and ethical concerns makes me very happy. I have 3 of his commentaries below, but if you have been following my blog, you know about all three of them already. Still, it’s great to hear a philosopher and theologian way in on practical issues. I like it as much as when Wayne Grudem does it. I never, ever get tired of hearing Christian pastors and scholars talk about practical things.

I think that all of you who are suspicious of my efforts to link Christianity to other issues should listen to these podcasts.

Here’s the MP3 file from the first lecture on religious liberty, dated January 22, 2012. (14 MB | 6:17 min)

Topics:

  • The issue is whether churches should be allowed to be exempt from hiring restrictions
  • The Supreme Court ruling saying that the state cannot intervene in church hiring decisions
  • The Obama administration tried to erase the religious liberty protections for churches
  • The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Texas sonogram law
  • The importance of an incremental pro-life approach

Here’s the MP3 file from the second lecture, dated January 29th, 2012. Get MP3 (21 MB | 9:10 min)

Topics:

  • The issue is whether Catholic organizations should be forced to cover abortion drugs
  • The state is attempting to mandate what religious organizations must pay for
  • The mandate would force churches to pay for abortion drugs: Ella and Plan “B”
  • The issue is not contraception, which some Christians may support
  • The issue is an issue of religious liberty and government control

Here’s the MP3 file from the third lecture, dated February 10th, 2012. (43 MB | 18:59 min)

Topics:

  • Obama’s “compromise”: making the insurance companies pay for abortion drugs
  • Does the compromise really resolve the religious liberty issue?
  • Many Catholic institutions have Catholic insurance companies
  • Many faith-based organizations self-insure by pooling employee resources
  • The compromise would require these groups to cover abortion drugs
  • Another issue is the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against Prop 8
  • Did Prop 8 really take rights away from gays and lesbians?
  • No – Prop 8 defined heterosexual marriage as valid or recognized
  • Prop 8 doesn’t even mention gays and lesbians
  • Prop 8 says straights and gays have the same right to marry someone of the opposite sex
  • Prop 8 says nothing about a person’s sexual orientation
  • This attempt to push for same-sex marriage is an attempt to deconstruct marriage
  • It is important to think of issues like this before voting
  • Christians should care about politics and follow politics
  • Christians who don’t know politics are “naive” and “have their head in the sand”
  • The two judges in this decision were appointed by Democrats: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton

I think this is good because I’m sure that a bunch of you think that Bill only ever talks about apologetics. But actually, he is very good about being practical about his faith. He does try to think through how current events, laws and policies affect the theological and moral positions of the Christian faith. I just recently e-mailed him about Rick Santorum’s comments about how the Catholic church supported Obamacare, and then how it later caused problems for their religious liberty. So there is a case where top-down control of the private sector created a situation where religious liberty was negatively impacted… exactly as predicted by F.A. Hayek in “The Road to Serfdom”.

Commentary

The Becket Fund assesses Obama’s “compromise” on the contraception mandate

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Eric Metaxas shared this on Facebook, so here it is.

Full text:

Facing a political firestorm, President Obama today announced his intent to make changes to a controversial rule that would require religious institutions, in violation of their conscience, to pay for contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. But this “compromise” is an exercise in obfuscation, not a good faith effort to solve the problem. Thousands of churches, religious organizations, businesses, individuals, and others will still be forced to violate their religious beliefs.

For example, the fake compromise will not help the Becket Fund’s clients Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, Colorado Christian University, and Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), a Catholic media organization. They will still be forced to pay for insurance that provides contraceptive coverage. The White House’s claim that “the insurance companies will pay for it” is silly. For-profit insurance companies aren’t going to donate contraceptives and abortion drugs to employees; the employer will pay for it one way or the other. More fundamentally, the Becket Fund’s clients still face the same chilling dilemma they did yesterday: choosing between helping their employees buy immoral abortion drugs or paying huge fines.

“This is a false ‘compromise’ designed to protect the President’s re-election chances, not to protect the right of conscience,” says Hannah Smith, Senior Legal Counsel for The Becket Fund. “No one should be fooled by what amounts to an accounting gimmick. Religious employers will still have to violate their religious convictions or pay heavy annual fines to the IRS.”

According to a White House “fact sheet,” some religious employers will no longer be required to provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing drugs; coverage for those services will instead be provided for free directly by insurance companies. This does not protect anyone’s conscience. First, the problem is helping employees get abortion drugs, not the cost of providing those drugs. Since providing insurance benefits would still help employees get insurance, religious employers still have to choose between providing health benefits that help employees get abortion drugs, and paying annual fines. Second, thousands of religious organizations self insure, meaning that they will be forced to pay directly for these services in violation of their religious beliefs. Third, it is unclear which religious organizations are permitted to claim the new exemption, and whether it will extend to for-profit organizations, individuals, or non-denominational organizations.

“It is especially telling that the details of this fake ‘compromise’ will likely not be announced until after the election,” said Smith. “Religious freedom is not a political football to be kicked around in an election-year. Rather than providing full protection for the right of conscience, President Obama has made a cynical political play that is the antithesis of ‘hope and change.’”

My previous post in which I chastised the Roman Catholic bishops for supporting Obamacare is here.