From CNS News.
Excerpt:
President Barack Obama has not yet decided whether to go forward with a proposed regulation under the health care law he signed last year that would force Catholic individuals and instutions to act against the teachings of the Catholic church.
In August, Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius proposed a regulation–that would take affect next fall–that would require all health care plans to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including abortifacients. The proposed regulation includes a very narrow religious exemption that does not cover individual Catholics, or Catholic universities, hospitals or charitable institutions.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have called the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty” and have called on American Catholics to contact HHS and demand that the regulation be rescinded.
[…]Because of Obamacare’s mandate that all individuals must buy health insurance, the “preventive services” regulation would mean individual American Catholics would be forced to buy health insurance that pays for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortions–all of which violate Catholic moral teachings.
Many major Catholic institutions and Catholic business owners would be forced to choose between dropping health insurance coverage for their employees and students or violating their religious beliefs.
“Indeed, such nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker, or purchase ‘services’ to which they have a moral or religious objection represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty,” the bishops said in commentary on the proposed regulation they submitted to HHS.
As an evangelical Protestant, I get so confused when I see many people who label themselves as “Catholic” voting to equate abortion with health care.
Insurance is about sharing costs. Why should people who choose not to have sex outside of marriage (like me) be compelled to pay the bills of people who freely choose to engage in risky, recreational sex? When you subsidize something, you get more of it. So why should pro-lifers be forced subsidize something that we don’t want more of? Why should pro-lifers want to make it less costly for people to engage in behaviors that result in the killing of an innocent child?
WINTERY KNIGHT 