Today the Obama administration has offered what it has styled as an
“accommodation” for religious institutions in the dispute over the HHS
mandate for coverage (without cost sharing) of abortion-inducing drugs,
sterilization, and contraception. The administration will now require
that all insurance plans cover (“cost free”) these same products and
services. Once a religiously-affiliated (or believing individual)
employer purchases insurance (as it must, by law), the insurance company
will then contact the insured employees to advise them that the terms
of the policy include coverage for these objectionable things.
This
so-called “accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails
to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience
which gave rise to the controversy. It is certainly no compromise. The
reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s
insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or
individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as
gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still
coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance
policies that include the very same services.
It is no answer to
respond that the religious employers are not “paying” for this aspect of
the insurance coverage. For one thing, it is unrealistic to suggest
that insurance companies will not pass the costs of these additional
services on to the purchasers. More importantly, abortion-drugs,
sterilizations, and contraceptives are a necessary feature of the policy
purchased by the religious institution or believing individual. They
will only be made available to those who are insured under such policy,
by virtue of the terms of the policy.
It is morally obtuse for
the administration to suggest (as it does) that this is a meaningful
accommodation of religious liberty because the insurance company will be
the one to inform the employee that she is entitled to the
embryo-destroying “five day after pill” pursuant to the insurance
contract purchased by the religious employer. It does not matter who
explains the terms of the policy purchased by the religiously affiliated
or observant employer. What matters is what services the policy
covers.
The simple fact is that the Obama administration is
compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to
purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing
drugs, contraception, and sterilization. This is a grave violation of
religious freedom and cannot stand. It is an insult to the intelligence
of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims,
and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will
accept as assault on their religious liberty if only it is covered up by
a cheap accounting trick.
Finally, it bears noting that by
sustaining the original narrow exemptions for churches, auxiliaries, and
religious orders, the administration has effectively admitted that the
new policy (like the old one) amounts to a grave infringement on
religious liberty. The administration still fails to understand that
institutions that employ and serve others of different or no faith are
still engaged in a religious mission and, as such, enjoy the protections
of the First Amendment.
Signed:
John Garvey
President, The Catholic University of America
Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University
Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
O. Carter Snead
Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
Yuval Levin
2/11/2012
Liar, liar, pants on fire
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