2,500 religious leaders sign letter opposing contraceptive mandate

The Family Research Council (FRC) released Feb. 20 a letter urging President Obama to reverse course. They called for him to revise the demand on employers in health insurance plans by providing sufficient protection for "the conscience rights of those who have biblically-based opposition to funding or providing contraceptives and abortifacients."

"This is about conscience, not contraception. And it's about religious freedom,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Evangelical leaders have joined the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, other Protestant bodies and some Jewish organizations in expressing opposition to the rule since the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Jan. 20 that health plans must cover contraceptives and sterilizations as preventive services for employees.

The mandate requires coverage of contraceptives, as defined by the Food and Drug Administration, that can cause abortions, such as "ella;" emergency contraception, such as Plan B; and the intrauterine device (IUD). Those methods all have mechanisms that can prevent tiny embryos from implanting in the uterine wall. In the case of "ella," it also can block production of the hormone progesterone, destroying the placenta that provides nutrition to the embryo and causing the unborn child's death after implantation.

Opponents of the rule especially have protested its failure to provide an adequate religious or conscience exemption.

Most evangelicals support access to contraception, except for those drugs and methods that may function as abortifacients.  But evangelicals oppose requiring organizations with religious objections to violate their conscience. 

"We will not tolerate any denomination having their religious freedom infringed upon by the government of the United States. If there ever was a separation of church and state violation, this is it," said Tony Perkins, FRC President.

The refusal to provide an adequate religious exemption for the "contraceptive mandate" demonstrates a trend of the Obama administration, Land said.

"This is part of an attempt to atrophy, to nullify, to confine and constrain, and to emasculate and neuter religious freedom down to freedom of worship," Land told reporters. "The president and his administration consistently talk about freedom of worship. ... Freedom of worship is confined to the space between your ears and the space between your shoulders at home and church or home and synagogue or home and temple or home and mosque.

The FRC-sponsored letter said, "The ability of a religious person to follow their conscience without fearing government intervention has long been a protected right for Americans. It is unfathomable to picture a country that would deny religious freedoms."

Public resistance — especially by religious adherents — is growing on various fronts:

• Louisiana College, which is affiliated with the Louisiana Baptist Convention, filed a federal lawsuit Feb. 18 challenging the mandate. Geneva College, a Reformed Presbyterian Church school in western Pennsylvania, is expected to file a suit Feb. 21. The Alliance Defense Fund is representing both schools. Two other schools — Belmont Abbey College, a Roman Catholic school in North Carolina, and Colorado Christian University, a non-denominational school — previously have sued the administration.

• All 181 bishops who lead Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States have voiced public opposition to the mandate, Thomas Peters reported Feb. 18 at the American Papist blog.

The HHS rule includes an exception for employers who oppose paying for such coverage on religious grounds, but it is narrowly drawn. It will protect many churches and other houses of worship, but it apparently will not cover churches that primarily serve people outside their faith. The exemption also will not extend to such faith-based organizations as schools, hospitals and social service programs.

Obama announced a change Feb. 10 in response to widespread protests, saying religious organizations would not have to pay for or provide contraceptives if they object on religious grounds. Instead, he said, their insurance companies would be required to pay for such services.

Some have described it as an "accounting gimmick" that would still require religious organizations to be complicit in paying for employees' abortion-causing contraceptives through their insurance companies.

To add to opponents' dissatisfaction with the president's revision, HHS did not actually change the rule to reflect Obama's announced language. The Heritage Foundation reported the final regulation published Feb. 15 in the Federal Register did not include the language described by Obama.

Obama revises insurance mandate but it still threatens religious liberty

“The Obama administration’s rule change doesn’t change anything. The so-called ‘accommodation’ still forces people of faith to violate their religious beliefs and core values,” said Gary McCaleb, Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel. “The issue is whether the government will respect our God-given first freedom, religious liberty.”

The controversy began when the Department of Health and Human Services in January finalized a rule requiring private insurance plans to cover all FDA-approved contraceptives, including "emergency" ones such as Plan B and "ella" that can block implantation and kill the embryo — an action that pro-life groups and many Christians view as an early abortion. The drugs would be free for employees.

The HHS rule included an exemption for most churches, but that exemption does not cover Christian colleges and schools or faith-based hospitals and social service programs. Programs such as Catholic Charities, Prison Fellowship and GuideStone Financial Resources would be affected. GuideStone's president released a statement before Obama's press conference saying simply, "we will not provide abortive contraceptives."

Obama said Friday that the burden on providing emergency contraceptives would fall on insurance companies, and that the coverage still would be free.

"If a woman's employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company — not the hospital, not the charity — will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge without co-pays and without hassles," Obama said. "The result will be that religious organizations won't have to pay for these services and no religious institution will have to provide these services."

Religious leaders, though, were not pleased, and said the same problems with religious liberty remained.

"It is an attempt to deal with a matter of religious conviction with an accounting gimmick," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Land and others said that an insurance company's money is fungible, and that a religious employer would still be providing the funding to pay for an employees' abortion-inducing drugs.

"The President's statement today," said O.S. Hawkins, president of GuideStone Financial Recourses, "is an insulting affront illustrating a basic lack of understanding that this issue will not be solved by sleight-of-hand word games. It is a fundamental matter of religious liberty that threatens the very coverage of those dedicated persons who serve our churches and affiliated organizations. GuideStone will never depart from the core convictions it has held dear for decades regarding the sanctity of life."

Obama's statement does "not take into account the needs of many of the oldest and largest church plans in the nation," GuideStone said.

Said Land, "He showed a total lack of awareness of self-funded insurance programs like GuideStone. ... GuideStone cannot comply with this, because GuideStone would be forced to pay for abortifacients, which we find unconscionable."

"This administration," Land added, "has shown a very disturbing trend of when religious freedoms collide with sexual rights, sexual rights trump religious convictions every time. If the insurance company is forced to provide the coverage, the insurance company is going to pass the cost on to the person paying for the insurance — us."

Rep. Chris Smith (R.-N.J.), a staunch pro-lifer in Congress, also criticized the move.

"The so-called new policy is the discredited old policy, dressed up to look like something else," Smith said. "It remains a serious violation of religious freedom. Only the most naïve or gullible would accept this as a change in policy. ... It still forces religious employers and employees who have moral objections to paying for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception to pay for these things, because it is still the employers who buy the coverage for their employees."

Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, applauded the Obama move.

"In the face of a misleading and outrageous assault on women's health, the Obama administration has reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring all women will have access to birth control coverage, with no costly co-pays, no additional hurdles, and no matter where they work," Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richard said. "We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman's ability to access these critical birth control benefits."

But Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called it a "paperwork" gimmick.