I just saw this:
In August, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that health insurance plans, as of January 1, 2013, will be required to cover contraception, including FDA-approved emergency contraception. “These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need,” she said. The Catholic Church has been pushing the White House to allow Catholic hospitals to opt out of providing contraception that it considers the termination of a life, and many in the abortion rights community are worried that the president will grant that exemption. Additionally, many Democrats invested in President Obama’s re-election are worried that if he grants that exemption, he will alienate liberal women voters they will need come November.
…and I feel the need to explain something, here. The Roman Catholic Church considers ’emergency contraception’ – otherwise known as the ‘morning after’ pill – to be an abortificant. The Roman Catholic Church does not permit its hospitals to perform abortions. And the leadership (note the distinction) of the Roman Catholic Church is utterly indifferent to what taking a firm line on this might do to Barack Obama’s re-election chances.
You can disagree with the Catholic Church 0n any or all of this, of course – but those are the facts on the ground.
Moe Lane
PS: What’s that? Take federal money, follow federal rules? A consistent argument – and if the administration tries to use it to its logical conclusion, the Church will close the hospitals or stop taking the federal money. Which will increase the cost, or decrease the range, of Obamacare even more. You know, it’s almost as if our current model for federally funding health care is fundamentally flawed, or something…
Quick! Somebody call Steve Driehaus and District Court judge Timothy S. Black! Seems like Obamacare DOES provide funding for abortion! Gee, who would have thought?
ZARDOZ SPEAKS
“many in the abortion rights community are worried that the president will grant that exemption”
.
So it’s really not about “choice”, is it?
In a way it is Rob “they chose this fight”. The could have allowed the religious exemption “But they chose not to”. They thought they could bully the churches into accepting the government regulations, and it is suddenly occurring to them that the churches might “choose” to opt out. And that Catholics might “choose” to punish Obama in 2012. When one considers how many Catholics vote and how many Pro-Choice voters there are well the Pro-Choice people are suddenly very uncomfortable.
Obama always doubles down. Federal funding will get pulled if Obama thinks crossing that line in the sand will get him elected.
This continues to happen…I remember it happening in MA, as a matter of fact, with a Catholic adoption agency that closed its doors rather than keep them open at the price of brokering adoptions for homosexual couples. Liberals play chicken with the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church simply refuses to play by any rules but the ones it recognizes. You would think that the liberals would realize the Church couldn’t be dared into a “lesser of two evils” battle by now.
It seems to me the endgame is to drive Catholics out of the arena of healthcare and social work. Next: education. It’s not just idiotic from a political standpoint, my heart goes out to those who would avail themselves of those services–many of them terribly disadvantaged.