On Friday, President Obama announced still another compromise to appease those who disapprove of birth control for religious reasons. The new proposal expands the types of religious organizations that can claim an exemption from providing contraception coverage to include religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and social service agencies. Secular, for-profit companies are not covered by the exemption.
Employees of religious affiliated organizations who want contraception coverage would have their prescriptions provided by their insurance company at no charge. An additional policy would not be required. It's not clear how this would work, but the price would supposedly be made up by reduced pre-natal and birthing costs.
Kyle Duncan, lawyer for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty answered the President's announcement by saying "Today's proposed rule does nothing to protect the religious freedom of millions of Americans".
Republican Representative and co-chair of Congress' Pro-life Caucus Christopher Smith of New Jersey said that the proposal provided "no relief for small businesses run by people of faith".
what eye thynk: The President has done everything he can to insure that church affiliated organizations are not forced to provide contraception if its use is contrary to their church doctrine. He has also covered an employee's freedom of choice by providing a way for any employee to obtain birth control if it is wanted.
Our government calls for a separation of church and state, and under that partition President Obama’s proposal is fair to both church employer and employee while keeping true to what is now the law of the land.
Mr. Duncan and Mr. Smith object that the exemptions were not expanded to cover secular employers. That is not how our constitution or our laws work. We don’t make exceptions for secular objections. Personally, I hate paying income taxes, but that doesn’t give me the right to sue for an exemption. There are millions of American women who use birth control, (and, yes, Mr. Smith, many of those women consider themselves "people of faith"), and they have the right to expect their secular employer to follow the law.
ACA obstructionists seem willing to beat their horse as long as there is even one person willing to provide a whip. How far do they intend to take their arguments? If a secular employer belongs to a church that denies its members blood transfusions, will an injured employee be expected to bleed to death on the shop floor?
The separation of church and state has been accommodated. The rest of you will just have to follow the law…like it or not. The nature of a democracy demands that not every citizen is going to be happy with every rule written or every right invoked. If you can’t live with that, then perhaps this is not the country for you. I hear Iran is looking for a few good men.
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