The Truth About the HHS Mandate and Everyone Should Pay Attention

During the Vice Presidential Debate, Joe Biden made this statement: "With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact."

Well, that is not a fact. As Paul Ryan pointed out; if that statement holds true then why are so many Catholic institutions suing the Obama Administration? That does not seem like something that Catholics (and even some non-Catholics) would do, if in fact they were not going to be a vehicle to get contraception. The United States Council of Catholic Bishops disagreed with the Vice President'sstatement as well. At this very moment  legal cases are being heard  based on this mandate violating the religious freedom of employers.

But before any discussion of religious freedom, it is necessary to address a few issues. It is very important for people who are reading about this issue to be educated. Starting  from the beginning. Since the beginning of the Catholic Church in the first century, it has always taught against birth control and abortion. That teaching has never changed. People may think that it has, but that is not true. HumaneVitae is an encyclical from Pope Paul IV written in 1968 which explains that contraception is against the teaching of the Church and presents married couples with a prayerful and natural approach to spacing children. (it is called Natural Family Planning and is not the same as the "rhythm method.")There are plenty of resources on the internet to explain the "why" behind the reason that the Church finds Contraception to be immoral. The easiest way to find good sources on the subject is to Google "Theology of the Body". But consider yourself warned, this theology  is not the "sex is bad and disgusting" Catholic stereotype that you see on TV. In fact, Pope John Paul II said that it was the husband's duty to make sure that his wife climaxed during sex.

A lot of people seem to think that somehow the Catholic Church stopped teaching that contraception was immoral, and that is simply not the case. What happened was that people within the Church started dismissing the Church's teaching on the issue and before you knew it, picking and choosing what doctrine you accept and don’t accept became ‘normal.’ With people being able to select which teachings of their church they agree with, we have now come to this point in history where we are fighting for our religious freedom. Very few seem to understand.  what the big deal is. This is my attempt at explaining what the big deal is. It is a big deal for everyone; regardless what you believe about birth control, abortion or to what creed you belong to.

How does the HHS mandate violate Catholics religiousfreedom? It forces Catholic hospitals  colleges, parishes, schools and charities to pay for health insurance premiums that cover birth control, sterilizations and abortion inducing drugs. All of these are defined by the Catholic Church as intrinsic evils, meaning they are always wrong. Now, it has been made to seem that only uber conservative Catholics think this, but the fact is that even liberal progressive Catholics understand that this mandate is a clear violation of the first amendment. The Washingtonpost has many links to some of the most progressive liberal Catholic media outlets and they all state their dislike of this mandate. One of the collegesthat is suing the Obama Administration is Notre Dame, which took a lot of heat from Conservative Catholics for inviting Obama to give a commencement speech.

In an attempt to appease people of faith, the Obama Administration crafted an exemption. In order for an employer to not pay for health plans which include things opposed to Catholic beliefs, three conditions must be met. First, the institution must hire and serve only people of their faith. Second, you must indoctrinate those you serve in your doctrine. Lastly, you must qualify as a church or religious order under the IRS tax code. This exemption is so narrow that not a single hospital, school, pregnancy help center, soup kitchen or other charitable organization would fit into it. One does not have to be Catholic to receive free food from the soup kitchen. One does not have to be an Evangelical to receive assistance from the pregnancy help center. Clearly, this exemption was created as a ruse and still fails to protect the conscience objections of countless people of faith around the country .

When Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius  was asked about how she balanced the mandate with religious freedom, she admitted that she did not take other precedentsinto consideration.

Now, here is where things get serious. In a report by ABC news about discussions on the HHS Mandate at the White House there was an interesting person in the room, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards. Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the entire country which begs the question what they could profit from government subsidized abortions. Many people, including Vice President Biden, said that it was wrong to force religious institutions to pay for something they considered to be a sin. Yet, the President took Ms. Richard's advice and did it anyway. What people should ask themselves is why is a president of a special interest group *that* involved in policy making.

In keeping with the views of their founder, Planned Parenthood has followed in the footsteps of founder Margaret Sanger in her disdain for the Catholic Church. She was openly hostile to the Catholic Church and what the Church teaches. You can see it in her interview with MikeWallace.  Planned Parenthood has been fighting against the Catholic Church on this issue since Margaret Sanger gave this interview.

The problem is not access to birth control. By PlannedParenthood's own admission, they give out birth control to women who are under/un-insured. Nobody in the Catholic Church is saying to outlaw birth control. Do we think it is immoral? Yes. We think it is emotionally, spiritually physically unhealthy to use. Definitely. Even non-religious people think thatthere is information about birth control that doctors do not give theirpatients. According to the World Health Organization, the birth control pill is classified as a Class 1 Carcinogen, meaning that it is known to cause cancer. But even with all that, Catholics are not saying to outlaw it. We want our convictions and beliefs respected by not being forced to pay for something we morally disagree with. Nor do we want to  pay for premiums that include for birth control, or other things that we find morally objectionable. Whether or not some Catholics find those things morally objectionable is irrelevant. The fact is that the Catholic Church has and always will teach that they are immoral. If some Jews think it is acceptable to eat pork despite the fact that the Jewish faith teaches it is against their creed to do so, does that mean the Government can make all Jewish delis serve pork? No.

The problem here is a special interest group being involved in making policies that violate the First Amendment in the name of Healthcare. If it was truly about healthcare then why not cover things that will help keep everyone healthy? What exactly does birth control cure? Why not cover chemo for kids with cancer for free? Or blood pressure medicine, heart pills, or many of the other medicines people need to have in order to live healthy lives? Why birth control?

The mandate released by the Department of Health and Human Services on January 20, 2012 is a direct attack on religious liberty. It is about control. It is about forcing an entire group of people to violate their conscience, their religious freedom and their rights by coercing them to pay for abortion-causing drugs and sterilizations.