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The general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to rescind its mandate forcing private insurance plans to cover contraception—including abortifacients—and sterilization, calling the mandate “unprecedented in federal law and more radical than any state contraceptive mandate.”
The USCCB also criticized the narrow “religious employer” exception to the mandate, explaining that it provides “no protection at all for individuals or insurers with a moral or religious objection to contraceptives or sterilization,” instead covering only “a very small subset of religious employers.”
In their August 31 comment to the HHS, Anthony Picarello, USCCB general counsel, and Michael Moses, associate general counsel, noted that the mandate to cover “all FDA-approved contraceptives” and “emergency contraceptives,” including at least one drug called Ella that can cause abortions, entails “nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker or purchases ‘services’ to which they have a moral or religious objection.” This represents “an unprecedented attack on religious liberty,” they wrote.
As to the exemption, Picarello and Moses detail how it “is narrower than any conscience clause ever enacted in federal law, and narrower than the vast majority of religious exemptions from state contraceptive mandates.”
“By failing to protect insurers, individuals, most employers, or any other stakeholders with a religious objection to such items and procedures, the HHS exemption, like the mandate itself, violates” the U.S. Constitution and various federal statutes, they argue.
lifesitenews.com/news/us-bishops-conference-accuses-obama-administration-of-an-unprecedented-atta
The USCCB also criticized the narrow “religious employer” exception to the mandate, explaining that it provides “no protection at all for individuals or insurers with a moral or religious objection to contraceptives or sterilization,” instead covering only “a very small subset of religious employers.”
In their August 31 comment to the HHS, Anthony Picarello, USCCB general counsel, and Michael Moses, associate general counsel, noted that the mandate to cover “all FDA-approved contraceptives” and “emergency contraceptives,” including at least one drug called Ella that can cause abortions, entails “nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker or purchases ‘services’ to which they have a moral or religious objection.” This represents “an unprecedented attack on religious liberty,” they wrote.
As to the exemption, Picarello and Moses detail how it “is narrower than any conscience clause ever enacted in federal law, and narrower than the vast majority of religious exemptions from state contraceptive mandates.”
“By failing to protect insurers, individuals, most employers, or any other stakeholders with a religious objection to such items and procedures, the HHS exemption, like the mandate itself, violates” the U.S. Constitution and various federal statutes, they argue.
lifesitenews.com/news/us-bishops-conference-accuses-obama-administration-of-an-unprecedented-atta
