The recent decision by the Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services to mandate so-called “preventive services” that require private health plans to cover female surgical sterilization and all drugs and devices approved by the Federal Drug Administration as contraceptives has been rightly criticized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other pro-life groups.
Some of the now mandated drugs act as an agent of abortion and directly attack a developing unborn child in the mother’s womb. In his criticism of this terrible decision that violates religious freedom and the freedom of conscience, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, the Archbishop of Galveston-Houston and Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities stated: “Those who sponsor, purchase and issue health plans should not be forced to violate their deeply held moral and religious convictions in order to take part in the health care system.”
Clearly the Obama Administration’s attack upon human life and religious freedom should be rejected by Catholics and those who conscientiously object to being forced to subsidize drugs that serve as contraceptives and others such as RU-486 that serve as an agent of abortion. The new HHS regulations arose out of the Obama Administration’s health care plan that mandated coverage of preventive care. However, this mandate serves to further highlight President Obama’s steadfast and loyal allegiance to his allies in the abortion industry. Under President Obama’s HHS decision, not only would contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilizations become more readily and easily accessible but now insurance providers including private businesses and faith-based organizations who provide group insurance are forced to participate in the moral evils of the culture of death. This also mandates that every American participate in this moral evil through the payment of insurance premiums to providers who readily supply mechanical, chemical and surgical means of birth control. The Obama Administration’s allegiance to the culture of death is plainly seen in the comment by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius who suggested that with regard to the newly mandated coverage : “Not doing it would be like not covering flu shots.”
Catholics should be outraged at an administration that equates pregnancy with the flu and the destroying of a life of an innocent unborn child to preventing the common cold. Such a suggestion by a member of the President’s cabinet isn’t merely unfortunate or simply ill-advised it is deeply offensive and enormously ignorant. This offensive and ignorant attitude seems pervasive within the Obama Administration as they continue to trample upon religious freedom and ignore individual conscience in their unbridled quest to advance the culture of death. It is clear that Catholics must be vigilant in defending human life from an Administration that believes unborn children are nothing more than a flu and abortion nothing more than health care. Not only do we denounce this latest decision by the Obama administration to disregard religious freedom and moral truth in favor of the lies and deceit of the culture of death, but we call upon Congress to reject it and overturn it and all other attacks by President Obama and his administration upon the culture of life.
