{"id":2380,"date":"2011-08-12T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T10:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/?p=2380"},"modified":"2012-06-04T15:55:55","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T15:55:55","slug":"the-trampling-of-conscience-the-anchor-august-12-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/the-trampling-of-conscience-the-anchor-august-12-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trampling of Conscience, The Anchor, August 12, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. Roger J. Landry
\nThe Anchor<\/em>
\nEditorial
\nAugust 12, 2011<\/p>\n

On August 1, Kathleen Sebelius, appointed by President Obama to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced that beginning a year from now all new private insurance plans must provide free \u201cpreventive care\u201d for women, which includes not just mammograms, blood pressure checks, breastfeeding support, domestic violence counseling, diabetes and STD testing and counseling, but also free access to sterilization and all contraceptives (including clearly abortifacient ones) approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The new federal regulations are part of the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) promoted and signed by President Obama, who had previously assured wary religious groups that the Act would protect conscience rights.<\/p>\n

As an indication that the Obama administration recognized that they were breaking that promise and compelling employers and employees with religious objections to offering or paying higher premiums to fund others free access to contraception and abortion-causing pills, the HHS offered certain non-profit religious organizations whose purpose is the \u201cinculcation of religious values\u201d and which primarily employs and serves those who share its religious tenets an opportunity to apply for an exemption. But this conscious clause was so narrowly worded that most Catholic institutions \u2014 like hospitals, universities, schools, and social service programs \u2014 would not qualify because they do not serve exclusively or primarily Catholics but those who are qualified or in need.<\/p>\n

There are several grave issues in the new regulations.<\/p>\n

The first is that HHS is trying to pretend that surgical sterilization, contraception and chemically-induced abortions are \u201cpreventive care\u201d that enhance the health of women. This concept treats pregnancy as a pathological condition and a child in the womb a virus or tumor that should be prevented or eliminated if prevention fails. Some have tried to argue that sterilizations, contraception, and abortifacients (like the FDA approved \u201cElla\u201d which can abort a baby several weeks after conception) are \u201cpreventive\u201d in the sense that they can prevent surgical abortions, but abortion is not a disease condition either, but a totally optional, and tragic, decision made by a woman and a paid abortionist. Rather than preventing a disease, moreover, contraception and abortions in many circumstances actually contribute to causing many of the health complications that the morally unobjectionable parts of the new \u201cpreventive\u201d regulations for women seek to combat. To focus just on contraception, multiple recent studies have demonstrated that contraceptive use may increase the risk of heart attacks, blood clots, high blood pressure, strokes and sexually transmitted diseases like Chlamydia and HIV. The \u201cPhysicians Desk Reference\u201d warns contraception users of \u201cserious and possibly life-threatening side effects,\u201d including chest pain, coughing up blood, blood clots in the lung, leg, and eyes, heart attacks, severe headaches and vomiting, vision and speech problems, breast cancer or fibrocystic disease, liver tumors, depression, jaundice, fever, fatigue, and loss of appetite. One of the reasons why contraception is mostly only by prescription is precisely because of these risks. For this reason, it is simply a scientific contradiction, not to mention a lie, to call contraception, sterilization and abortifacient pills \u201cpreventive\u201d medicine.<\/p>\n

Even more alarming, the new regulations trample on the freedom of conscience \u2014 both the freedom and the conscience \u2014 of employers or those in private health plans who have objections to having to provide and pay for others to access this pseudo-preventive counterfeit care. Currently, employers, insurance companies and those who are privately self-insured are totally free under federal law to offer, purchase and negotiate health coverage that excludes things like sterilization and contraception that they find immoral. Up until the Obama administration and the PPACA, the federal government had a longstanding commitment to respect and protect the conscience rights of all citizens and to allow health care institutions, religious employers and enrollees to participate fully in health programs without violating their convictions. The Obama administration is now taking away that freedom \u2014 and seeing what the reaction will be.<\/p>\n

The conscience clause offered by HHS is a clear admission that the administration anticipated some objections. But the exemption pathway is basically lip service rather than real remedy to the concern. If the administration truly respected the rights of conscience then it would allow any organization or individual with conscientious objections to receive a waiver. To offer just a few people or organizations with moral objections a remedy is, basically, an admission that it is hoping to be able to get a pass on trampling on the moral convictions of most individual citizens while trying to mollify a few larger non-profit objectors. But if that were the plan, it has certainly backfired because the exemption is so narrow that not only does it exclude individual citizens, but most non-profit religious agencies, like the Catholic Church, which have social outreach to those who are not of their particular religion.<\/p>\n

As Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, Director of Media Relations for the U.S. Bishops Conference, wrote in a feisty op-ed, \u201cIn a tacit acknowledgement that this violates the Constitution’s cherished respect for religious liberty, HHS provides an exemption for religious employers \u2014 but with a catch. The church agency can only claim exemption if it primarily serves people of its own faith. It also must meet other requirements, such as employing mostly people of its own faith. This means HHS is setting itself up to determine what constitutes church ministry and who Jesus meant when he referred to serving \u2018the least of my brethren.\u2019 Catholic hospitals, charities and educational institutions provide about $30 billion worth of service annually in this country. No one presents a baptismal certificate at the emergency room. The hungry do not recite the Creed to get groceries at the food pantry. Students can pursue learning at The Catholic University of America, Villanova or any other Catholic college without passing a catechism admissions test. The commitment to serve those in need, the sick, the hungry, the uneducated, is intrinsic to Catholicism. No federal rule (except now HHS’s) says the church must limit its service to Catholics if it is to be true to its teaching. HHS doesn’t get the parable of the Good Samaritan, who helped the stranger simply because he was in need. Look at the numbers. Catholic hospitals admit about 5.6 million people annually. That’s one out of every six persons seeking hospital care in the United States. Catholic Charities serves more than 9 million people annually. Catholic colleges and universities teach 850,000 students annually. Among those served are Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics and members of any other religious or irreligious group you can name. For the time being HHS has given itself wiggle room, saying that the public in the next two months can suggest an \u2018alternative\u2019 definition of a \u2018religious employer.\u2019 That’s good because health care reform ought to increase access to basic care, not push religious groups to either violate their principles or abandon service to those in need whatever their religious beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, is calling the attention of Catholics and all interested citizens to do far more than simply try to get the HHS to change its definition, but to tackle what he calls \u201ca major deficiency in PPACA,\u201d namely that \u201cit lacks a conscience clause to prevent the Act itself from being used to suppress the rights and freedoms of those who may have moral or religious objections to specific procedures.\u201d He wrote to members of Congress asking them the address this \u201cserious flaw regarding lack of conscience rights\u201d by supporting the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179), introduced by Representatives Dan Boren (D-OK) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE). \u201cThis legislation,\u201d he said, \u201cwould change no current state or federal mandate for health coverage, but simply prevent any new mandates under PPACA \u2013 such as [HHS\u2019] \u2018preventive services for women\u2019 — from being used to disregard the freedom of conscience that Americans now enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Readers are urged to call their U.S. Representatives and persuade them to protect our legitimate rights of conscience by supporting this bill. They\u2019re also asked to contact Dr. Mary Wakefield, Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (womensguidelines@hrsa.gov or 301.443.2216) and urge the government to eliminate sterilizations, contraception and abortifacient pills from female \u201cpreventive care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 12, 2011 On August 1, Kathleen Sebelius, appointed by President Obama to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced that beginning a year from now all new private insurance plans must provide free \u201cpreventive care\u201d for women, which includes not just mammograms, blood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1014,708],"tags":[8715,1023,1020],"class_list":["post-2380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anchor-editorial","category-articles","tag-2011-2012","tag-editorial","tag-the-anchor"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Trampling of Conscience, The Anchor, August 12, 2011 - Catholic Preaching<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/the-trampling-of-conscience-the-anchor-august-12-2011\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Trampling of Conscience, The Anchor, August 12, 2011 - Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 12, 2011 On August 1, Kathleen Sebelius, appointed by President Obama to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced that beginning a year from now all new private insurance plans must provide free \u201cpreventive care\u201d for women, which includes not just mammograms, blood […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/the-trampling-of-conscience-the-anchor-august-12-2011\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-12T10:00:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-06-04T15:55:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/DefaultImage-FB.png?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. 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