Obama edict on birth control is law of the land

Were you wondering what had happened to the controversy over the Obama mandate that religious institutions must pay for “health care” services, namely artificial contraception, which they condemn? It’s been resolved. Because under Obamacare, the executive, not the legislative, makes the law.

The Daily Caller reports:

Carney to bishops: Birth control decision is final
Published: 3:26 PM 03/15/2012

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday dismissed calls for a reconsideration of President Barack Obama’s controversial regulation of the health care policies offered by religious organizations, one day after Catholic leaders repeated their offer to hash out an agreement.

“The solution that was reached here … has been reached, and we firmly believe that it achieves the goals that the president set,” Carney said at Thursday’s White House press conference.

On Feb. 10 Obama announced a new regulation that forces religious groups to financially support activities they abhor, but that the government supports. In particular, the president directed religious organizations to provide insurance policies that offer free contraceptives.

But “government has no place defining religion and religious ministry,” said the Mar. 14 statement by the top-level administrative committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“If this [regulatory] definition is allowed to stand, it will spread throughout federal law, weakening its healthy tradition of generous respect for religious freedom and diversity … [and] is unprecedented in federal law, which has long been generous in protecting the rights of individuals not to act against their religious beliefs or moral convictions,” said the statement.

Carney was dismissive.

Obama “brought the process to a solution here that met his two objectives—to ensure that women across America … were able to get the same preventive services, including contraception services without having to pay for them, and that those who have religious objections … would not have to provide or pay.”

“That is the solution we reached,” he said.

Since then, Democratic partisans have portrayed objections by many religious denominations as a GOP “war on women,” and have said that portrayal has boosted their poll numbers.

On Wednesday the Catholic committee invited new negotiations with the administration.

“We will continue to accept any invitation to dialogue with the Executive Branch to protect the religious freedom that is rightly ours,” the statement said.

To derail Obama’s edict, the committee also promised to promote advocacy by Catholic groups.

“We will continue our vigorous efforts at education and public advocacy. … We will continue to pursue legislation to restore the same level of religious freedom we have enjoyed until just recently. … We will continue to explore our options for relief from the courts, under the U.S. Constitution. … All of these efforts will proceed concurrently, and in a manner that is mutually reinforcing.”

[end of article]

I believe that all these Catholic bishops who are now protesting what Obama is mandating under Obamacare themselves supported Obamacare. The Church thought that the government could be given these new vast sweeping powers over society, and that somehow these powers would not be used against the Church itself. One would like to hope that the Catholic hierarchy have learned a lesson from this terrible experience, namely that it was not a viable position to support left-liberalism in all respects except for opposing abortion and artificial contraception. But I suspect that these men are not capable of the moral and political reasoning that would enable them to learn any such lesson, because all they care about, and all they are capable of caring about, is their own immediate institutional interests. But, as we see from this event, if all you care about is your own immediate interests, you will lose them as well.

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March 16

JC in Houston writes:

You were spot on with your observation that the Catholic bishops were all in favor of Obamacare and are now complaining that that wonderful government program is being used against them. I speak as a born (1950) conservative Catholic, who has been through the odyssey of agnosticism, atheism, and the attempt to return to the Catholic faith of my parents. Frankly, except for a few stands against abortion, gay marriage, and birth control, the Catholic bishops of the United States are far left wing liberals, supporters of socialized medicine, fanatic supporters of illegal alien amnesty and open borders, and opponents of the death penalty for even the worst, mass killers. I have no sympathy for the Catholic bishops on this issue. They agitated for “universal health care” and they got it … in spades. I of course oppose it on constitutional grounds.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 15, 2012 11:03 PM | Send