The War on Conscience

HHS and free contraceptives.

The regulations include only a narrow religious exemption that allows group health plans of “religious employers” to opt-out of coverage for contraception or sterilization. The exemption offers no protection for the personal conscience rights of individual health care providers or subscribers.

Furthermore, the HHS definition of “religious employers,” covers only organizations with the specific purpose to instill “religious values,” (i.e. not provide health care or an education) and which “primarily employ” and “serve…persons who share the religious tenets of the organization” (rather than serve all comers, as most Catholic health care and social service agencies do). The definition stands Catholic teaching on its head, according to Sr. Mary Ann Walsh of the USCCB, because it “ignores the underlying principle of Catholic charitable actions: we help people because we are Catholic, not because our clients are.”

The  result? HHS regulations, Sr. Walsh says, will “force church institutions to buy contraceptives, including drugs that can disrupt an existing pregnancy, through insurance they offer their own employees…[so] the religious order that runs a Catholic hospital has to foot the bill for surgical sterilizations. And diocesan Catholic Charities agencies have to use money that would be better spent on feeding the poor to underwrite services that violate church teachings.”(Read entire article.)

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