Faith organizations will now be required to provide contraceptives and abortifacients regardless of convictionscreated 1/22/2012 - 8:30 pm by Chris |
Hey, at least they've been granted an extra year before being forced to act in opposition to their beliefs, right? How kind. CNS News:
The Obama administration on Friday finalized a regulation that orders all Americans—unless they work directly at a church--to purchase government-approved health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives including those that cause abortions.
The regulation further requires that health-insurance plans must provide sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients without any fees or co-pay.
The regulation, issued as part of the initial implementation of Obamacare, requires Catholics to act against their faith--which teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion violate the natural law and that Catholics cannot be involved in them.
In a statement, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops immediately condemned the administration's decision to move forward with the regulation as "literally unconscionable."
The regulation will go into effect on Aug. 1.
In December, the Republican leaders of the House of Representatives negotiated a continuing resolution with President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Senate that allows the administration to fund implementation of the regulation. That CR, which funds the government through the end of fiscal 2012 (which comes on Sept. 30), expressly denied the administration the funds to carry out some regulatory activities but did not deny it the funds to carry out the sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation.
In announcing the final version of the regulation on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the administration would allow some non-profit groups, which object to the rule on religious grounds, an extra year to comply as long as these groups file a certification document with the administration and inform their employees about where they can find contraceptives.
“Nonprofit employers who, based on religious beliefs, do not currently provide contraceptive coverage in their insurance plan, will be provided an additional year, until August 1, 2013, to comply with the new law,” Sebelius said in a statement.
Read more at CNS.
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