COLUMBUS, Ohio (RNS) Thirteen state attorneys general are urging the federal government to broaden religious exemptions for private businesses under the White House’s contraception mandate, claiming the policy violates religious freedoms.
Put simply, the group believes any employer who says he or she objects to contraception should not have to provide contraceptive coverage.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ latest proposal, unveiled Feb. 1, would require all employers to provide contraceptive coverage to workers; some nonprofit religious organizations — primarily houses of worship — that object to contraception on religious or moral grounds would be exempt.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. Photo courtesy the office of Mike DeWine
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In a March 26 letter, the coalition asserted that the exclusion should be extended beyond religious institutions to include all conscientious objectors.
At least two dozen suits by private businesses have been filed against the contraception mandate, and 16 have been granted a temporary injunction while the lawsuits are pending, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is spearheading much of the opposition to the mandate.
In addition, 30 lawsuits by nonprofit religious groups have been filed against the mandate, although most have been rejected as premature because fines for noncompliance don’t kick in until 2014.
Dan Tierney, a spokesman for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, said the letter was submitted during the comment period that followed a Feb. 1 White House announcement that the exemptions would be expanded to include all houses of worship, dioceses and affiliated organizations such as colleges and hospitals.
DeWine said the revamped Feb. 1 compromise will still cost money, and the exemption should apply to all detractors, including those such as small business owners who may object to contraception.
“These regulations will force many Ohio employers to choose between harsh penalties and violating their conscience,” DeWine said in a news release. “This is another example of why Obamacare is bad policy, and it is another reason why I have joined attorneys general across this county to protect American families from its illegal overreach.”
HHS spokesman Fabien Levy said the mandate remains a proposal, and that the attorneys general are simply acting on their right to object during the public comment period, which ends April 8.
While the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other critics continue to oppose the revamped exemptions as insufficient, some groups, such as Catholics United, have applauded the suggested changes.
“This is a victory not only for the Obama Administration, but for the Catholic Church,” said James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, in a statement. “As Catholics United said from the very beginning, reasonable people knew it was right to be patient and hopeful that all sides could come together to solve this complex issue.”
The attorneys general of Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia signed the letter.
(Rex Santus is a a fellow in The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse News Bureau at Ohio University. A version of this story originally appeared in The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.)
6 Comments
Marvin McConoughey
Unavoidable moral hazards are built-into the minority of attorney generals who favor weakening of the contraception health service. First, and most obviously, it denies employees whose religious beliefs allow contraceptives to obtain those contraceptives through their employee, even though other Americans of like belief can have those contraceptives in other companies.
Second, it allows a monstrous expansion of the power of one’s religious belief. Under the weakening proposal, one individual person can impose a significant part of his religious bias against birth control onto an entire work force, in flagrant contempt for their own religious beliefs. This is more reminiscent of medieval practices in some authoritarian regimes than of modern American religious tolerance.
Third, it allows a significant distortion of the health care system to discriminate against selected workers. Not on the basis of their religious beliefs, but on the basis of another person or persons’ religious beliefs. This is not the American way.
Jack
Fourth, unplanned pregnancies. Folks will still have sex. Religious beliefs against contraception have absolutely no place in a rational, modern society.
Juanita Rogers
Call me 330-575-6704
Laurel
Allowing exceptions for private citizens and their businesses will not deny people contraceptives. Contraceptives are still very legal and relatively inexpensive. It will simply allow business owners who believe that life begins at conception to not have to pay for what they believe to be killing a human being and going against God’s law. Conscientious objections are allowed in the military; it should be the same in all aspects of life. The government can’t force people to act against their consciences or dictate what they should believe – 1st amendment.
Marvin McConoughey
The power of business owners with respect to their workers has a long history of being curtailed by governments. What, suppose, is a worker to do if his employer believes, as one religion teaches, that doctors are not necessary–that prayer alone will bring healing. Should the employer be able to compel all workers to have his concept of health care?
Marvin McConoughey
Note that conscientious objectors are allowed, but only with respect to their individual selves. No objector is allowed to force others to follow his personal beliefs.
You said: “Conscientious objections are allowed in the military; it should be the same in all aspects of life.”