News
Featured Image
 Alex Wong / Staff / Getty

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The Biden administration announced a proposed rule Monday to eliminate a moral exemption to the federal Obamacare contraception mandate, in the name of birth control “access.”

CNN reports that the rule would eliminate employers’ ability to opt out of providing contraception coverage for moral convictions, leaving explicitly religious motives as the only approved exemption. It would also create a new “independent pathway” for employees at religious workplaces to obtain free contraception coverage through a willing alternate provider.

“We had to really think through how to do this in the right way to satisfy both sides, but we think we found that way,” an official with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) said of the rule, which is expected to affect more than 100 employers and 125,000 employees.

“Employers and universities should not be able to dictate personal health care decisions and impose their views on their employees or students,” cheered Planned Parenthood Federation of America CEO Alexis McGill Johnson. “The ACA mandates that health insurance plans cover all forms of birth control without out-of-pocket costs. Now, more than ever, we must protect this fundamental freedom.”

The change, which will reportedly take “many months” to finalize, would allow exemptions only for a narrow subset of organizations that formally identify with a religion that teaches against the use of contraception, while denying the same freedom of conscience to those with other sincere moral objections, such as the fact that many forms of birth control can function by destroying an already-conceived human life.

READ: Planned Parenthood pushes abortion pills to increase profit margins: report

READ: Pennsylvania Democrat defends sponsoring ‘queer prom’ that gave condoms to minors

Kristi Hamrick, chief media and policy strategist for Students for Life of America, told Catholic News Agency the Biden rule was part of “a vicious cycle with life-and-death implications” and that the administration is “ignoring Constitutional rights of conscience that should be protected.”

“Students for Life of America does not take a position against birth control per se,” Hamrick said. “We oppose forcing people to buy or fund drugs and devices against their beliefs, such as nuns, and we oppose forcing people to pretend that abortifacients mislabeled as contraception should also be paid for.”

The new contraception rule is part of a broader effort by the White House to promote easier access to abortion and contraception in order to compensate for the loss of Roe v. Wade, which previously forced all fifty states to allow most abortions.

3 Comments

    Loading...