Texas AG voices opposition of Obama ‘contraceptive mandate’

AUSTIN—Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has joined with 11 other state attorneys general in a letter urging the Obama administrative to drop the controversial “contraceptive mandate” requiring religious employers to subsidize contraceptives, including abortion-causing drugs.

“The more we learn about Obamacare, the more unconstitutional it becomes,” Abbott said in a statement. “This mandate is a stunning trampling of freedom of religion by forcing religious-based hospitals and clinics to act contrary to their religious doctrine. These mandates force religious organizations and hospitals to subsidize products and moral judgments that clearly violate their beliefs.”

The letter, addressed to the secretaries of health and human services, labor and the treasury, said the group was writing “to express our strong opposition to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious employers that provide health insurance coverage to their employees to include coverage for contraceptives, sterilization, and related services. Should this unconstitutional mandate be promulgated, we are prepared to vigorously oppose it in court.”

The Obama administration found little support among pro-life groups when it announced on Feb. 10 that its contraceptive mandate would be altered to shift the responsibility to offer free contraceptives—including abortion-causing drugs such as “ella” and Plan B—away from religious organizations to their insurance carriers.

The White House claimed the move accommodates religious groups who objected to the earlier version of the mandate, while pro-life groups accused the White House of mere accounting trickery that guarantees the same outcome—universal contraceptive coverage.

The new policy, the White House said, would allow religious institutions to avoid offering contraception in their insurance plans. Instead, the new plan “ensures … (the) insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge” by directly contacting women employed by religious organizations that object to offering contraception coverage.

Obama said in announcing the changes, “The result will be that religious organizations won't have to pay for these services and no religious institution will have to provide these services.”

But pro-life advocates took little time in countering, noting that the costs to insurers of providing contraceptives freely would be passed on to religious organizations that pay for group coverage.

Also, self-funded insurance plans, such as those offered by the Southern Baptist Convention’s benefits entity, would be forced to comply as an insurance provider.

Richard Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told Baptist Press, “It is an attempt to deal with a matter of religious conviction with an accounting gimmick.”

Self-funded plans like that of GuideStone Financial Resources, which insures 60,000 Southern Baptists and their families, pays benefits directly instead of using a third-party insurance company as the source of benefit payments.

“This self-funded approach to healthcare coverage, which is common among many historic and large church plans, was completely ignored by the President in his comments,” GuideStone President O.S. Hawkins said in a statement following Obama’s announcement.

The controversy began when the Department of Health and Human Services in January finalized a rule requiring private insurance plans to cover all FDA-approved contraceptives, including “emergency” ones such as Plan B and “ella” that can block implantation and kill the embryo—an action that pro-life groups and many Christians view as an early abortion. The drugs would be free for employees.

The HHS rule included an exemption for most churches, but that exemption does not cover Christian colleges and schools or faith-based hospitals and social service programs. Programs such as Catholic Charities, Prison Fellowship and GuideStone Financial Resources would be affected. GuideStone’s Hawkins released a statement before Obama's press conference saying simply, “we will not provide abortive contraceptives.”

Land and others said that an insurance company's money is fungible, and that a religious employer would still be providing the funding to pay for an employee’s abortion-inducing drugs.
Hawkins called it an “approach that does not address the issues at hand for Southern Baptists who oppose so-called contraceptives that can and do cause an abortion.”

“The President's statement today,” Hawkins said, “is an insulting affront illustrating a basic lack of understanding that this issue will not be solved by sleight-of-hand word games. It is a fundamental matter of religious liberty that threatens the very coverage of those dedicated persons who serve our churches and affiliated organizations. GuideStone will never depart from the core convictions it has held dear for decades regarding the sanctity of life.”

Said Land, “Obama showed a total lack of awareness of self-funded insurance programs like GuideStone … GuideStone cannot comply with this, because GuideStone would be forced to pay for abortifacients, which we find unconscionable.”

“This administration,” Land added, “has shown a very disturbing trend of when religious freedoms collide with sexual rights, sexual rights trump religious convictions every time. If the insurance company is forced to provide the coverage, the insurance company is going to pass the cost on to the person paying for the insurance—us.”

Senate Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan told LifeNews.com: “This ObamaCare rule still tramples on Americans’ First Amendment right to freedom of religion. It’s a fig leaf, not a compromise. Whether they are affiliated with a church or not, employers will still be forced to pay an insurance company for coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs,” he said.

Yet Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, applauded the Obama move.

“In the face of a misleading and outrageous assault on women's health, the Obama administration has reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring all women will have access to birth control coverage, with no costly co-pays, no additional hurdles, and no matter where they work,” Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said. “We believe the compliance mechanism does not compromise a woman's ability to access these critical birth control benefits.”

—Compiled by TEXAN staff and Michael Foust of Baptist Press