ObamaCare’s Crisis of Conscience

[Valin]

First Things:

 

John Davidson

12/5/12

 

Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma City-based chain of arts-and-crafts stores, must provide employee health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, a federal judge has ruled, despite the owners’ claim that such drugs violate their religious beliefs.

 

The ruling states that Hobby Lobby and its sister company, Mardel Inc., which sells Bibles and Christian study books, have no constitutional protection from the broadly construed contraceptive requirements in ObamaCare because “Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious organizations.”

 

(Snip)

 

But perhaps most shocking was the administration’s hubris in assuming that religious organizations, business owners, and individuals with deeply held beliefs about contraception and abortion would agree to provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs such as the morning-after pill. Were federal officials surprised when the Catholic Church objected to mandated contraceptive coverage? Did they really think Catholic-owned hospitals and universities would accept such a rule? Did they think conservative Christian schools like Wheaton College—which forbids alcohol, tobacco, and even unsanctioned dancing on its campus—would somehow be willing to provide its employees with morning-after pills and other abortifacients?

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Not-So-Safe Harbor: Court Allows Archdiocese’s HHS Mandate Challenge to Proceed

Dominique Ludvigson

December 11, 2012

 

For the first time, a federal court has permitted a Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate challenge by a religious nonprofit organization to go forward.

 

A federal district court rejected the federal government’s motion to dismiss the Archdiocese of New York’s challenge to the HHS anti-conscience mandate.

 

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York found that the government’s temporary enforcement suspension against some religious employers, which the Administration misleadingly labels a “safe harbor,” was insufficient to protect the archdiocese and two of its affiliated health care nonprofits from the threat of immediate harm.

 

(Snip)