Obama Health Care Bill would force Catholic Institutions to Violate their Beliefs

[Jason]

[b] Catholic League Poised To Go To War With Obama Over Mandatory Birth Control Payments[/b]

[b] Donohue Says 70 Million Of His Voters Ready To Alter Presidential Election[/b]

Link: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/02/06/catholic-league-poised-to-go-to-war-with-obama-over-mandatory-birth-control-payments/

[b]NEW YORK (CBSNewYork)[/b] — Catholic leaders upped the ante Monday, threatening to challenge the Obama administration over a provision of the new health care law that would require all employers, including religious institutions, to pay for birth control.
As CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reports, it could affect the presidential elections.
Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill [url="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/07/27/fda-approves-new-permanent-birth-control-method/"]that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees[/url].
“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.
Already Archbishop Timothy Dolan has spoken out against the law and priests around the country have mobilized, reading letters from the pulpit. Donohue said Catholic officials will stop at nothing to put a stop to it.
“This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets,” Donohue said.

But pro-choice groups said they will fight the church and fight for the right of employees of Catholic institutions to have birth control and other services paid for.
“The Catholic hierarchy seems to be playing a cynical game of chicken and they don’t seem to care that the health and well being of millions of American woman are what’s at stake here,” [url="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/06/22/ex-naral-pro-choice-new-york-chief-kelli-conlin-admits-phony-expenses/"]National Abortion Rights Action League[/url] President Andrea Miller said.
Catholic leaders hope they will have more sway with the White House than usual because it is a presidential election year, hoping that if even a small percentage of Catholics back Obama’s opponent it could cost him the election.
When asked if this issue would affect who he would vote for in November, Wilton, Conn., resident Peter Taylor said, “Potentially, yes. I think it is a very serious issue, very meaningful.”
But not everyone views the situation as dire.
“I would certainly vote for Obama anyway. The church has to get up to date,” Manhattan resident Sue Thomas said.
Sources told Kramer that American bishops are contemplating a massive march on Washington, using people and school kids bused in from all over to protest the law.

[CincyInDC]

Oh please, even the Pope is coming around...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/8148944/The-Pope-drops-Catholic-ban-on-condoms-in-historic-shift.html

[Jamie_B]

Can you explain to me where the Church is forced into any specific provider? Because as I understand it, not ALL providers are required to provide it.


Oh and of course what DC said.

[MichaelWeston]

I am pro life. Unless you mean capital punishment then I am against it. Also if you mean war then I am against it. Also if you mean government based programs to help the poor eat, be sheltered, or get life saving health care treatments then I am against it. Also if you want health care to take care of the child that you did not abort or you had since you did not use birth control I am not for you being able to have that. Basically I want you to have a baby then you are on your own. I don't care about the issue then.

[|kennethmw|]

[quote name='MichaelWeston' timestamp='1328640874' post='1094580']
I am pro life. Unless you mean capital punishment then I am against it. Also if you mean war then I am against it. Also if you mean government based programs to help the poor eat, be sheltered, or get life saving health care treatments then I am against it. Also if you want health care to take care of the child that you did not abort or you had since you did not use birth control I am not for you being able to have that. Basically I want you to have a baby then you are on your own. I don't care about the issue then.
[/quote]

Bro, that couldn't be dripping with any more sarcasm. I feel you, I feel you.

[Bengals1181]

this is an interesting topic for me as a catholic. I'm pro-life and also pro-birth control. I agree that people working in catholic institutions should be offered the services (particularly coverage for birth control, which is something a great many catholics use despite the church's stance). I'm not in favor or the pro-abortion drug at all.

[Jamie_B]

What is the pro-abortion drug?

Are you talking about the morning after pill? You know that isnt an abortion drug its more to ensure that the sperm doesnt fertilize the egg.

[Bengals1181]

[quote name='Jamie_B' timestamp='1328666876' post='1094637']
What is the pro-abortion drug?

Are you talking about the morning after pill? You know that isnt an abortion drug its more to ensure that the sperm doesnt fertilize the egg.
[/quote]

just going off the article that referenced "abortion-producing drugs"

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='Bengals1181' timestamp='1328667040' post='1094638']

just going off the article that referenced "abortion-producing drugs"
[/quote]


ah

never heard of those, wonder what they are talking about.

[steggyD]

There's a drug you can take to force an abortion, not the morning after, it works later on in the pregnancy. Or you can do the old vacuum route, or coat hanger, if you find the right person.

[|kennethmw|]

[quote name='steggyD' timestamp='1328676132' post='1094670']There's a drug you can take to force an abortion, not the morning after, it works later on in the pregnancy. Or you can do the old vacuum route, or coat hanger, if you find the right person.[/quote]

The only legal drug that would be covered by a medical plan would be the morning after pill. If you know of something else, please tell us what that is.

[|Elflocko|]

They are referring to [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mifepristone"]RU486[/url]

[|kennethmw|]

[quote name='Elflocko' timestamp='1328710929' post='1094707']
They are referring to [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mifepristone"]RU486[/url]
[/quote]

I was aware of that drug, but I don't believe that it is a covered benefit under any medical plan sold in the states.

[The PatternMaster]

[quote name='Jason' timestamp='1328634775' post='1094560']
[b] Catholic League Poised To Go To War With Obama Over Mandatory Birth Control Payments[/b]

[b] Donohue Says 70 Million Of His Voters Ready To Alter Presidential Election[/b]

Link: [url="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/02/06/catholic-league-poised-to-go-to-war-with-obama-over-mandatory-birth-control-payments/"]http://newyork.cbslo...ntrol-payments/[/url]

[b]NEW YORK (CBSNewYork)[/b] — Catholic leaders upped the ante Monday, threatening to challenge the Obama administration over a provision of the new health care law that would require all employers, including religious institutions, to pay for birth control.
As CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reports, it could affect the presidential elections.
Catholic leaders are furious and determined to harness the voting power of the nation’s 70 million Catholic voters to stop a provision of President Barack Obama’s new heath car reform bill [url="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/07/27/fda-approves-new-permanent-birth-control-method/"]that will force Catholic schools, hospitals and charities to buy birth control pills, abortion-producing drugs and sterilization coverage for their employees[/url].
“Never before, unprecedented in American history, for the federal government to line up against the Roman Catholic Church,” said Catholic League head Bill Donohue.
Already Archbishop Timothy Dolan has spoken out against the law and priests around the country have mobilized, reading letters from the pulpit. Donohue said Catholic officials will stop at nothing to put a stop to it.
“This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets,” Donohue said.

But pro-choice groups said they will fight the church and fight for the right of employees of Catholic institutions to have birth control and other services paid for.
“The Catholic hierarchy seems to be playing a cynical game of chicken and they don’t seem to care that the health and well being of millions of American woman are what’s at stake here,” [url="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/06/22/ex-naral-pro-choice-new-york-chief-kelli-conlin-admits-phony-expenses/"]National Abortion Rights Action League[/url] President Andrea Miller said.
Catholic leaders hope they will have more sway with the White House than usual because it is a presidential election year, hoping that if even a small percentage of Catholics back Obama’s opponent it could cost him the election.
When asked if this issue would affect who he would vote for in November, Wilton, Conn., resident Peter Taylor said, “Potentially, yes. I think it is a very serious issue, very meaningful.”
But not everyone views the situation as dire.
“I would certainly vote for Obama anyway. The church has to get up to date,” Manhattan resident Sue Thomas said.
Sources told Kramer that American bishops are contemplating a massive march on Washington, using people and school kids bused in from all over to protest the law.
[/quote]

No offense to Catholics protesting this bill...BUT they need to stfu and sit down when it comes to this issue. They have enough problems to deal with like pedophilic priest and dwindling membership,they should realize opposing prevention of unwanted/unplanned pregnacies that lead to abortions is just down right ignorant. Especially when their high and exalted leader has come out in support of prevention of STD's and pregnancies by using condoms.

Besides that it's mighty ambitous of them to think they can influence the voting of every Catholic, more and more people are turning away from the Catholic church and it's their stance on issues like this that prove that they are stuck in the middle ages. The American Catholic church is out of touch with the average american and their reality. The reality is that condoms are available in most high schools and colleges and that prevention is more effective than sticking your head in the ground and pretending unmarried people are not having sex or that married people want to get pregnant every time they do have sex.

Imo, the Catholic church is flawed from the top down, just the idea of the Pope is wrong from a biblical standpoint, but I digress. Like I said, they need to stfu and get with the times. Preventing abortions and the spreading of STD's isn't a bad thing.

[MichaelWeston]

[quote name='The PatternMaster' timestamp='1328716419' post='1094722']

No offense to Catholics protesting this bill...BUT they need to stfu and sit down when it comes to this issue. They have enough problems to deal with like pedophilic priest and dwindling membership,they should realize opposing prevention of unwanted/unplanned pregnacies that lead to abortions is just down right ignorant. Especially when their high and exalted leader has come out in support of prevention of STD's and pregnancies by using condoms.

Besides that it's mighty ambitous of them to think they can influence the voting of every Catholic, more and more people are turning away from the Catholic church and it's their stance on issues like this that prove that they are stuck in the middle ages. The American Catholic church is out of touch with the average american and their reality. The reality is that condoms are available in most high schools and colleges and that prevention is more effective than sticking your head in the ground and pretending unmarried people are not having sex or that married people don't want to get pregnant every time they do have sex.

Imo, the Catholic church is flawed from the top down, just the idea of the Pope is wrong from a biblical standpoint, but I digress. Like I said, they need to stfu and get with the times. Preventing abortions and the spreading of STD's isn't a bad thing.
[/quote]

Born and raised catholic. Went to catholic school. I am basically agnostic now and so are most people I know who had the same path and are not just completely atheist. The Catholic Church is very very slow at change and its doctrines don't fit with today's realty. I would gamble that most of those that are in that 70 million are 50 or older. When we are that age the Church will have little to no power.

[MichaelWeston]

[url="http://webspace.webring.com/people/up/pharsea/Decline.html"]http://webspace.webring.com/people/up/pharsea/Decline.html[/url]

[Jamie_B]

Facts...shmacks....



[url="http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/controversial-obama-birth-control-rule-already-law"]http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/controversial-obama-birth-control-rule-already-law[/url]




[quote]

[b] Most of Obama's "Controversial" Birth Control Rule Was Law During Bush Years[/b]








[b] The right has freaked out over an Obama administration rule requiring employers to offer birth control to their employees. Most companies already had to do that.[/b]



[img]http://mjcdn.motherjones.com/preset_12/obama-facepalm_0.jpg[/img] President Barack Obama's decision to require most employers to cover birth control and insurers to offer it at no cost has [url="http://www.npr.org/2012/02/03/146342576/contraception-provision-sets-off-firestorm"]created a firestorm of controversy[/url]. But the central mandate—that most employers have to cover preventative care for women—has been law for over a decade. This point has been completely lost in the current controversy, as Republican presidential candidates and social conservatives claim that Obama has launched a war on religious liberty and the Catholic Church.

Despite the longstanding precedent, "no one screamed" until now, said Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert at George Washington University.

In December 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [url="http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/decision-contraception.html"]ruled[/url] that companies that provided prescription drugs to their employees but didn't provide birth control were in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex. That opinion, which the George W. Bush administration did nothing to alter or withdraw when it took office the next month, is still in effect today—and because it relies on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it applies to all employers with 15 or more employees. Employers that don't offer prescription coverage or don't offer insurance at all are exempt, because they treat men and women equally—but under the EEOC's interpretation of the law, you can't offer other preventative care coverage without offering birth control coverage, too.

"It was, we thought at the time, a fairly straightforward application of Title VII principles," a top former EEOC official who was involved in the decision told [i]Mother Jones[/i]. "All of these plans covered Viagra immediately, without thinking, and they were still declining to cover prescription contraceptives. It's a little bit jaw-dropping to see what is going on now…There was some press at the time but we issued guidances that were far, far more controversial."



resident for health and reproductive rights at the National Women's Law Center. "It has been in active use all this time. [President Obama's] policy is only new in the sense that it covers employers with less than 15 employees and with no copay for the individual. The basic rule has been in place since 2000."
Not even religious employers were exempt from the impact of the EEOC decision. Although Title VII allows religious institutions to discriminate on religious grounds, it [url="http://www.civilrights.org/lgbt/enda/religious-exemption-1.html"]doesn't allow them to discriminate on the basis of sex[/url]—the kind of discrimination at issue in the EEOC ruling. DePaul University, the largest Roman Catholic university in America, [url="http://www.projectsycamore.com/media/images/bulletins/111020/OSVins.pdf"]added birth control coverage to its plans[/url] after receiving an EEOC complaint several years ago. (DePaul officials did not respond to a request for comment.)
As recently as last year, the EEOC was moderating a dispute between the administrators of Belmont Abbey, a Catholic institution in North Carolina, and several of its employees who had their birth control coverage withdrawn after administrators realized it was being offered. [i]The Weekly Standard[/i] [url="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/093aasuz.asp"]opined on the issue in 2009[/url]—more proof that religious employers were being asked to cover contraception far before the Obama administration issued its new rule on January 20 of this year.
"The current freakout," Judy Waxman says, is largely occurring because the EEOC policy "isn't as widely known…and it hasn't been uniformly enforced." But it's still unclear whether Obama's Health and Human Services department will enforce the new rule any more harshly than the old one. The administration has already given organizations a year-long grace period to comply. Asked to explain how the agency would make employers do what it wanted, an HHS official told [i]Mother Jones[/i] that it would "enforce this the same way we enforce everything else in the law."



[/quote]

[|kennethmw|]

Here's a little more info.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/08/diana-degette-catholic-bishops-birth-control-rule_n_1263960.html?ref=politics

[|Elflocko|]

[quote name='kennethmw' timestamp='1328713523' post='1094719']


I was aware of that drug, but I don't believe that it is a covered benefit under any medical plan sold in the states.
[/quote]

Why would they let that get in the way of their rhetoric?

[steggyD]

[quote name='Jamie_B' timestamp='1328747832' post='1094816']
Facts...shmacks....



[url="http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/controversial-obama-birth-control-rule-already-law"]http://motherjones.c...ule-already-law[/url]
[/quote]
Most, but not all. Just an fyi, my company's provided health insurance does not cover any type of birth control. But this article says it had to. There's a discrepancy somewhere. Maybe my insurance has been lying to me.

[Jamie_B]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZijLQGH1v0

[|Elflocko|]

[quote name='steggyD' timestamp='1328769906' post='1094865']
Most, but not all. Just an fyi, my company's provided health insurance does not cover any type of birth control. But this article says it had to. There's a discrepancy somewhere. Maybe my insurance has been lying to me.
[/quote]

I've been there as well many times (they'll pay for fertility treatment but not a vasectomy; what?!?), but I think it will be required in the future when other provisions of the bill are enforced or some such.

There's a lot going on...

[CincyInDC]

I heard the new healthcare bill forces unwed mothers to give up their newborns for compulsory military training. The good thing is that we'll have soldiers to fight the upcoming wars.

[Squirrlnutz]

[quote name='steggyD' timestamp='1328769906' post='1094865']
Most, but not all. Just an fyi, my company's provided health insurance does not cover any type of birth control. But this article says it had to. There's a discrepancy somewhere. Maybe my insurance has been lying to me.
[/quote]

I think when the complete terms of the ACA come to effect it will be mandatory, may not be now. Also, lost in this is the large percentage of women who take birth control for reasons other than family planning.

What pisses me off about pro-life arguments is twofold:

1. They are only concerned with fixing the problem via their methods...which indicates that they are not at all concerned about fixing the problem and mostly obsessed with implementing THEIR methods. They are not open to solutions that don't fit within their dogma. The answer is already there, it doesn't matter that its ineffective, it only matters that its there. Lunacy.

2. They all start with this same false premise: RIGID ADHERENCE DOGMA/SCRIPTURE/SOCIAL RULES CAN MAKE PEOPLE STOP FUCKING. You can't make people stop fucking and fuck you for trying. Breathe, sex, drink, eat...these are the base conserved actions throughout all THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (that's right conservatives, you are an animal nothing more). They are in the proper order too because where you find populations with little to no water or food, you still find people fucking.

Realize that sex will happen and it will be "perpetrated" by those whom you are most worried about engaging in it. Teach medically accurate sexual education, make contraceptives readily available AND THEN follow up with your religious or social conservative message that they should really wait. Access to birth control or sex education is NOT WHAT MAKES KIDS FUCK EACH OTHER. Being human does that, so lets equip people the best we can with real knowledge about how sex works and its consequences and then you (as a parent or religious figure) can spend the rest of their life trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. /rant

[MichaelWeston]

[quote name='Squirrlnutz' timestamp='1328815596' post='1094948']

I think when the complete terms of the ACA come to effect it will be mandatory, may not be now. Also, lost in this is the large percentage of women who take birth control for reasons other than family planning.

What pisses me off about pro-life arguments is twofold:

1. They are only concerned with fixing the problem via their methods...which indicates that they are not at all concerned about fixing the problem and mostly obsessed with implementing THEIR methods. They are not open to solutions that don't fit within their dogma. The answer is already there, it doesn't matter that its ineffective, it only matters that its there. Lunacy.

2. They all start with this same false premise: RIGID ADHERENCE DOGMA/SCRIPTURE/SOCIAL RULES CAN MAKE PEOPLE STOP FUCKING. You can't make people stop fucking and fuck you for trying. Breathe, sex, drink, eat...these are the base conserved actions throughout all THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (that's right conservatives, you are an animal nothing more). They are in the proper order too because where you find populations with little to no water or food, you still find people fucking.

Realize that sex will happen and it will be "perpetrated" by those whom you are most worried about engaging in it. Teach medically accurate sexual education, make contraceptives readily available AND THEN follow up with your religious or social conservative message that they should really wait. Access to birth control or sex education is NOT WHAT MAKES KIDS FUCK EACH OTHER. Being human does that, so lets equip people the best we can with real knowledge about how sex works and its consequences and then you (as a parent or religious figure) can spend the rest of their life trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. /rant
[/quote]

There is 0 chance Jesus would be a republican.