Obama Announces Contraception ‘Accommodation’ for Religious Organizations
Catholic leaders and evangelicals have apparently managed to raise enough hell that President Obama is making some adjustments to the newly announced contraception rules. Now employers won’t have to provide insurance plans that cover contraception for women; insurance providers will do it directly.
The move, based on state models, will almost certainly not satisfy bishops and other religious leaders since it will preserve the goal of women employees having their birth control fully covered by health insurance.
Sources say it will be respectful of religious beliefs but will not back off from that goal, which many religious leaders oppose since birth control is in violation of their religious beliefs.
One source familiar with the decision described the accommodation as “Hawaii-plus,” insisting that it’s better than the Hawaii plan — for both sides.
In Hawaii the employer is responsible for referring employees to places where they can obtain the contraception; Catholic leaders call that material cooperation with evil. But what the White House will likely announce later today is that the relationship between the religious employer and the insurance company will not need to have any component involving contraception. The insurance company will reach out on its own to the women employees. This is better for both sides, the source says, since the religious organizations do not have to deal with medical care to which they object, and women employees will not have to be dependent upon an organization strongly opposed to that care in order to obtain it.
You can probably already predict the reaction from the religious right: rage, and more rage.
For example, lunatic American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer tweeted today:
WH “compromise” totally bogus. Now just tramples on religious liberty of insurance companies instead. It’s a travesty.
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) February 10, 2012
Obama’s “compromise” is totalitarianism on hormones. Now jackbooted thugs are ordering insurance companies around.
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) February 10, 2012
I remain utterly appalled that throwbacks like Fischer have managed to make contraception controversial again, in the year 2012.
