The first ideological tentacles of ObamaCare began snaking their way into the pocketbooks of private insurers and the consciences of religious Americans when, on Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services issued new guidelines requiring insurers to provide free birth control — including “morning-after” abortion pills — in the name of “women’s health.”
“These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Insurers will have to provide the services without deductibles, co-pays or any other charges.
In other words, the federal government — choosing sides in the culture war — now considers “unplanned” pregnancy to be a preventable disease.
Not the most fundamental mystery of human existence. Not the fullest expression of love between a man and a woman. Not a deeply personal human activity that lies at the heart of religious moral teaching.
A disease — and cause for a new government giveaway.
Naturally, the left is cheering. A Planned Parenthood official called the decision “a tremendous stride forward for women’s health in this country.”
Religious folks, on the other hand, are up in arms. While the new rules provide a fig-leaf exemption for matters of religious conscience among believers, there’s no exemption for religious medical institutions offering services to the general public.
“Under the new rule, our institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics,” explained Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the archbishop of Galveston-Houston, and the US bishops’ point man on pro-life issues. “Could the federal government possibly intend to pressure Catholic institutions to cease providing health care, education and charitable services to the general public?”
Sure, if necessary — though it would rather they kept providing those services and tossed their own principles overboard. That’s the real point here — for the government to award victory to one side in the culture war, the side of Planned Parenthood and other “progressives.”
And never mind that a righty administration could use the ObamaCare law to mandate that insurers not cover abortion and family planning — liberals would scream that that would be “imposing values” without ever seeing the hypocrisy.
This is just another case where the critics in the debate over ratifying ObamaCare are being proved right — with the defenders exposed as liars or dupes.
The “antis” warned that “universal health care” would inevitably leave the feds ruling on a host of charged moral issues; the “pros” denied it — though many doubtless saw it as a feature, not a bug.
Because, after all, it’s the only way they’re going to win — by having the state impose their values without actually admitting it.
Hence Sebellius’ absurd blather about the ruling being based purely on “science.” (The “scientific” literature she referred to came largely from the nominally independent Institute of Medicine, which told her exactly what she wanted to hear.) No value judgments being made here, move right along . . .
Ha: The government’s high-minded attempts to discourage out-of-wedlock birth have been a miserable failure for going on half a century: Since 1970, the rate of bastardy has tripled to 41 percent of all births, and abortions remain steady at more than a million per year. Indeed, there’s compelling evidence that easy access to contraception and abortion actually increases the number of unintended pregnancies.
Events are sure to expose many more lies surrounding ObamaCare. (The biggest laugher being the claim that it will save the taxpayers money.) The program’s fans hope the bad news dribbles out slowly enough to allow them to avoid outright repeal, and they may be right.
After all, nothing must be allowed to derail the “progressive” drive to make the feds all things to all men — the womb-to-tomb provider of first and last resort. What’s a little matter of religious conscience against that?