US News

Obama amends contraception rule amid backlash

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday announced that religious organizations will no longer be required to offer free birth control to female employees next year, a shift in policy aimed at tempering intensifying political backlash over religious freedom.

Under the new approach, insurance companies, rather than religious organizations, will be obligated to offer contraception for free to the institutions’ employees.

“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 directly,” Obama, who was flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, said at the White House. “Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care. That includes contraceptive services no matter where they work.”

Obama said he ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week to quickly come up with a new policy to satisfy the complaints of religious organizations because it was clear to him that some in Washington were turning the debate over religious freedom into “political football.”

Speaking to FOX News Channel following the president’s remarks, Sebelius called the policy shift “a very workable solution.”

The president telephoned Archbishop Timothy Dolan, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Health Association President Sister Carol Keehan and Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards to discuss the policy change before he made his announcement, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The controversy stemmed from HHS regulations that obligate employers to offer free birth control under their health plans beginning Aug. 1. The HHS mandate is part of a requirement in Obama’s health care law that preventive health care be covered at no cost by insurance companies.

Houses of worship — such as churches, synagogues and mosques — were excluded from the law, but religious-affiliated organizations such as universities and hospitals were ordered to comply with the HHS regulations beginning in 2013. Obama’s announcement Friday removed the requirement for the religious organizations.

Numerous religious groups had vigorously opposed the mandate for infringing on their religious freedoms by requiring them to provide birth control products in violation of their beliefs.

“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience,” Dolan said last month. “This shouldn’t happen in the land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”

Dolan said Friday that Obama’s shift was “a first step in the right direction” but said the US Conference of Catholic Bishops was reserving “judgment on the details until we have them.”

The HHS mandate was also vigorously opposed by Republican presidential candidates, with front-runner Mitt Romney calling it “an assault on religion.”

On Friday, Obama criticized those who he said attempted to make the HHS mandate “a political wedge issue.”

“But it shouldn’t be,” Obama said. “This is an issue where people of good will on both sides of the debate have … sorted through some very complicated questions to find a solution that works for everybody.”

House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.), who was one of the first Democrats to break with Obama on the HHS mandate, praised the president for his policy change Friday.

“I want to applaud President Obama for finding a path forward to provide coverage to everyone while addressing the conscience concerns of religiously-affiliated organizations,” Larson said in a statement.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Obama did not go far enough.

“This is about religious freedom, and anything short of a full exemption is no compromise,” Hatch said in a statement.

The Becket Fund, which has filed three lawsuits on behalf of religious organizations challenging the constitutionality of the HHS mandate, said in a statement that the changes “still leave out hundreds, if not thousands of religious organizations, businesses and individuals that would still be forced to violate their religious beliefs.”