Posted on 01/07/2014 7:06:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It takes some doing to get embroiled in a court fight with nuns who provide hospice care for the indigent. Amazingly, the Obama administration has managed it.
Its legal battle with the Little Sisters of the Poor is the logical consequence of Obamacare’s conscience-trampling contraception mandate. The requirement went into effect January 1, but Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a New Year’s Eve injunction against enforcing it on the Little Sisters.
They are Catholic nuns who follow the doctrinal teachings of the church and therefore oppose contraceptive and abortive drugs and sterilization, all of which Obamacare mandates that employers cover in their insurance plans. Given the ongoing delays, waivers, and exemptions associated with the law, it would seem natural simply to let the Little Sisters go about their business of pouring out their hearts for the sick and dying.
When the contraception mandate first caused an uproar, the administration contrived a so-called accommodation for religiously oriented groups (actual churches have always been exempt). But whoever crafted it had a sick sense of humor. The very same document by which a group registers its moral objection to contraceptives and abortifacients also authorizes the insurer to cover them for the group’s employees. What the accommodation gives with one hand, it takes away with the other.
The Little Sisters refuse to sign such a document. They happen to be in an unusual situation because they get their insurance from another religiously affiliated organization opposed to contraceptives and abortifacients, so it may be that these drugs don’t get covered no matter what. But the Little Sisters can’t be sure of this — the regulations are complicated and subject to change.
Regardless, they don’t want to sign. They want no part in authorizing coverage of contraceptive or abortive drugs. Enthusiasts for the mandate scoff. What the nuns are objecting to, they insist, is just a piece of paper.
Just a piece of paper? So is a mortgage. So is a wedding certificate. So is a will. How would the board of directors of NARAL react if the government forced them to sign a “piece of paper” tacitly condemning contraception or abortion? Would they shrug it off as a mere formality?
The Little Sisters deserve deference. Their religious sensibility is different than — and, one hazards to say, more finely tuned than — that of the mandarins of President Barack Obama’s administrative state. In a dispute over what their conscience tells them to do or not to do, the Little Sisters are better positioned to know than anyone else.
Besides, who is harmed if the Little Sisters don’t provide contraception coverage? They are a voluntary organization. They aren’t imposing their views on anyone. Who, for that matter, is harmed if a secular organization run by people with moral objections to contraceptives and abortifacients refuses to cover them? Employees are still free to go out on their own and get contraceptives, which are widely available. If this sounds like an outlandish imposition, it is what people managed to do throughout American history all the way up to last week.
The contraception mandate has always had a strong ideological impetus. Opponents of the mandate “want to roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius notoriously declared in 2011. “We’ve come a long way in women’s health over the last few decades, but we are in a war.” By this bizarre way of thinking, a small congregation of nuns that cares for the most vulnerable is somehow complicit in a war on women’s health.
Instead of respecting the moral views of the Little Sisters, the administration hopes to grind them under foot by force of law. For shame.
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com.
Waivers for Muslims and Scientologists, but not for the Catholics. How is this legal?
Legal? What is this “legal” of which you speak? Obama is Evil in a dinner jacket.
Obama has to make an example out of the Little Sisters of the Poor and crush them to show that opposition to his policies is futile.
They are enemies of the state now.
RE: Waivers for Muslims and Scientologists,
Could you kindly give us a link or source for this piece of news?
Time to really go after Roe vs Wade. Abortion is murder....period.
If you shake a one year old and the kid dies, you go to jail.
If you suck a baby out of a womb and the baby dies, the government pays for it.
What's wrong with this picture?
Every time Obama is properly identified as a vile Catholic bashing bigot, he simply waves the honorary degree he received at Notre Dame. No decent Catholic should send a dime to Notre Dame.
Obama’s war on the Catholic Church continues
"You think I am going to let a group of sniveling nuns stand in my way?
No practicing Vatholic has any respect for that degree. It’s another of his Nobel prizes. His having it diminishes its prestige.
On the other hand BO has no respect for these nuns nor their own authority
He may never gain respect for them, but they will never give in to this mandate
They are having the resistance the Al Smith Dinner attending USCCB should be having, and BO is mistaking where the authority of the Church lies
He, like many Catholics think the Church is a democrat political organization It is not. The Bible, the Magesterium and tradition is the head of the Church. It doesn’t waver. People do but the authority does not
These Catholic, habit wearing nuns with their service, vocation and ministry to the poor have zero interest in political position, avoiding propaganda, finance nor fame.
BO and his news media have zero power over them.
BO etal can either ‘be gone’ or stay in to lose, but these nuns will not ever comply with contributing to birth control. They won’t try to make others comply with their own belief in this tenet, but they will never participate
BO thinks he understands the church as does the media as they surround themselves with people who say they’re catholic but have no connection to its leader nor its tenets beyond a second grade level, when they themselves stopped listening and practicing or beyond their fighting it their entire adult lives
But he has no clue
Democrats are up for this job - - I hear they're going to take on blind children next...
Hey. You know what they say about the meek. Or is it the Bible? Psalms?
BO has no comprehension of yielding to an authority. He bows at will, just to stay out of trouble, and does so inappropriately to his position because it is a meaningless gesture to him
He is way out of his league here
Obama vs. the Little Sisters: Waivers for Unions, Muslims, Amish, Scientologists, etc. but not for Nuns or other Christians.
There, fixed it!
Legal has nothing to do with it.
If it’s traditional, if it’s based on Christian values, he will oppose it.
Talk about a War on Women ...
And 'Outcome Inequality'!
DemocRATS = Hypocrites
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
This is the same mac daddy who would gleefully support his daughters aborting if they became pregnant before marriage so they would not be burdened with a baby.
Such a great supportive father figure = oh wait I forgot it has nothing to do with the innocent baby or the daughter, it’s all about him and how it would effect him and only him.
Democrats waging war against Catholic Nuns serving the poor... It's beyond shameful...
As Charlie Daniels said those Nuns are the only one he seen that stands up to the Democrats.
“Obama is Evil in a dinner jacket”.
Bingo!!
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