Douglas Kmiec Back to Defending Pro-Abortion Obama to Catholics

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 22, 2011   |   6:54PM   |   Washington, DC

There he goes again. Embattled Catholic law professor and former Obama ambassador to Malta, Douglas Kmiec, is back defending the pro-abortion president to Catholics, this time over conscience issues.

Writing in the National Catholic Reporter today, Kmiec essentially tells Catholics to get over the fact that the Obama administration is dangerously close to adopting new Obamacare rules that will require insurance companies and religious organizations to pay for insurance that will cover birth control, contraception, and drugs that can sometimes cause abortions.

Without saying so directly, Kmiec essentially takes on the Catholic bishops and their argument that the Obama administration is about to trample on the rights of Catholics and other religious groups that don’t want to be required to pay for insurance that violates their moral or religious views.

“Sometimes one is tempted to say a plague on both your houses. We’re not even close to the 2012 election season and already there are overheated claims that the Obama administration is at war with Catholics,” he claims. “It is not.”

“One of the most attractive aspects of President Barack Obama is the significance of faith in his life,” Kmiec adds — which is at odds with Obama’s aggressive promotion of abortion during his administration and condemnation of pro-life advocates and conservative voters as ones who “cling to” their religion.

Kmiec goes further and essentially tells Catholics to shut up about Obama’s impending decision on Obamacare.

“If the law allows for religious beliefs to be observed or unobserved as the authoritative family member may decide, the church really should not complain about the president if its own believer makes the wrong choice in terms of Catholic doctrine,” he says. “In such circumstance, the church’s focus should be upon the education and conversion of heart of its own believer, not whether the law permits a contrary belief.”

Kmiec then throws out the concept of conscience altogether with the false notion that being required to pay for someone one objects to doesn’t equate to engaging in the act itself, essentially giving a defense to Obama’s repeated requirement that taxpayers fund abortion and abortion businesses.

“This same principle explains the limits of the law with respect to all manner of subjects, from abortion to artificial contraception. That the law may specify that abortion or contraceptive coverage be included as choices for employees ought not be seen as making the employer contributing to the legally imposed medical premium complicit in the act itself,” he writes. “To think that an authorizing statute or executive decision violates principles of religious liberty or free exercise merely because it allows a choice contrary to faith is to misunderstand the nature of democracy and individual freedom.”

“There is no violation of religious liberty when HHS announces a temporary (or permanent) regulation requiring all employers — religious or nonreligious, Catholic or not — to provide employees with an insurance benefit for artificial contraception,” he continues. “HHS is not duty-bound to allow a Catholic employer exemption.”

Millions of pro-life Catholics and pro-life advocates of any or all faiths tired of seeing their religious liberties offended will strenuously disagree.