The nation’s biggest abortion business is celebrating the Obama HHS mandate that goes into effect today and compels religious employers to pay for and refer women for drugs that can cause abortions, birth control and sterilizations.
“This week Planned Parenthood celebrates a critical early milestone for women’s preventive health under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Specifically, the birth control benefit that begins going into effect, making birth control available at no cost to women,” the abortion business said.
“As the nation’s leading women’s health care provider and advocate, Planned Parenthood knows firsthand how critical the birth control benefit is for women and families, not just for their health but also for their pocketbooks,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Politics should never interfere with access to health care. Americans aren’t interested in reopening fights over health care reform.”
“The Affordable Care Act is the greatest advance for women’s health in a generation,” the abortion business said.
But Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance begs to differ and made the following statement this morning on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” in response to the Obama Administration’s mandate:
“CWA is leading the charge to repeal this mandate and, of course, the underlying law because this is an absolute assault on an individual’s right to freedom and right to conscience,” she said. “Let me also explain that most people think this is just about contraceptives. And no, in fact, Concerned Women for America doesn’t even have a position on contraceptives.”
“This mandate forces employers and individuals to pay for abortion-inducing drugs as well as contraceptives. So today is really a sad day for many Americans. Our government has violated our consciences despite the fact that the president promised, in passing the Affordable Care Act, that this wouldn’t happen,” she added.
Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest also disagrees.
“As Obamacare’s anti-life, conscience-killing mandate goes into effect today, we are seeing the Obama Administration completely and callously trample Americans’ freedom of conscience,” she said. “An anti-life ripple effect will sweep healthcare across the nation, and today, the pay-out to the abortion business begins.”
Last year, the Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the clear influence of Planned Parenthood, announced that it was defining the “preventive services” provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to include “all FDA approved contraceptives.” As AUL and other pro-life groups have documented, adopting such a broad definition forces private health insurance plans to fully cover, without a co-pay, life-ending drugs and devices, including ella, an abortion-inducing drug.
“Despite the knowledge that mandated coverage for an abortion-inducing drug like ella violates the religious beliefs and moral principles of many Americans, the Obama Administration has refused to offer sufficient solutions to a serious problem for many Americans,” said Dr. Yoest. “Putting its loyalty to the abortion industry above all else, HHS has not budged.”
Yoest said abortion is woven into the healthcare law in several ways that must now be addressed by Congress including:
* Failing to prohibit the use of federal tax dollars for abortion, abortion coverage, and abortion-inducing drugs and devices.
* Pretending that the Hyde Amendment protections were enough to prohibit direct payment for abortions.
* Permitting federally-subsidized Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) to provide abortion coverage through the state insurance exchanges required in all 50 states.
* Failing to prohibit all multi-state qualified health plans from providing coverage for abortion.
* Including a “preventive care” mandate that is being used to force coverage of drugs and devices known to end life.
* Failing to provide comprehensive First Amendment conscience protections for individuals, employers, and insurance companies that have religious or moral objections to abortion.
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But Yoest is encouraged by a federal court ruling last week in one of the dozens of cases filed against the conscience-killing mandate. A federal court in Newland v. Sebelius issued a preliminary injunction against the mandate, halting its enforcement against a family-run business in Colorado. While the opinion is certainly an encouraging start, Yoest said, as it may foreshadow a more significant blow to the Obama Administration’s anti-conscience mandate, it has a limited immediate application.
