Obamacare Versus the First Amendment

Obamacare's contraception mandate threatens the free exercise of religion .



That mandate requires private organizations to provide contraceptives, abortifacients and sterilization procedures to their female employees, free of charge, even if doing so violates the deeply held religious beliefs of the organization. It is an egregious transgression against religious freedom.

To save face, the administration carved out a narrow exception for purely religious organizations like churches and synagogues. Uncovered by the exception are hospitals, charities, schools, colleges and businesses run by religious organizations or individuals. The requirement, which tells American citizens to violate their beliefs or pay millions of dollars in fines to the federal government, went into effect for non-religious organizations last August. Religious groups were given a year's grace period to figure out how best to violate their consciences.



The Little Sisters of the Poor is a religious congregation that cares for the impoverished elderly through its operation of 30 homes for low-income seniors in this country. The sisters all take vows of poverty; they live to serve the residents of their homes. Money is tight. Operating expenses are not low for organizations that feed, house and provide medical care for more than 2,500 aged Americans. The sisters must travel around, literally begging for donations from churches and businesses to help them stay afloat. A representative of the organization told the Daily Caller in December that the mandate "could be a serious threat to our mission in the U.S. because we would never be able to afford to pay the fines involved. We have difficulty making ends meet just on a regular basis; we have no extra funding that would cover these fines."


[Read the U.S. News Debate: should Catholic and other religious institutions have to cover birth control?]

The decision by "rogue" IRS agents to target the tax-exempt status of groups whose politics they found distasteful was roundly condemned even by people who disagree with the political aims of the groups in question. Likewise, we should all be disturbed by this attempt to coerce religious people and organizations into violating their beliefs. It shows a total disrespect for the First Amendment to our Constitution, which prohibits laws that impede the free exercise of religion.


If that's not Orwellian, it's hard to imagine what is.

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