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<\/a><\/p>\nYesterday I shared a little update on what has been cooking on the HHS Mandate front,<\/a> while we\u2019ve been caught up in the Papal resignation, conclave, and installation. Thankfully, the good folks in the legal department of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops kept their eyes, and minds, glued to the chess board.<\/p>\n Yesterday, they published a press release with a link to the public comment the Conference made to the latest iteration of the HHS Mandate \u201caccommodation.\u201d In a nutshell? No joy.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the longer version,<\/p>\n WASHINGTON\u2014 The general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops states that the current proposed revisions of the Obama Administration\u2019s contraceptive mandate are \u201can unprecedented \u2026violation of religious liberty by the federal government\u201d and must be changed.<\/p>\n The statement is in comments filed March 20 regarding the mandate, which requires most health plans in the United States to cover abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and related education and counseling.<\/p>\n The comments, made on the USCCB\u2019s behalf by Anthony R. Picarello, USCCB associate general secretary and general counsel, and Michael F. Moses, associate general counsel, note a number of continuing problems with the regulations, which had been the subject of earlier rulemaking and comment by the USCCB. The comments state:<\/p>\n First, like earlier iterations of the regulation, the latest proposal requires coverage of items and procedures that, unlike other mandated \u201cpreventive services,\u201d do not prevent disease. Instead, they are associated with an increased risk of adverse health outcomes, including conditions that other \u201cpreventive services\u201d are designed to prevent.<\/p>\n Second, no exemption or accommodation is available at all for the vast majority of individual or institutional stakeholders with religious or moral objections to contraceptive coverage. Virtually all Americans who enroll in a health plan will ultimately be required to have contraceptive coverage for themselves and their dependents, whether they want it or not.<\/p>\n Third, although the definition of an exempt \u201creligious employer\u201d has been revised to eliminate some of the intrusive and constitutionally improper government inquiries into religious teaching and beliefs that were inherent in an earlier definition, the current proposal continues to define \u201creligious employer\u201d in a way that, by the government\u2019s own admission, excludes (and therefore subjects to the mandate) a wide array of employers that are undeniably religious. Generally the nonprofit religious organizations that fall on the \u201cnon-exempt\u201d side of this religious gerrymander include those organizations that contribute most visibly to the common good through the provision of health, educational, and social services.<\/p>\n Fourth, the Administration has offered what it calls an \u201caccommodation\u201d for nonprofit religious organizations that fall outside its narrow definition of \u201creligious employer.\u201d The \u201caccommodation\u201d is based on a number of questionable factual assumptions. Even if all of those assumptions were sound, the \u201caccommodation\u201d still requires the objecting religious organization to fund or otherwise facilitate the morally objectionable coverage.<\/p>\n Fifth, the mandate continues to represent an unprecedented (and now sustained) violation of religious liberty by the federal government. As applied to individuals and organizations with a religious objection to contraceptive coverage, the mandate violates the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are willing, now as always, to work with the Administration to reach a just and lawful resolution of these issues. In the meantime, along with others, we will continue to look for resolution of these issues in Congress and in the courts,\u201d Picarello and Moses write.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read all 24 pages of the comment here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n If President Obama thought that the Bishops weren\u2019t following his orders before the Conclave, they aren\u2019t leaving any doubts about that fact now. Your move, Mr. President.<\/p>\n UPDATE:<\/strong><\/p>\n The Deadline to submit your own comment is April 8, 2013. Click here to let the folks at HHS know that you stand with the U.S. Bishops.<\/a><\/p>\n