Christian leaders are considering their legal options after the Obama administration announced that many religious-affiliated institutions will have to provide free birth control for employees.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered a single concession, saying that nonprofit institutions like church-affiliated hospitals and colleges will have an additional year to comply with the requirement.
“I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services,” Sebelius said in a statement.
Under the guideline, HHS said the controversial 2010 health-care reform law would require health plans and insurers to provide no-cost coverage of contraceptives, including those with abortion-inducing properties. Those FDA-endorsed contraceptives include ones that have the ability to cause abortions — emergency contraception, such as Plan B; the intrauterine device (IUD), and “ella.” Emergency contraception is also known as the “morning-after” pill.
The decision has infuriated some Christian leaders who called the decision an outright attack on religious liberty.
“Generally, Christian colleges and organizations find the ruling to be outrageous,” said David Dockery, president of Union University in Jackson, Tenn.
“It puts us in a position of having to support something that we fundamentally oppose,” Dockery said.
He said Obama’s decision poses “a real question about the administration’s commitment to religious freedom.”
Mark Foley, president of the University of Mobile, said he had “a great deal of concern about it.”
“It’s another illustration of the intent of this administration to ignore the rights of the citizens,” Foley told Fox News & Commentary. “It will mean that when our health care plan provider approaches us with the adjustments that are now mandated, the university will be forced to cover employees with provisions that are contrary to our purpose and our underlying philosophical and theological position.”
So what should Christians do?
“For now, the greatest opportunity is through the courts — to find remedy and to exercise my vote and to urge others to exercise their vote,” Foley said. “Civil disobedience takes you to a plain of action for which I am not yet ready personally — but I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Dockery, too, said the ruling would give Christians cause for contemplation.
“I’m sure it would be a time for us to think very carefully — to realize that our Christian convictions have come in conflict with the ruling of the country — which would cause a huge issue for us and many others as well,” Dockery said.
“It’s overwhelming to think about this,” he said. (BP)
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