Will the President Protect Religious Rights?

Sometimes the White House gets the easy questions wrong. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked about a controversial mandate stemming from Obamacare that would require religious employers to provide insurance coverage for birth control despite religious objections.

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The regulation in question, released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), falls under the category of “preventative services” and would require almost all health insurance plans to cover everything from all FDA-approved contraceptives to sterilizations—without cost to the insured. The mandate includes coverage of controversial drugs like ella—which can abort an early pregnancy. Religious employers with serious moral objections to providing coverage for such services will find little help in the mandate’s narrow religious exemption. Since it was first proposed in August, the mandate has received harsh criticism with regard to its treatment of conscience rights. It should be easy to conclude that upholding the religious rights of individuals and institutions is the optimal choice. But the White House appears bent on stifling that freedom with this mandate.

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