Army of Catholic Church Lawyers Are Directed To Fight Obama's Health Regulations
This a summary from CNS News on what the Catholic Church in America bishops are protesting in court:
The bishops have argued that elements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act-AKA Obamacare-including the so-called "preventive services" mandate, would force faithful Catholics to act against their consciences and the teachings of their church. The mandate requires that virtually all health-care plans in the United States cover, without any fees or co-pay, sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.
The bishops also object to the manner in which Obamacare deals with abortion generally. In April, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a background paper explaining how Obamacare not only would use tax dollars to fund abortions but would also force Americans to pay for abortions with the premiums they would pay to purchase health insurance-which under Obamacare they are mandated to do. The backgrounder was titled, "The New Federal Regulation on Coerced Abortion Payments."
Additionally, the bishops object to the so-called "religious" exemption to the mandate that requires all health-care plans cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients. That exemption only applies to "religious" organizations that are primarily focused on inculcating religious tenets and that serve and employ primarily members of their own denomination. This "religious" exemption would not extend to Catholic schools, universities, hospitals, and charitable organizations-and, the bishops argue, it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by empowering federal bureaucrats to determine which religious institutions are truly "religious" and which ones are not.
In their bulletin insert, the bishops unequivocally state that the administration's sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate would force people to act against their consciences.
Source: CNS News