Obama Imposes Abortion Agenda On Catholic Church Hospitals And Charities To Drive Them Out Of Business

Today marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Let’s celebrate the milestone by driving the Catholic Church out of its mission of caring for the sick and the poor by forcing them to either do something that is anathema to their theology or forcing them to abandon their hospital and charity work:

[Important Updates] Obama Admin Decides to Require Religious Institutions to Cover Free Contraception & Sterilization
by Thomas Peters
January 20, 2012

Liberals are crowing about what they see as a huge victory for them — and they are right — because this victory comes at the expense of religious liberty.

Welcome to the Obama 2012 reelection plan: ignore and marginalize people of faith, pander to the far-left’s sexual-political priorities.

This via the far-left site ThinkProgress:

Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra, our country will finally have nearly universal coverage of contraception.

Opponents of contraception had lobbied hard for a broad exemption that would have allowed any religiously-affiliated employer to opt out of providing such coverage. Fortunately, the Obama administration rejected that push and decided to maintain the narrow religious exemption that it initially proposed. Only houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith will be exempt. Religiously-affiliated employers who do not qualify for the exemption and are not currently offering contraceptive coverage may apply for transitional relief for a one-year period to give them time to determine how to comply with the rule.

Liberals always complain when the Church acts in the public square, tossing out the red herring “separation of church and state!”

But they are perfectly happy to have the state compel the church to do what they want the church (and people of faith) to do.

More from me soon, but there you have it.

UPDATE: Michael Sean Winters, who I have deeply disagreed with in the past, posts his reaction to the news — calling it much more than a disaster:

One sentence in the statement from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stands out: “The administration remains fully committed to its partnerships with faith-based organizations, which promote healthy communities and serve the common good.”

What can those words “fully committed” possibly mean? They have punched Sr. Carol Keehan and Fr. Jenkins and many other Catholics who have taken shots for this Administration in the nose. They have jumped over the First Amendment to coerce religious organizations to do something we find morally objectionable. They have given people who loved the Affordable Care Act reason for pause, great pause. They have given the Republicans a huge battering ram with which to beat swing voting Catholics over the head.

I say “they,” but the full responsibility for this decision rests with the President. NCR has learned that the President called Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, this morning to tell him the news. Wouldn’t you have liked to be on an extension to listen in on that conversation. The president looked Dolan in the eye in November and said he would be pleased with his decision. I am guessing that Dolan is not pleased. He is not alone.

Winters is right that this decision is a huge blow to liberal Catholics who have tried to cover for Obama. But Winters is wrong that the President’s decision comes as any sort of surprise. Of course Obama would throw his liberal Catholics supporters under the bus to please his leftist secular supporters. Obama’s wedding with liberal Catholics has always been one of convenience and he just filed the divorce papers. I therefore find it hard to sympathize with liberal Catholics who are shocked by this decision, because I’ve been warning for years that their relationship with Obama was bound to end in heartbreak.

I do, however, respect Winters for being right to stand up for religious liberty and criticize a President he supported as a candidate. For that I applaud him and I hope that more liberal Catholics acknowledge how foolish they have been to support Obama’s anti-Catholic policies. I urge them to join me and other Catholics in common cause to begin to address this deplorable state of affairs.

UPDATE 2: Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, in a video posted (on the right side) of the USCCB website, calls on Catholics to contact the Administration and demand they rescind this anti-religious liberty, anti-first amendment mandate. Read the full press release just sent out by the USCCB here.

UPDATE 3: Grace-Marie Turner writes at NRO’s The Corner blog:

This is another assault on the Constitution and the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) called the federal regulation an “unprecedented threat to individual and institutional religious freedom.”

The Obamacare regulation gives faith-based institutions, like Catholic universities and hospitals, the choice of violating the fundamental tenets of their faith by covering the federally mandated coverage in their employee health plans, or of dropping health insurance for their employees — in which case they would be fined for violating the employer mandate.

…As I told Kathryn Lopez for a recent article, there is a war on religion from the Left, and it is very dangerous to the institutions that make our civil society function.

The Catholic Church historically has been a vital part of the safety net — providing aid for the poor, care for the sick, shelter and food for the homeless, and care for mothers in need, as a few examples.

The health-care law threatens to tear gaping holes in that safety net by forcing Catholic health plans to cover contraception, by denying funds to Catholic adoption agencies, and ultimately by forcing taxpayers — including Catholics — to fund abortion.

This is dangerous to the very fabric of our society. It’s a crucial reason why the whole health law, with its centralized control over health-care decisions, must not stand.

For the record, I am not a Catholic.  I believe that life begins at conception, rather than being present in the male “seed,” and I do not have any issues with birth control that merely prevent a birth rather than actually killing a child (such as RU 486 – which also can kill the mother).

But the Catholic Church has consistently held over the centuries that any form of birth control is tantamount to abortion.

Barack Obama, I have said over and over again, is a genuinely evil man.  This is God damn America and it will continue to be God damn America until the American people wise up and utterly reject him.

This is Barack Obama’s version of Sophie’s Choice: He is trying for force the Catholic Church to either begin performing what it considers murder or to stop helping the poor and the sick.

How on earth is it going to help society to drive the Catholic Church out of helping people???

Obama doesn’t give a damn about the sick and the poor; in fact, he hopes there will be more sick and poor desperate people who must come groveling to him and bow down to his toxic agenda.

This is the most cynical form of naked partisan politik I have ever seen: Obama wants to destroy all forms of health care that he can’t directly control so that there will be nothing left but his precious ObamaCare.

All Immoral Democrat Gimmicks Aside, Senate Bill Funds Abortions

The Democrats’ deceit on health care is the most appalling thing I have ever seen.

They slash half a trillion dollars from the Medicare budget; dishonestly dodge the “Doc-fix“; force people to buy insurance in a flagrant abuse of the Constitution; raise taxes on people Obama REPEATEDLY SWORE he would not raise taxes on; and massively raise taxes in what amounts to an unfunded mandate for states across the board (well, except for Nebraska.  You get to pay their tab).  Not to mention they play every gimmick imaginable to create the illusion that the bill is “deficit neutral” so they can get a favorable CBO score.

Obama and Democrats – who demonized Republicans – promised that they would have the most open and transparent administration in history.  But they have been the most closed and opaque administration in history.  Obama promised he would put the health care care debate on C-SPAN for all to watch:

President Obama, “But what we will do is, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.”

Mind you, as Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard Dean pointed out, insurance companies have recently received all kinds of benefits from the Democrats behind closed doors.  Obama’s Democrats have become the people that Obama most fearmongered us about while on the campaign trail.

And in fact this has been such a secretive, closed-door, underhanded process that even many senior Democrats have publicly acknowledged being kept in the dark.

And we’ve literally got the chief executive of C-SPAN begging to cover the debate even as Democrats burrow the process even deeper into the underground sewers where they seem to live now.

These are fundamentally dishonest people who want to seize control of your ability to make medical decisions for yourself and your loved ones.

And we find out that even the “good” or “moderate” Democrats are bad.  Ben Nelson sold his vote – to the red-faced outrage of his own state – while dishonestly claiming he had protected taxpayer funds from being used to fund abortion.

And we find that that’s a lie, too.  Abortion IS funded by this bill, as even Democrats are openly acknowledging now (at least now that they got the vote they wanted).  Everything these Democrats are telling us is lies.

Kathleen Sebelius Admits, Covers Up Abortion Funding in Health Care Measure

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 22, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is getting attention for an interview yesterday in which she essentially admits that the American public would be forced to pay for abortions under the Senate health are bill and then relies on accounting gimmicks to suggests that’s not the case.

Sebelius spoke with BlogHer interviewer Morra Aarons-Mele yesterday and praised the new abortion language the Senate adopted in Harry Reid’s manager’s amendment.

The language, submitted by Sen. Ben Nelson in conjunction with Sen. Bob Casey and pro-abortion Sens. Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, opens the door to massive abortion funding.

“I would say that the Senate language, which was negotiated by Senators Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, who are very strong defenders of women’s health services and choices for women, take a big step forward from where the House left it with the Stupak amendment,” the pro-abortion Obama administration official said.

Sebelius said she thinks the language does a “good job making sure there are choices for women, making sure there are going to be some plan options, and making sure that while public funds aren’t used.”

She added: “That would be an accounting procedure, but everybody in the exchange would do the same thing, whether you’re male or female, whether you’re 75 or 25, you would all set aside a portion of your premium that would go into a fund, and it would not be earmarked for anything, it would be a separate account that everyone in the exchange would pay.”

“It is a bit confusing, but it’s really an accounting that would apply across the board and not just to women, and certainly not just to women who want to choose abortion coverage,” Sebelius concluded.

Ed Morrissey, a HotAir blogger, noticed the interview and pointed out how Sebelius essentially admitted everyone would pay into the exchange but denied that public funds would be used for abortions.

“What constitutes the notion of ‘public funds?'” he asked. “If the government forces us to pay into a fund, and then controls the distribution of those funds, are those funds not ‘public?'”

“Sebelius praises the abortion-funding language in the Reid bill, as it maintains a flow of funds for abortion coverage that everyone — and she means everyone — supplies,” Morrissey adds.

Morrissey says the health care bill’s system of government funding of abortion is “only confusing if you bought Ben Nelson’s dodge that Reid had changed the abortion-funding language in any significant way.”

“If the government forces it citizens to pay into premium exchanges and then controls the distribution of that money, then it becomes a public fund in any interpretation. That’s especially true if its intent is to be a slush fund for bureaucrats to apply to whatever purpose they see fit,” he concludes.

Sebelius could eventually play a major role in abortion funding because of the Mikulski amendment, which makes it so the Obama administration can define abortion as “preventative care” and force insurance companies to pay for them.

So that’s how the Democrat’s prevent public funding to pay for abortion.  They dishonestly, with clear malicious intent, lie and hide behind bureaucratic gimmickry to not just use public money to pay for abortions while denying their doing it, but to go for broke in forcing public money in for abortions in the guise of “preventative care.”

Abortion is an incredibly important subject.  And how it is treated is vital to the entire health care process.  And to dishonestly pretend one thing while doing another is a glaring demonstration of how profoundly deceitful and disingenuous Democrats have become.

This outrage violates the American spirit and is yet another liberal fascist tyranny.

Thomas Jefferson put it best:

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” –Thomas Jefferson

I believe abortion is a moral crime.  I believe that abortion results in the unjustified homicide of an innocent human being.

And to go even further, I believe this health care bill constitutes the socialist statist takeover of the most important and sacred 1/6th of our economy.  I believe that this bill will all-too soon result in medical rationing, and the death by medical neglect of millions of innocent human beings to resolve the next budget crisis.

And according to every single major poll, most Americans agree with me.

But it doesn’t matter to Democrats.  They see an opportunity to redefine America and make it something more far more akin to Karl Marx and Chairman Mao than to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Democrats Livid Over ‘Manufactured Outrage’; Those Evil Republicans Are Stealing OUR Tactic

“Democratic National Committee’s press secretary Hari Sevugan said nationwide protests of democratic health care town hall events were “manufactured outrage” today on Washington Unplugged.”

That’s the talking point repeated all over the mainstream media.

Crap like this:

These mobs are bussed in by well funded, highly organized groups run by Republican operatives and funded by the special interests who are desperately trying to stop the agenda for change the President was elected to bring to Washington. Despite the headline grabbing nature of these angry mobs and their disruptions of events, they are not reflective of where the American people are on the issues – or the hundreds of thousands of thoughtful discussions taking place around kitchen tables, water coolers and in homes.

Why are people showing up to town hall meetings in droves and shouting down Democrat politicians and White House officials over the Democrats’ multi-trillion health care takeover?  It’s manufactured outrage ginned up by some vast, rightwing conspiracy.  Let’s ignore the fact that Democrats routinely bus in their people, or that no one was more “well funded” and “highly organized” than the Obama political machine.

But a snippet from a Politico article that is describing the vitriolic town hall meetings is telling:

Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.

“I have no problem with someone disagreeing with positions I hold,” Bishop said, noting that, for the time being, he was using other platforms to communicate with his constituents. “But I also believe no one is served if you can’t talk through differences.”

A registered Democrat confronting New York Democrat Steny Hoyer at a town hall in Utica said:

“Why would you guys try to stuff a health care bill down our throats in three to four weeks when the President took six months to pick what he wanted for a dog for his kids?!?!  What are you doing?  What are you doing?  Are you willing to have your family members sign on to every bill that you pass?”

Pundits are now using the term “Town hell” to describe the outrage with which voters are confronting Democrats pushing for Obamacare.  And it is by no means just Republicans who are utterly outraged and confronting their elected officials.

The latest Quinnipiac poll on health care is telling:

American voters, by a 55 – 35 percent margin, are more worried that Congress will spend too much money and add to the deficit than it will not act to overhaul the health care system, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. By a similar 57 – 37 percent margin, voters say health care reform should be dropped if it adds “significantly” to the deficit.

By a 72 – 21 percent margin, voters do not believe that President Barack Obama will keep his promise to overhaul the health care system without adding to the deficit, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University national poll finds.

American voters disapprove 52 – 39 percent of the way President Obama is handling health care, down from 46 – 42 percent approval July 1, with 60 – 34 percent disapproval from independent voters. Voters say 59 – 36 percent that Congress should not pass health care reform if only Democratic members support it.

Heritage points out:

The White House is losing the health care debate. Polls from National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal/NBC News, The Washington Post, Gallup, and Pew all show that the American people do not support President Barack Obama’s health care plan. The White House wants people to believe they are losing the health care debate because “scary … videos are starting to percolate on the internet” that are spreading “disinformation” about Obama’s health care plan.

Obama and Democrats are not just losing the argument among Republicans called in by insurance companies to raise havoc.  They are in fact losing the debate with the overwhelming majority of the American people – as every single poll on health care shows.  It is as disingenuous as hell to try to make the angry “mobs” as being Republican plants.  Yet that is precisely what the Democrat Party is doing, and the mainstream media is helping them do it.

A message from the Obama White House shows just how Nixonian – and frankly Stalinist – this administration truly is:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

This is an example – unprecedented in modern American political history – of a President of the United States seeking information on political opponents who are exercising their 2nd Amendment-protected rights.  Imagine the appalled and angry outrage if George W. Bush had solicited the White House to create such an “enemies list.”

The whole affair very much reminds me of the Orwellian 1984 description of anonymous informers – including children against their own parents – spying on and reporting potential thought-criminals who might endanger The Party.

And of course it reminded me of another incredibly Orwellian statement from the Obama administration on the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program:

“This application provides access to the DoT CARS system.  When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the US Government.  Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign.”

Heritage.org suggests we turn in Democrats to the White House as “the people spreading disinformation about Obamacare.”

And in point of fact, we should turn in Obama to the White House for being one of the people encouraging anger and a mob mentality:

“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican.  I want you to argue with them and get in their face,” [Obama] said.

Or consider Obama saying he had no intention of laying off his campaign to intimidate AIG executives who were literally receiving death threats:

“I don’t want to quell anger. People are right to be angry. I’m angry. What I want us to do is channel our anger in a constructive way.”

Presumably, that meant trying to limit his followers from just shouting from the streets in front of AIG employees’ houses rather than actually entering the homes and murdering families.  Which was nice of him, considering that only Chris Dodd accepted more contributions from AIG.

Hot Air provides the following list of exceptions to the Democrats’ charge of Republican extremism:

* People who want Congress to take more time debating healthcare are shutting down debate.
* Pres. Obama says the time for talk on healthcare is over, but his critics are trying to shut down debate.
* Harassing and threatening the families of AIG employees is awesome; razzing Representatives and Senators is totally bogus!
* Asking Representatives and Senators to read bills before voting on them is killing democracy.
* Sen. Specter saying “we have to make judgments very fast” is awesome. Booing him for saying so is shutting off debate.
* Healthcare protesters are “thugs” “shutting off debate”; antiwar protesters are “rowdy.”

The thing I find the most amazing is that – even if Republicans are doing EVERYTHING the Democrats claim they are (and they AREN’T), the Republicans are merely following in the example that has been set for YEARS by liberals.  FrontPage Magazine provided a list compiled way back in 2001 of liberals routinely shouting down conservative speakers and disrupting events.  Shouting and being disruptive was a tactic created by the left; how can they be angry if conservatives use it without their pointed heads exploding from containing the massive contradiction?

I found it amusing and utterly despicable at the same time to read about a 14 year old girl who – after noticing all the Obama T-shirts – decided to wear a shirt that said, “McCain Girl.”  And was utterly and hatefully attacked for doing so.  Just never forget that Republicans are intolerant and divisive, though.

The left is a group of people who come completely unglued if others do unto them as they did unto others.  Hypocrisy defines them; it is their quintessential essence.

Barack Obama was a disciple of Saul Alinsky.  And Rule 12 of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is:  ‘Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It.’ And as a business article pointed out,  Obama has used that rule to effect again and again.

The White House is saying that the outrage over ObamaCare “appears to be orchestrated” and “organized” by rightwing organizations.  The word “organized” should show how demonstrably ridiculous Obama’s outrage truly is, given his pride in having been a “community organizer.”  And let us realize that “orchestrate” is merely another synonym for “organize.”

This community organizer is now mad that communities are beginning to organize to stop government health care they absolutely do not want?

I’ve seen about a dozen videos of so-called “mobs” shouting at Democrats.  What I’ve noticed is that members of the audience would ask pointed questions, and the crowd only started shouting down Democrats when their elected officials give stupid and dismissive answers.  When someone asked Kathleen Sebelius and Arlen Spector why Congress wasn’t even bothering to read the bills they were voting for, for example, nobody started screaming at Sebelius until she gave the utterly ridiculous answer that she had never served in Congress; nor did they scream at Spector until he answered that they had to work very fast and didn’t have time to read the bills that are transforming our society.  And the crowd erupted in outrage at such stupid and contemptible answers.

Youtube video of Arlen Specter shouted down after saying “We have to do this fast.”

My own view is this: the Democrat establishment is trying to marginalize the huge crowds going to town halls to confront their elected representatives and telll them NOT to vote for this terrible health care bill.  They want the Blue Dog Democrats to ignore the crowds and dismiss them as “plants.”  They do so at their own political peril.