Only an accounting maneuver hides the fact that we will all be paying for chemical abortions under the President’s prized Affordable Care Act. Added to this is coverage for sterilizations… Anyone who celebrates this “compromise” as a victory is hiding behind an accounting trick. That accounting trick cannot hide the great moral tragedy at the heart of the President’s policy — a policy that leaves religious liberty in peril and Planned Parenthood smiling.

This is an important explanation of what happened today, and you need to read the whole thing.

Response to President Obama’s Statement on February 10, 2012

GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, one of the largest church plans in the nation, was distressed to hear that the President’s comments do not take into account the needs of many of the oldest and largest church plans in the nation. GuideStone’s medical plan, like that of many other established church plans, is self-funded, which means it pays benefits directly instead of using a third-party insurance company as the source of benefit payments. This self-funded approach to healthcare coverage, which is common among many historic and large church plans, was completely ignored by the President in his comments.

The comments today appear to reflect a narrow and inadequate approach that does not address the issues at hand for Southern Baptists who oppose so-called contraceptives that can and do cause an abortion. Even more troubling is that the broader issue of religious freedom was only given lip service but no serious consideration in the President’s remarks.

As stated by GuideStone’s President O.S. Hawkins, “The President’s statement today is an insulting affront illustrating a basic lack of understanding that this issue will not be solved by sleight-of-hand word games. It is a fundamental matter of religious liberty that threatens the very coverage of those dedicated persons who serve our churches and affiliated organizations. GuideStone will never depart from the core convictions it has held dear for decades regarding the sanctity of life.”

But there is one facet of this dispute that has been largely overlooked. This is not just a religious liberty issue for groups, but also for individuals. How many Christian business owners are there in the United States who have a conscientious objection to using their company’s revenues to fund abortions? I would imagine there are many. But a broader exemption for religious hospitals and universities wouldn’t help Christian business owners at all. They would still be forced to violate their consciences or face steep fines that could destroy their businesses. Why should a Christian who owns a car dealership, for instance, be forced to purchase something that is abhorrent to his most deeply held religious beliefs?

The rumors are that the President will soon back down from his draconian policy and offer some kind of compromise with broader exemptions. Everyone needs to realize, however, that the exemptions won’t be extensive enough until they cover every American with a conscientious objection to paying for contraceptives, surgical sterilization, and abortions. I have not seen or heard any party to this dispute contemplating an exemption of that scope. Why not?

If the President’s proposed compromise falls short of an exemption for all religious groups and individuals, then this dispute will be far from over.

President Obama said in his campaign that he wanted to unite America. In the last week, he has done just that. Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, liberals, conservatives, and almost every other ideological subgroup have united in their opposition to President Obama’s new healthcare regulation. In some ways, the country is looking more united than ever.

Compared with all the hard issues at the heart of this political year, nothing has come close in terms of the vigor and anger generated by matters relating to the reproductive health of women.

That’s where the long-simmering culture wars have come to rest: atop the female body.

Fleming believes recent dust-up is surrounding the new health care law is about people who want to deny women their sexual freedom by limiting their access to abortions. It is the standard logic of feminism and the sexual revolution. It’s all about a woman’s freedom to do whatever she pleases with her own body.

And therein is the question-begging that is at the heart of pro-choice ideology. Their view assumes without argument that the unborn are not persons but unwanted appendages on the female anatomy. To pro-choicers, the unborn have no more value than a hangnail that needs to be removed. On that logic, there is very little difference between abortion and liposuction. Both procedures achieve a trimming away of some excess tissue.

Thoughtless articles like this one do not change the fact that the focus of the divide between pro-lifers and pro-choicers is precisely about the humanity of the unborn. Pro-lifers offer moral and legal arguments for the humanity of the unborn, but pro-choicers don’t offer any such thing. When was the last time you heard a pro-choicer make a public argument against the humanity of the unborn? It almost never happens. All they have to offer is their self-evident assumptions and their disdain for anyone who dares to jeopardize the sexual freedom of women. That freedom trumps all—even the right to life of a baby growing in his mother’s womb.

The pro-choice side is ideologically bankrupt, but they hardly even know it.

Instead of encouraging the different faith communities to continue their vital work for the good of all, the Obama administration is forcing them to make a choice: serving God and their neighbors according to the dictates of their respective faiths—or bending the knee to the dictates of the state…

At this critical moment, Americans of every faith, as guardians of their own freedom, must, in the words of the First Amendment, “petition the government for the redress of grievances.” That’s why over the past two years more than 500,000 people have signed the “Manhattan Declaration” in defense of religious liberty. They believe, as do we, that under no circumstances should people of faith violate their consciences and discard their most cherished religious beliefs in order to comply with a gravely unjust law.

That’s something that this Catholic, this Protestant and this Jew are in perfect agreement about.

Read the rest here.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wasted no time in blocking Republicans’ first attempt at offering legislation in the Senate to repeal the Health and Human Services (HHS) rule that would require employers to provide health insurance that includes contraceptives even if they are morally opposed to it…

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), however, accompanied the amendment to the floor and decried the “odious” outcome of the president’s decision…

“Republicans are trying to reaffirm that basic right [of freedom of religion],” said McConnell…

“Frankly, I never thought I’d see the day,” concluded McConnell. “[I] never thought I’d see the day when the elected representatives of the people of this country would be blocked by a majority party in Congress to even express their support for it.”

Chuck Colson rightly calls on Evangelicals to stand with Roman Catholics in civil disobedience to this law for as long as it stands. That’s right. He’s calling on Christians to risk fines, prison, or other penalties in faithfulness to our convictions about protecting the unborn. In Colson’s own words:

We have come to the point—I say this very soberly—when if there isn’t a dramatic change is circumstances, we as Christians may well be called upon to stand in civil disobedience against the actions of our own government. That would break my heart as a former Marine Captain loving my country, but I love my God more… I’ve made up my mind—sober as that decision would have to be—that I will stand for the Lord regardless of what my state tells me.

You can view Colson’s full statement in the video below.

(HT: Jim Smith)

[Ron Paul] was asked about abortion in the case of rape. The answer to this, incidentally, is straightforward — when a woman conceives as the result of a rape, there is one guilty party, and two innocent parties. What the pro-aborts want to do is change the ratios — they want one victim instead of two, and they want two perpetrators instead of one. They want the man who took what didn’t belong to him to be joined by a woman who imitates him by taking what doesn’t belong to her.

In response to this question, Ron Paul said that a woman who is raped should go to an emergency room immediately, and get a shot of estrogen, which would prevent the implantation of a conceived child in the uterine wall. Further, he said that he would administer that shot of estrogen. Piers Morgan, astonished, said that he thought Ron Paul believed life begins at conception. Ron Paul said that he did, but that we don’t know at that point whether the woman is pregnant.

This, in effect, was saying that if we don’t know if someone is living in a room then it must be okay to fill it up with poison gas. This example might seem beside the point because, if we did that, we would eventually have to carry a dead body out. But, in the case of this small victim, nobody ever needs to know. But, speaking frankly, and just between us, “nobody need ever know” is not exactly a pro-life rallying cry.

The most charitable takeaway is that Ron Paul does not understand the issue, or the meaning of the words he is using. At all. He does not understand the ramifications of what it means to confess that “life begins at conception.” Further, this ignorance on a point of high magnitude was coming from a medical doctor who confessed that life begins at conception, and that, provided he didn’t know of that person’s presence, that he personally would have no problem taking that person’s life. If that’s not a muddle, I don’t know what would count at one.

If you are not familiar with Eric Metaxas, you should know that he is the author of last year’s best-selling biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.