I gave my analysis last week of President Obama’s proposed revision of Obamacare’s abortion mandate. I said then that the revision is not a compromise, despite the favorable media coverage that would suggest otherwise. It’s just more of the same, and it still implicates Christian business owner’s in the killing of unborn children.
The clearest analysis of the new rules that I have read, however, comes from Michael Gerson in today’s Washington Post. Here’s the bottom line:
The outlines of the mandate remain essentially the same, offering different levels of religious liberty to churches and ministries. An exemption from the mandate still doesn’t reach much beyond the doors of a house of worship — covering only churches, associations of churches and religious orders.
The accommodation for religious charities, colleges and hospitals is effectively unchanged from the last version. While these institutions aren’t required to pay directly for contraceptive coverage, they are forced to provide insurance that includes such coverage. It is a shell game useful only for those who want to deceive themselves.
In short, the mandate was a disaster for religious liberty before Friday, and it’s still a disaster today. The so-called “compromise” given by the Obama administration is really no such thing. Christian employers are still required by law to provide access to chemical abortions to all their employees. Nothing has changed, but you would hardly know it from the favorable media coverage the new rule has been getting.
Read the rest of Gerson’s article here.