Former Cheney Aide Addington: Obama's Birth-Control Mandate Demolishes Religious Liberty

People are justified in being outraged about President Barack Obama’s new rule requiring health insurance plans to offer free birth control to women, says David Addington, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney.

“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as the ‘Obamacare’ statute, tramples on religious liberty and makes it likely that employees of many religious institutions will lose their group health insurance,” the vice president for domestic and economic policy at The Heritage Foundation writes on Politico.

“The mandate violates religious liberty.”

The contraception rule forces many religious institutions to disobey their religious commandments. “A Catholic institution cannot comply with this contraception mandate without violating the tenets of its faith,” Addington writes.

“So the ‘Obamacare’ statute leaves many religious institutions, which must follow the tenets of their faiths, with no alternative but to stop making group health insurance available to their employees — and pay any fines for failure to do so.”

Although the new rule exempts those directly tied with advancing religious beliefs, such as churches, temples, and mosques, it doesn’t relieve church-affiliated hospitals, schools, and charities. The Obama administration should reverse course and respect the First Amendment by exempting those other entities from the mandate, Addington insists. That way, “they can keep their faith and continue to provide group health insurance to their employees.”