NOTRE DAME SUES OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
By Liz Goodwin
ABC News
May 21, 2012
On Monday, the University of Notre Dame joined six other Protestant
and Catholic colleges in suing the Obama administration over its rule
that all employers must offer contraception without a copay in their
insurance plans.
Obama gave the commencement address at the prominent Catholic
university in 2009.
In its suit, the school says that health care reform's contraception
mandate violates its religious freedom and would require it to go
against Catholic principles by offering contraception and
sterilization to students and faculty in its insurance plan. The
university serves 11,500 students of different religious faiths, and
has always been led by a Catholic priest as president.
The Obama administration announced in February that religious
organizations such as schools and hospitals would not have to offer
birth control to its employees. Instead, the insurance company would
contact women covered by its plan and offer the contraception. The
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious organizations
objected to this, saying that the organizations' premiums would still
be helping to pay for the contraception in that scenario. In its suit,
the University of Notre Dame says it is self-insured, which means this
accommodation would not work for them.
A Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman told Yahoo News
that she couldn't comment on pending litigation, but that the
department is still forming its contraception rule for self-insured
religious schools.
Employers' insurance plans will have to offer birth control starting
this August, but religious organizations will have another year before
they must, too. Churches are exempt from the rule.
--
I place economy among the 1st and most important virtues, and public
debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our
independence we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
If we run into such debt we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in
our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and amusements. If
we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people
under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy. Thomas
Jefferson, The Notes, page 109.
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you;
ask what you can do for your country. John F. Kennedy, January 20,
1961.
http://www.truthandgrace.com/muslimobama.htm