Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard (and former ambassador to the Holy See), John Garvey, president of Catholic University, and Robert P. George of Princeton, and Carter Snead, among others, are with Yuval, too: 

 Today the Obama administration has offered what it has styled as an “accommodation” for religious institutions in the dispute over the HHS mandate for coverage (without cost sharing) of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. The administration will now require that all insurance plans cover (“cost free”) these same products and services.  Once a religiously-affiliated (or believing individual) employer purchases insurance (as it must, by law), the insurance company will then contact the insured employees to advise them that the terms of the policy include coverage for these objectionable things.

This so-called “accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy.  It is certainly no compromise.  The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust.  Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services.

It is no answer to respond that the religious employers are not “paying” for this aspect of the insurance coverage.  For one thing, it is unrealistic to suggest that insurance companies will not pass the costs of these additional services on to the purchasers.  More importantly, abortion-drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives are a necessary feature of the policy purchased by the religious institution or believing individual.  They will only be made available to those who are insured under such policy, by virtue of the terms of the policy.

It is morally obtuse for the administration to suggest (as it does) that this is a meaningful accommodation of religious liberty because the insurance company will be the one to inform the employee that she is entitled to the embryo-destroying “five day after pill” pursuant to the insurance contract purchased by the religious employer.  It does not matter who explains the terms of the policy purchased by the religiously affiliated or observant employer.  What matters is what services the policy covers.

The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization.  This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand.  It is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith and conscience to imagine that they will accept as assault on their religious liberty if only it is covered up by a cheap accounting trick.

Finally, it bears noting that by sustaining the original narrow exemptions for churches, auxiliaries, and religious orders, the administration has effectively admitted that the new policy (like the old one) amounts to a grave infringement on religious liberty.  The administration still fails to understand that institutions that employ and serve others of different or no faith are still engaged in a religious mission and, as such, enjoy the protections of the First Amendment.

 Signed:

John Garvey

President, The Catholic University of America

Mary Ann Glendon

Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University

Robert P. George

McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University

O. Carter Snead

Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame

Yuval Levin

Hertog Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center

_______________________________________________

Jean Bethke Elshtain

Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the Divinity School, Department of Political Science and the Committee on International Relations, The University of Chicago

Tom Farr

Director of Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University

Richard W. Garnett

Associate Dean and Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame

Patrick MacKinley Brennan

John F. Scarpa Chair in Catholic Legal Studies and Professor of Law, Villanova University

Gerard V. Bradley

Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame

Paolo Carozza

Professor of Law and Director, Center for Civil and Human Rights, University of Notre Dame

George Weigel

Distinguished Senior Fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies, Ethics and Public Policy Center

Gilbert Meilaender

Duesenberg Professor in Christian Ethics, Valparaiso University

President Timothy O’Donnell

ChristendomCollege

Dr. William K. Thierfelder

President, Belmont Abbey College

Steven Smith

Class of 1975 Endowed Professor of Law, San Diego University

Jacqueline M. Nolan-Haley

Professor of Law and Director, ADR & Conflict Resolution Program, Fordham University        

Michael Stokes Paulsen

Distinguished University Chair & Professor of Law The University of St. Thomas

Prof. Alan Mittleman

Professor of Modern Jewish Thought

The Jewish Theological Seminary

Rabie Meir Y. Soloveichik

Director, Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, Yeshiva University

Micah J. Watson

Director, Center for Politics and Religion and Assistant Professor of Political Science, Union University

Helen Alvare

Associate Professor of Law, George Mason University

Michael Moreland,

Associate Professor of Law, Villanova University

V. Bradley Lewis

Associate Professor of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America

Matthew J. Franck

Director, William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution, the Witherspoon Institute

Kristina Arriaga

Executive Director, The Becket Fund

Christopher Tollefsen

Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina

Rusty Reno

Editor, First Things

Ryan Anderson

Editor, Public Discourse

Patrick Lee

Professor of Philosophy, Franciscan University of Steubenville

Francis J. Beckwith

Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies, Baylor University

William Imboden

Assistant Professor, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas

Patrick Fagan

Senior Fellow and Director, Marriage & Religion Research Institute

Gerald R. McDermott

Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion, Roanoke Collegee

Austin Ruse

President, C-FAM

Ramesh Ponnuru

Senior Editor, National Review

Donna Bethell

Chairman of the Board, Christendom College

Father Jonathan Morris

Author, Televison Analyst

Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, NYC

Father Terence Henry

TOR President of Franciscan University of Steubenville

Marianne Evans Mount

President, Catholic Distance University

Robert D. Benne

Director of the Center for Religion and Society, Roanoke College

William Edmund Fahey
President, The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (NH)

Michael Novak

George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy and Public Policy, American Enterprise Institute

Bernard F. O’Connor

President, DeSales Unviersity

Thomas S. Kidd

Associate Professor of History and Senior Fellow, Institute of Religion, Baylor University

Joseph Knippenberg

Professor of Politics, Oglethorpe University

Maggie Gallagher

Institute for Marriage and Public Policy

Robert C. Odle, Jr.

Partner, Weil Gotshal and Manges

Nancy Matthews