Conscience, Coercion, and Healthcare

At Public Discourse, Helen Alvare, Carter Snead, and Gerry Bradley add their voices to the many who are urging the Administration to re-think the proposed "interim final rule" regarding "preventative services."  A bit:

[T]hroughout American history, religious institutions have been the leading private providers of charitable, educational, and medical services to the poor, always serving those they felt were the most marginalized populations of their day—whether slaves or freed slaves, new immigrants, Native Americans, prisoners, or persons with AIDS. The quality and efficiency of their care, and the compassion with which it has been delivered, are often noted. Regularly, the populations served did not share the faith of the religious institutions who took up their cause

Given their solidarity with the dispossessed, religious leaders of every denomination have, throughout American history, also effectively led a variety of human rights’ movements, including the movements for abolition of slavery, for civil rights, for campaigns to end poverty, and for justice for immigrants, the elderly, those with disability, and the unborn. The presence of religious leaders and religious institutions in the public square—and not behind the walls of their monasteries, churches or homes—is an inescapable aspect of America’s history of progress and prosperity.

The proposed exemption disregards this history by limiting its application to employers who do little (or nothing) but preach to the convinced. . . .