President Obama: Past Promises and Current Actions on Mandates and Conscience

Below Rick Garnett posts about the ad by various Catholic leaders in "The Hill" that calls for protection of conscience and criticzes the Obama Administration's promotion of a rigid mandate for all health insurance plans to cover sterilizations and abortifacient contraceptives.

On the St. Louis Today website, Colleen Carroll Campbell asks what happened to President Obama's very public overtures to Catholics, during the presidential election and afterward, and assurances that he respected pro-life Catholics and religious conscience.  Herewith an excerpt:

The mandate and its lack of conscience protection is a blatant attack on religious freedom and a far cry from the promise Obama made at the University of Notre Dame in 2009. Back then, when the president was peddling his health care plan and pledging to seek "common ground" with pro-life Catholics, he vowed to "honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause." Now that Obamacare has passed, the president and his surrogates are singing a different tune.

"We are in a war," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a NARAL Pro-Choice America crowd in Chicago last week.

 So much for "common ground" and respect for conscience.