The Obama administration’s “HHS mandate”, which requires that all employers provide free contraception, sterilization procedures, and abortifacients in their health-insurance plans for their workers has met with stern resistance from both the religious employers who are forced to choose between obeying their consciences and the law under this mandate, and from defenders of religious liberty from all faiths. And as I explain in a column at National Review Online, the administration’s so-called “accommodation” for religious employers has never been anything but a fraud.
Of course, it was never going to be possible to square this circle; something would have to give. The administration could either do what previous administrations would have done, which is to recognize the importance of providing ample space for those with religious sensibilities to follow their consciences without running afoul of the government’s laws and regulations, or it could ignore our nation’s history of religious tolerance and impose an inviolate “right to contraception” on every employer, religious objections notwithstanding.
You can read the rest of the article here.