President Obama’s mandate and so-called compromise violate religious liberty and the conscience rights of millions of Americans.
First, the Department of Health and Human Services issued its mandate requiring religious institutions, such as religious schools and hospitals, to include abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception in their insurance policies for employees. That is a mandate that violates the deeply held religious beliefs of many.
Rightly so, an uproar of massive, well-deserved criticism ensued. The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called the mandate “egregiously unfair” and “un-American.”The head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission described the mandate as “bad news” for freedom of conscience and religion.