From the CFI in Washington DC:
Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new guidelines that require health insurance providers and organizations providing health care plans to cover preventive health services, such as contraception, without charging a co-payment. The Center for Inquiry (CFI) considers this an important step forward for reproductive rights and health care.
However, these new guidelines have faced fierce public opposition from organized religion. Most notably, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is lobbying the HHS to either eliminate the new guidelines or widely expand the current exemption clause – which now covers employers whose main purpose is to promote religious doctrine – to also include religious hospitals, charities, and universities.
This means that hundreds of thousands of women would be left without preventative health coverage simply because of their employer’s religiously motivated objections.
In response, CFI and several organizations have sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, pushing her to maintain her ground on the new guidelines. Yet recent news reports suggest that President Barack Obama is now considering religious arguments to expand the exemption clause.
This is where you come in. Join CFI in telling the Obama administration to stand for science and reason, and keep religious belief out of our health care laws.
As you know, my nephew,