Leading evangelicals join bishops in opposing contraceptive coverage mandate

December 23, 2011

Sixty religious leaders, most of them evangelical Protestants and many of them college presidents, are urging President Barack Obama not to implement a mandate that would require all private insurers to provide contraceptive and sterilization coverage.

“We write to express our deep concern about the contraceptives mandate in the health insurance regulations, and about the ‘religious employer’ exemption that is so narrow that it does not protect most faith-based organizations,” the signatories said in their December 21 letter.

They continued:

We write to you specifically as organizations and leaders that are not part of the Catholic community. We write not in opposition to Catholic leaders and organizations; rather, we write in solidarity, but separately—to stress that religious organizations and leaders of other faiths are also deeply troubled by and opposed to the mandate and the narrow exemption.

Most press reports on the controversy concerning the contraceptives mandate portray the opposition as coming only from the Catholic Church and Catholic organizations. But this is wrong. It is emphatically not only Catholics who deeply object to the requirement that health plans they purchase must provide coverage of contraceptives that include some that are abortifacients. It is not only Catholics who object to the narrow exemption that protects only seminaries and a few churches, but not churches with a social outreach and other faith-based organizations that serve the poor and needy broadly providing help that goes beyond worship and prayer.

Signatories included officials of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention, Focus on the Family, and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

 

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Further information:

• Sixty Religious Leaders Unite Against Obama Insurance Mandate (LifeNews.com)