A Major Challenge...

The picture is not mine. My friend Vinny found it somewhere on the internet. I will gladly give credit to the person if I learn who took this photo.

A Major Challenge

The "Fortnight for Freedom" last month marked a special time of prayer and sacrifice that God's wisdom would be the guide for the thinking of our elected officials.

Currently, Obamacare does not do that. For example, it channels funds for abortion and infringes on religious free­dom in multiple ways, despite President Obama's claim to the contrary.

Obamacare requires most people to pay an abortion premium that directly and exclusively covers abort­ion, even if this violates their religious and moral beliefs. While sixteen States have passed legislation to opt out of abortion coverage, thirty-four States have not.

The Hyde Amendment which prohibits the use of Federal funds for abortion and abortion coverage -except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother - does not apply to Obamacare and any references to it are misleading.

Furthermore, under Obamacare, federally-subsid­ized health plans may use Federal funds to cover abortions.

Obamacare requires coverage for preventative care, which, according to the HHS mandate, includes abor­tion-inducing drugs (Ella and the "morning-after pill, Plan B), contraception and sterilization. Under the HHS mandate, religious employers such as Catholic Dioceses, hospitals, charities, schools, universities and other organizations, are required to provide coverage for, and facilitate the use of, abortion drugs, contraception and sterilization in violation of our religious beliefs and moral convictions.

We need to pray that Obamacare does not remain law though the Obama administration remains firmly dedi­cated to ensure that it does.

To complicate matters, the Supreme Court subsequently held up as Constitutional the "individual mandate" of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - another name for Obamacare.

Obamacare's "individual mandate" requires us to buy health insurance - including facilities for provision of the services we find morally-objectionable - or pay a penalty. This penalty could be as much as 120,000 a year for a parish with a school.

The case thus holds major importance because it had challenged the constitutionality of the "individual man­date" as Congressional overreach under the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. The Commerce Clause of the US Constitution does not give the government authority to command citizens to pur­chase a particular product.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority op­inion, agreed that the mandate would not be a valid exercise of Congress under the Commerce Clause. How­ever he upheld the mandate as constitutional because the financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax, and Congress has the right to tax.

The case did not consider abortion or religious freedom but the ruling implied that the Court could strike down the mandate in a future case if it violates religious liber­ty.

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