The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic (17 page)

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Authors: David Limbaugh

BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic
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“PREGNANCY IS NOT A DISEASE”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops strongly criticized the administration for the preventive services mandate that “requires health plans to cover female surgical sterilization and all drugs and devices approved by the FDA as contraceptives, including drugs that can attack a developing unborn child before and after implantation in the mother’s womb.”
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The new HHS guidelines would also force Catholic colleges to choose between violating the law or violating the Catholic faith, according to Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, because they would force Catholic colleges to help students and employees obtain free contraceptives and sterilization. “Our religious freedom is under attack,” said Reilly.
Showing the administration’s cynicism toward the life issue, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius argues that the preventing services mandate pays for itself because fewer babies are born—babies that would otherwise need healthcare. “The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception,” she says, which is similar to President Obama’s contention that “the overall cost of healthcare is lower when women have access to contraceptive services.”
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The HHS said its preventive services mandate aims to “help stop health problems before they start.” But as Cardinal DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said, “Pregnancy is not a disease, and children are not a health problem—they are the next generation of Americans. It’s now more vital than ever that … employers and employees alike … have the freedom to choose health plans in accordance with their deeply held moral and religious beliefs.”
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The administration’s relentless attack on conscience rights repeatedly pushed the issue into the spotlight. On November 2, 2011, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing in which numerous panelists argued that the ObamaCare mandates threaten conscience rights and access to care. Furthermore, many employers with moral objections to such mandatory coverage were not mollified by the mandate’s narrowly drawn religious exemption, which can be invoked only by organizations which primary mission is to inculcate religious belief and which hire and serve coreligionists. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that under this exemption “even the ministry of Jesus and early Christian Church would not qualify as religious.” Indeed, Janet Belford, chancellor and general counsel for the Washington Archdiocese, said, “HHS has drafted a religious exemption that is so narrow that it excludes virtually all Catholic hospitals, elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, and charitable organizations, none of which impose a litmus test on those they serve, as the HHS mandate would have them do.” Others worried that the rule could reduce access to care because some employers would have no choice but to drop coverage to avoid violating their convictions.
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In January 2012, the HHS issued a statement reiterating its position that ObamaCare requires health insurance plans to cover abortion-inducing drugs. Religious organizations that requested conscience exceptions were thwarted, as expected, as the administration gave them a year to comply with the requirement. This HHS rule would require religious entities to provide insurance plans that, in effect, cover abortions, which means that organizations grounded in the pro-life principle would have to cover their employees’ abortions.
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In its typical high-handed fashion, the administration prohibited a Catholic Army chaplain from reading a letter by Timothy Broglio—Archbishop of the Military Services, USA—criticizing the mandate.
This mandate sparked such a backlash that Obama devised a “compromise” : he would require insurance companies, rather than employers, to pay for birth control and abortifacients. In fact, this was no compromise at all, but a sham. As a group of prominent law professors and academics noted in a jointly written letter,
This so-called “accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to the controversy. It is certainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the very same services.
The argument that religious employers will not be paying for the coverage is specious, the authors noted, because insurance companies will pass the costs of these services on to the purchasers. Nor, they said, was it any compromise that the insurance company would be the one explaining the insurance coverage to the employee.
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But with his signature imperiousness, Obama said there would be no further discussion of the matter.
Outraged pro-life groups and individuals saw through the ruse. Alleging that the Catholic Church is being “despoiled of her institutions,” an influential Catholic Cardinal, Francis George of Chicago, warned that Catholic hospitals in the United States may close in two years under this new mandate.
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Activists organized a protest at federal buildings in more than fifty cities throughout the United States with the theme “Stand Up for Religious Freedom—Stop the HHS Mandate!”
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CHILDREN AS “SEXUAL BEINGS”
There are two main approaches to sex education. The so-called “safe-sex” or “comprehensive” approach focuses on the physical risk of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, and emphasizes contraception, especially condoms. Most supporters of this approach regard sex and sexuality as matters of personal choice that ought not be dictated by religious or political strictures.
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In contrast, the abstinence approach centers on the social and psychological aspects of sexual activity. It teaches young adults to delay engaging in sexual activity, warns of the dangers of casual sex, and encourages students to consider sexuality as part of a process of developing intimacy and lifelong commitment.
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President George W. Bush’s administration strongly promoted the abstinence approach, with the 2007 budget alone including approximately $204 million for such education programs.
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President Obama, being reliably liberal across the board, predictably replaced Bush’s program with a comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention program.
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More than 176 abstinence education programs would lose funding under Obama’s change.
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Proponents of the abstinence approach worried that the elimination of funding midstream in a five-year grant award would deprive some 2 million students of key skill-building lessons.
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However, Melody Barnes, a White House domestic aide, said the change “reflects the research…. In any area where Americans want to confront a problem, they want solutions they know will work, as opposed to programming they know hasn’t proven to be successful.”
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Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney boasted, “It’s about time that evidence-based management—and sanity—return to family planning programs.”
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While critics of so-called abstinence-only characterize it as a moralistic, head-in-the-sand approach, in reality it is abstinence-centered, but is not solely about abstinence; it does not preclude teaching about contraception. It teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the standard for all school-age children while emphasizing related social, psychological, and health benefits. It teaches kids life skills, how to make decisions that are grounded in personal responsibility, and how to develop healthy relationships and marriages.
Proponents of abstinence programs deny critics’ claims that the weight of the evidence discredits the abstinence method. To the contrary, a number of studies cited by the National Abstinence Education Association demonstrate the program’s effectiveness.
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Heritage Foundation scholars Robert Rector and Christine Kim cite studies showing that young adults who receive abstinence education exhibit greater psychological health and perform better academically. Abstinence can also decrease teenagers’ rates of contracting STDs, having children out of wedlock, and experiencing psychological harm. Rector and Kim found that twelve out of sixteen studies of abstinence education reported positive findings, as did five out of six studies of virginity pledges. The authors concluded, “Genuine abstinence education is therefore crucial to the physical and psycho-emotional well-being of the nation’s youth…. When considering effective prevention programs aimed at changing teen sexual behavior, lawmakers should consider
all
of the available empirical evidence and restore funding for abstinence education.
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Another recent study showed that abstinence education programs are effective and are strongly supported by parents, many of whom believe recent sex education programs do not reflect their values. Embarrassed that this study had been funded by its own Health and Human Services Department, the Obama administration initially refused to publicize the results and even denied Freedom of Information Requests to release it, though it finally relented amidst grassroots pressure. The study found that 70 percent of parents believe that sexual relations should be postponed until marriage.
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On the other hand, comprehensive sex education programs, such as those the administration supports, are sometimes used as vehicles to promote values that many parents oppose. The “comprehensive” approach is often not comprehensive at all, and it can put kids at greater risk of pregnancy because it de-emphasizes abstinence—the most effective way to reduce teenage pregnancy—and promotes the use of condoms while downplaying their failure rates and related health risks. Indeed, some refer to this approach as “condom-based sex education.”
A Heritage Foundation study found that comprehensive sex-ed curricula often provide no standards about when students should begin sexual activity. Though an overwhelming majority of adults (94 percent) and of teens (92 percent) believe it is important that society sends a “strong message” that young people “should not have sex until they are, at least, out of high school,” few, if any, comprehensive sex-ed programs promote or even include that message. In this study, the authors examined nine separate curricula consisting in total of 942 pages, and found fewer than ten sentences urging young people to defer sexual activity until a later age—and most of these sentences lacked force.
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Consider one “comprehensive” sex-ed program that was contemplated in the Helena, Montana public school system. The program would teach fifth graders that “sexual intercourse includes, but is not limited to vaginal, oral or anal penetration.” It would teach kindergarteners about “basic reproductive body parts (penis, vagina, breast, nipples, testicles, and scrotum).” It would teach all grades that marriage is a “commitment by two people.” It would teach first graders that “human beings can love people of the same gender and people of another gender.” It would teach that sexual orientation refers to a “person’s physical and/ or romantic attraction to an individual of the same and/or different gender.” And, it would teach sixth graders that sexual intercourse includes “using the penis, fingers, tongue or objects.”
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Irrespective of whether one supports an abstinence-centered approach, there are serious objections to so-called comprehensive programs, which would likely be even more unpopular if more parents were aware of their contents. In fact, many parents would be shocked to learn what the HHS once taught on its own website. In a post titled “Questions and Answers About Sex” the HHS instructed, “Children are human beings and therefore sexual beings…. It’s hard for parents to acknowledge this, just as it’s hard for kids to think of their parents as sexually active. But even infants have curiosity about their own bodies, which is healthy and normal.” The post further related that teens may “experiment” with homosexuality as part of “exploring their own sexuality.” None of this is surprising considering that President Obama has declared his support for “age-appropriate” sex education for kindergarteners.
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AT WAR WITH THE TRADITIONAL FAMILY
President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2010 Omnibus Appropriations bill contained numerous items that should concern traditional values voters.
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Aside from defunding abstinence education and funding “comprehensive” sex education, it included:
* A 30 percent increase from President Bush’s 2008 budget on means-tested welfare programs, including housing, food stamps, and healthcare. Studies have shown these programs perpetuate dependency and that expanding them harms individuals in the long run and is detrimental to the economy and jobs.
* An allowance of federal taxpayer money for “needle exchange” programs for drug addicts. Aimed at impeding the spread of infection rather than eradicating addiction, these programs exacerbate the underlying problem by focusing on symptoms instead of causes, similar to the condom-based approach to sex education.
* Substantial increases in Title X family planning funding, the main recipient of which was Planned Parenthood.
* An increase of $5 million to the UN Population Fund, some of which is allocated in support of China’s draconian one-child policy.
* As noted, an increase of $103 million for overseas family planning groups that promote or perform abortions—groups that were denied federal funding entirely until Obama cancelled the “Mexico City policy.”
* A removal of the ban on federal funding for enforcing the “Fairness Doctrine,” through which the Left aspired to emasculate conservative talk radio. Under Republican pressure, the FCC abolished the rule in 2011.
* Changes affecting funding for the District of Columbia, including: a) the elimination of a scholarship program allowing some poor D.C. parents to send their children to private school; b) lifting a ban on the District using local funds to promote and finance abortions for residents; c) removing the prohibition on federal tax money being used for healthcare benefits for domestic partners of D.C. employees; d) allowing D.C. to use local funds to begin and operate a medical marijuana program; and e) removing the restriction on using local funds for a needle exchange program for drug addicts in the District. Even a clause prohibiting such programs from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, day care centers, or youth centers was removed from the bill.
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