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For those who haven’t heard, or are not in the US, the Obama administration recently made a ruling that health care organizations that accept federal dollars must make available contraception, sterilization and the morning after pill to women in their systems. The Catholic Church, along with many other conservative groups, has come out strongly against this ruling protesting it as a violation of religious freedom.
I received the following email from the Christian Medical Dental Association (CMDA):
“Your action is needed now to protect conscience rights and our Constitutional First Amendment freedom of religion…
The Obama administration has announced that it will, effective August of this year, begin forcing faith-based organizations and individuals to pay for pills that can end the life of a developing human being…
Here what's happening:
Effective in August, virtually every insurance plan in the nation will have to provide free contraception--including pills like Ella and the morning-after pill, that can end the life of a developing human being. And virtually all of us will have to subsidize this conscience-trampling mandate.
Unless we health care professionals take action now to overturn this assault on religious freedom, people and organizations of faith will become more and more vulnerable to government coercion like this.”
Doesn’t that just get your blood boiling? Don’t you just want to stop the assault on religious freedom by a “conscience-trampling mandate?”
I have been listening to multiple conservative news commentators and essentially all are interpreting events like the CMDA. I heard on Fox News a commentator asking, “Is it right to force Notre Dame University to make the morning after pill available to its students?” The commentators were outraged that the current administration could suggest such a thing.
But, wait, are you thinking for yourself or are you allowing conservative spin to trick you into opposing something you would otherwise support? Could we use this event to practice how to think through government church issues that the Bible predicts are coming upon the world?
This article is not designed to argue whether a person should or should not use contraception, but to use this topic to teach how to discern, think, and reason for oneself, how to cut through the media smoke and mirrors and uncover the real issues at stake.
Two lines of thought need to be explored. What the administration is requiring, versus what is being said, and what the Bill of Rights protects, versus how it is being spun.
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The administration ruling said that any health care institution, which accepts federal funds, must make contraception available
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It does not require anyone to accept federal funds
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Thus no religious institution is required to provide these services
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All may refuse federal funding and provide only the services in harmony with their conscience
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Further, no citizen is required to utilize the contraceptive services provided under the plan
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So, the government is not forcing any citizen to utilize a service that violates their conscience
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The Role of government is to provide equal opportunity/access for all citizens and protect citizens’ rights from oppression, including religious oppression.
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The government must avoid entanglements with religious institutions that use government resources to promote the tenants or practices of one religious group upon the nation’s citizenry.
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The framers of our government had freedom from religious oppression in mind when they wrote our Bill of Rights. Consider the reason the framers wrote into the Bill of Rights:
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protection against self-incrimination,
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protection against search and seizure without legal warrant,
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the right to confront one’s accuser and
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the right to trial by jury of one’s peers?
Because when the governments of Europe were entangled with the Roman church the Inquisitor could require one to answer his questions and refusal was considered the same as confession of guilt. The Inquisitor could also search and seize property without warrant. Witnesses could accuse a person to the Inquisitor without the accused being able to confront his accuser, and trial was by Inquisitor, not by jury of one’s peers.
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Thus the framers of our government wrote protection from church/state oppression, not only amendments IV-VII of our Bill of rights, but also the first amendment which establishes the separation of church and state to protect citizens’ rights against an oppressive church/state union.
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On the issue of women’s health the church institutions have twisted this debate in order to take federal funding, which funds and promotes their organizations, while denying women access to health care, (thus promoting the beliefs and tenants of this institution while denying individual liberty of conscience to the persons in their plans), and yet claim that to provide access to contraception is a violation of religious freedom!
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Church institutions are taking taxpayer dollars, while refusing to provide access to contraceptive care. So, if the religious institutions have their way, a female student who is raped at Notre Dame University, and goes to a university clinic and asks for the morning after pill would be denied this treatment and forced to become pregnant by her rapist. In other words, the religious values of that institution would be forced upon this woman, all while being funded by taxpayer dollars. The religious organization would deny her freedom to make her own conscientious choice, while claiming religious freedom and having the government pay for it.
So, it appears the current administration ruling is NOT denying religious freedom, but is attempting to prevent religious institutions from taking federal money and using that money to impose their beliefs on citizens thereby denying citizens their opportunity to make their own freewill choice!
If a religious group doesn’t want to provide such services, then absolutely don’t provide them, but don’t take public money to do it.
We must be thoughtful, because a final delusion is coming upon the world in which church and state will be united and will seek to force all citizens to comply with their beliefs. The denial of freedom to choose contraception by a church that takes federal funding is one example of this subtle union. |
PAPAYA FRENCH DRESSING *