Posts tagged “Abortifacients”

Obama: HHS Mandate is all about “freedom from government interference and meddling”

Posted on May 11th, 2012

Doesn’t it feel like we’ve walked through the looking glass? Somehow the Obamacare Mandate requiring religious organizations to provide—against their conscience and long-held beliefs—abortion-causing drugs, sterilization, and contraception is all about promoting “freedom from government interference and meddling.” Huh? This is like the anti-bullying speaker who turns out to be … a bully. “This contraception fight in particular was illuminating,” Obama told a group of women at a campaign fundraiser yesterday. “This is a [Republican] party that says it prides itself on being rabidly anti-regulation. These are folks who claim to believe in freedom from government interference and meddling. But it doesn’t seem to bother them when it comes to women’s health.” I shouldn’t need to remind you, gentle reader, that pregnancy is not…

Categories: Politics

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As available as bottled water

Posted on April 17th, 2012

LCMS President Matthew Harrison in the Lutheran Witness on the Obamacare Mandate and religious freedom: The issue is simple. We are not telling the government not to provide drugs or healthcare for women. We are not pushing for legislation to limit access to anything. Our own health plan does provide medications for specific health needs (which in other cases are used as contraceptives). I would argue that contraceptives (which the LCMS does not reject out of hand) and abortion-causing drugs are as available as bottled water in this culture of death. The “accommodation” offered by the president is a red herring. “Churches and their institutions won’t pay for offensive medications; their insurers will.” Oh? Most Catholic health plans are self-insured, just as the Concordia Health…

Categories: Culture, Politics, Religion

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Human Sexuality: Its meaning and purpose

Posted on March 20th, 2012

During Immanuel’s Sunday morning Scripture Study, we’ve been spending some time in recent weeks discussing various aspects of the HHS mandate requiring religious employers, against their conscience and religious beliefs, to provide sterilization, abortion-causing drugs, and contraception to their employees. We discussed the mandate itself, the government’s increasing hostility to expressions of Christianity, and more recently, the meaning and purpose of human sexuality. Below is a segment where I listed some of the key Scriptural texts and then wrote a summary of what I believe the Bible’s teaching to be on sexuality.   What does the Bible teach about human sexuality? Gen. 1.28 Gen. 2.24f Gen. 4.1 Gen. 9.1, 6, 7 Gen. 18.9-14 Gen. 38.6-10 Ps. 127.3-5 Mal. 2.14f God made the man and…

Categories: Theology

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The core issue in the religious freedom debate

Posted on March 6th, 2012

Rep. Darrell Issa’s recent piece in Roll Call (“Distorting the Debate of Religious Freedom”) challenges the disinformation campaign being waged through the institutional media that religious conservatives are seeking to outlaw contraception. He sets the record straight on the purpose of the hearing at which President Harrison testified: It was the committee’s hope to engage in a robust debate about the First Amendment infringements created by the administration’s proposal. Unfortunately, Congressional Democrats directed by House Minority LeaderNancy Pelosi (Calif.) were more interested in political theater and decided to cast the hearing about something that it wasn’t. Our nation’s founders believed so fervently in religious liberty that they established the First Amendment so people of all faiths could practice free from the fear of persecution or…

Categories: Politics, Religion

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Brave New Mandated World

Posted on March 2nd, 2012

While the analogy is not perfect, here’s how I’m thinking today about the government-mandated “free” supply of sterilization, abortifacients, and contraception: It’s Soma from Huxley’s Brave New World. The lower castes lose the will to truly feel or experience, addicted to unlimited sex without consequences, dependent on the government for their every need, rendered incapable of independent thought by  government indoctrination (public schools). Natural reproduction becomes a thing of the past, and the elite (the Alphas) have all the power. Huxley was a prophet.

Categories: Books, Politics

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Congresswoman: “We’re not looking to the Constitution” on HHS Mandate

Posted on February 28th, 2012

Here’s congresswomen Kathy Hochul, D-NY, defending the HHS abortifacient/sterilization/contraception mandate: And there you have it. Asked what in the Constitution gives them the right to enact the mandate, she responds, “We’re not looking to the Constitution.” Which is very convenient, since it says: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. But, “The congress has decided.” Towards the end of the video, an insightful questioner asks why they don’t give away free band-aids or cancer screenings? “Why is it contraception?” All she can stammer is, “More work needs to…

Categories: Politics, Theology

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A Whole New Can of Worms

Posted on February 25th, 2012

The faculty of my alma mater, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, has released a statement on the HHS Mandate. Playing off of Luther’s famous stand at the Diet of Worms, it is cleverly titled “A Whole New Can of Worms.” It reads in part: According to this unconstitutional mandate, Christians who own insurance companies will be forced to offer contraceptives and abortifacients. Christian institutions will be forced to buy insurance from companies that will also have to provide their workers contraceptives and abortifacients. While we do not share with the Catholic Church the same teaching on contraceptives, we do honor their right, according to the First Amendment, to practice their beliefs according to their conscience. Furthermore, we do stand with them entirely on the…

Categories: Politics, Theology

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Attacks on religious liberty rebranded as defending women’s “health”

Posted on February 18th, 2012

In the aftermath of the Obama administration’s assault on religious liberty, the media have presented doctored statistics and deflected the issue into a general spin of “women’s health” (as if chemicals designed to alter the natural functioning of a woman’s body, or the outright murder of little girls, is somehow in the interest of women’s “health”). Here’s a sample of Mollie Hemingway’s analysis (“Media ignore women, for women”) at GetReligion: My church body never engages in politics, for doctrinal reasons. But here even when we are compelled to speak out, the words that our elected President spoke aren’t important because he’s male? By falling for partisan spin about gender inequality, reporters have completely marginalized me and the millions of women who were being represented…

Categories: Politics, Theology

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The new fascism

Posted on February 17th, 2012

What is happening with the latest edict from the HHS is a liberal’s dream in one package: A sex subsidy (free contraception!) War on children (free sterilization and abortifacients!) Further control and marginalization of religion Erosion of liberty A liberal’s dream. Except there’s nothing liberal about it. It’s the new fascism.

Categories: Politics

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Grandfathering the First Amendment

Posted on February 16th, 2012

Note: This post was originally published on Ricochet’s member feed. (If you are interested in a free trial of Ricochet, let me know in the comments.) The House Government Reform and Oversight committee held a hearing today on the threat posed to the First Amendment by the latest regulations of Obamacare. Since the president of my church body, Rev’d Matthew Harrison, was testifying, I was particularly eager to attend the hearing. (Mollie Hemingway has written about the proceedings on Ricochet here.) During questioning, Harrison summarized this entire issue in one brilliant line. He first noted that the narrow provisions of Obamacare prevent his church from modifying its existing health insurance plan (which covers pastors, teachers, and other church employees), or face losing the “grandfathered” exemption. Under the…

Categories: Politics, Theology

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