Former vice president Joe Biden pledged on Wednesday to reinstate Obama-era policies that would require the Little Sisters of the Poor to ensure access to birth control and abortifacients for employees in violation of their religious beliefs.
Biden, who is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, made the promise July 8, following the Supreme Court decision in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor in the case Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, which upheld an exemption for the sisters from the “contraception mandate” which obliges employers to provide for contraceptive coverage for employees through their health care plans.
“If I am elected I will restore the Obama-Biden policy that existed before the [Supreme Court’s 2014] Hobby Lobby ruling: providing an exemption for houses of worship and an accommodation for nonprofit organizations with religious missions,” said Biden in a statement released by his campaign.
“This accommodation will allow women at these organizations to access contraceptive coverage, not through their employer-provided plan, but instead through their insurance company or a third-party administrator.”
The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, while Biden was serving as vice president. On August 1, 2011, then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebellius announced an interim final rule that required all compliant insurance plans to cover at least one form of female birth control, including sterilization. At the time the bill was voted on and signed, there was no contraception mandate included.
The rule, finalized on January 20, 2012, contained a narrow religious exemption to the mandate which only covered employees of a church or religious organization. The Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order dedicated to serving the elderly poor, were one of many groups who were not covered under the religious exemption because they do not exclusively employ or serve Catholics.
The Little Sisters of the Poor have repeatedly stated that authorizing a “third-party administrator” to provide birth control to their employees is still a violation of their beliefs and is not an acceptable compromise.
Following an initial 2016 appeal to the Supreme Court, in 2017, the Trump administration granted a religious and moral exemption to the mandate for the sisters and other objecting groups. Several states filed lawsuits saying that the executive action shifted the burden of providing coverage onto the states and claimed the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act in setting up the exemption.
On Wednesday, the court found that the Trump administration “had the statutory authority to craft that exemption, as well as the contemporaneously issued moral exemption,” and “that the rules promulgating these exemptions are free from procedural defects.”
The court’s decision only found in favor of the executive action excusing the sisters and others with conscience objections – action that could be revoked or reversed by a subsequent administration.
On Wednesday, Biden, who has campaigned on the importance of his Catholic faith, said he did not agree with either the court’s decision or the exemption for the sisters, adding that there is “a clear path to fixing it: electing a new president who will end Donald Trump’s ceaseless attempts to gut every aspect of the Affordable Care Act….”
The above comes from a July 9 story on the site of the Catholic News Agency.
I’ll just flat-out say it: any “Catholic” who supports or is a member of the Democrat Party these days is not a real Catholic. It’s like trying to simultaneously be a Catholic and an atheist. It’s logically self-contradictory. Choose: you are either Catholic or a Democrat; you can’t be both.
Amen.
“If I am elected I will restore the Obama-Biden policy that existed before the [Supreme Court’s 2014] Hobby Lobby ruling: providing an exemption for houses of worship and an accommodation for nonprofit organizations with religious missions,
Your headline says something totally different that what the article says.
Our understanding of the English language must be different. I read this at the end of the story, and that after multiple references to the Supreme Court’s decision in the latest ruling involving the Little Sisters of the Poor: “On Wednesday, Biden… said he did not agree with either the court’s decision or the exemption for the sisters, adding that there is “a clear path to fixing it: electing a new president who will end Donald Trump’s ceaseless attempts to gut every aspect of the Affordable Care Act….” Seems pretty clear to me. I’ve noticed a trend in your comments suggesting you are, shall we say charitably, on the heterodox side of Catholic thinking.
Affordable Care Act? Nothing affordable or caring about that disaster. And now those who support the teachings of the church are labeled, charitably I might add, as being on the heterodox side of Catholic teaching. Let’s just say that confusion is the work of the Devil. And his infiltration is alive and well.
No. I’m orthodox. You may have confused me with some other anonymous commented.
I never vote for a pro-choice candidate of either party. I am opposed to any Catholic employer paying for abortion, contraceptives, IVF.
I see what you are saying. I did not notice in the quote that it was an “accommodation” rather than an exemption. So it is a sneaky way to have their cake and eat it too.
Why do you think the Little Sisters of the Poor had to go to court? The Obama-Biden administration issued a religious exemption in 2011 that included houses of worship but excluded religious orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor and nonprofits like the EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. Although the “good Catholic” may not have mentioned the Little Sisters by name, as he tries to avoid the word abortion while promoting it, the headline reflects what he says he’ll do if elected. Not only will abortion be promoted (and paid for by all of us), nuns will be forced to pay for artificial contraception, sex-change therapies and more if this “Catholic” is elected.
Given that the USA seems to change parties of the President every four to eight years, does this suggest the policy will ping pong similarly?
That’s okay. The Supreme Court told President Trump that he couldn’t end the Obama-enacted DACA because executive orders are now apparently equivalent to constitutional amendments. So Biden wouldn’t be allowed to end Trump executive orders either.
Biden should have been excommunicated decades ago. Pro abortion. Pro unnatural marriage. And now this.
Religious freedom scholars and experts suggested that the Little Sisters of the Poor’s fight is far from over, despite a second victory at the Supreme Court. In fact, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who sued the Little Sisters, said: “This fight is not over.”
Anyone want to guess the political party that politician Josh Shapiro belongs to?
I’m not being partisan, I’m just asking a question. Why is it that most of you would probably guess correctly?
Keeping this issue of the Little Sisters of the Poor in mind, as well as abortion and several other issues, it’s discouraging to see how Vice President Biden’s Catholic faith does not seem to inform his policies and politics. Looks like a bit of cognitive dissonance is at work here.
the success of a democracy lies in a righteous populace. Then you get to choose between good candidates.
And voters still want to vote democratic, wake up voters before it is too late
it IS too late
now, what we gonna do ???