By Rebecca Peck

Dear Friends,
I just wanted you to see this thread of a discussion on some points related to the HHS mandate.
Although the religious liberty issue is universally compelling, another crucial point is that birth control is NOT preventative care (see below). The current administration wants this to be about the Catholic Bishops denying women their “women’s health”. This is why I feel our recent research article is so timely and important right now (1). The pill is not a warm little fuzzy harmless object. It causes significant harm and the American people have been deceived for long enough. As a practicing physician, I see the fallout every day—young women with blood clots in their legs, strokes, early breast cancer, HPV, and cervical cancer. This is NOT about women’s health; it is about preventing and killing babies. The present administration will try to pit US Bishops against women and try to portray the bishops as a bunch of old men that don’t want women to have their “women’s health” options, but this has no credibility.
Every day, I, my husband Benjamin, and other doctors like us do TRUE preventative care. We do pap smears looking for cervical cancer, perform breast exams looking for breast cancer, refer for mammograms, order colonoscopies looking for colon cancer, and give immunizations to prevent pneumonia and influenza. These time-tested measures are very different from prescribing a pill to prevent a CHILD. A child is not a disease. Pregnancy and fertility are not disease states; they are normal physiological processes of the human body. (more…)

+ February 10, 2012
Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ:
As you are most undoubtedly aware, on January 20, 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services announced its decision not to expand the unacceptably narrow “religious employer” exemption to its mandate that virtually all health insurance plans must include, as so-called “preventive services” sterilizations, abortifacients, and contraception. Since that time, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and I began immediately preparing to meet this challenge.
The Bishops’ Conference committee on Religious Liberty is actively engaged in planning a nation-wide response on a number of levels. I simply want you to know that the bishops are fully engaged in this process, and a significant, sustainable, and long-term strategy is our goal.
You are invited to visit the USCCB website for continually updated information regarding our efforts to defend freedoms of conscience and religious liberty, and to better inform yourself as to what you can do as individuals. There is already information on this website to assist you in writing your representatives to express your deep concern for the protections of freedom of conscience and religious liberty. (more…)

BY
ARCHBISHOP TIMOTHY M. DOLAN:

(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:
JANUARY 25, 2012)

How about some respect for Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease?

 

Religious freedom is the lifeblood of the American people, the cornerstone of American
government.  When the Founding Fathers determined that the innate rights of men
and women should be enshrined in our Constitution, they so esteemed religious
liberty that they made it the first freedom in the Bill of Rights.

 
In particular, the Founding Fathers fiercely defended the right of conscience.
George Washington himself declared: “The conscientious scruples of all men
should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and
desire, that the laws may always be extensively accommodated to them.”  James
Madison, a key defender of religious freedom and author of the First Amendment,
said: “Conscience is the most sacred of all property.” (more…)