Private: Obama Announces Change to Contraception Coverage

by Nicole Flatow

Following sharp attacks from religious and conservative groups of the health care rule that would require insurance plans to cover contraceptives, the White House has announced a minor alteration to the rule that maintains free access to birth control.

The change would shift the onus of providing the contraceptive services from the employer to the insurance provider. If a religiously affiliated employer objects to providing that coverage in its benefits package, the insurance company will be required to reach out directly to the beneficiary to offer full contraceptives coverage.

“No woman’s health should depend on who she is or where she works or how much money she makes,” Obama said in announcing the change today. He added:

I understand some in Washington want to treat this as another political wedge issue. But it shouldn’t be. I certainly never saw it that way. … We live in a pluralistic society where we’re not gonna agree on every single issue or share every belief. That doesn’t mean we have to choose between individual liberty and basic fairness.

Today's shift, described by one official as an “accommodation” rather than a “compromise,” was quickly endorsed by the Catholic Health Association, one of the original critics of the rule, as well as Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

But the announcement is not likely to satisfy some of the most committed critics. Just last night during a webcast, the Family Research Council blasted the contraception rule as “not only an attack on the consciences of employers and employees, but a direct attack on religious freedom.”

Throughout the week, constitutional experts have reiterated that the contraception rule did not violate the Constitution’s religious liberty clauses.   

 "There isn't a constitutional issue involved," prominent litigator David Boies told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “There isn’t anything in the Constitution that says an employer, regardless of whether you are a church employer or not, isn’t subject to the same rules as every other employer.”

“One thing I think is crystal clear — there is no First Amendment violation by this law,” Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA, told TPM. “The Supreme Court was very clear in a case called Employment Division v. Smith, written by none other than Antonin Scalia, that religious believers and institutions are not entitled to an exemption from generally applicable laws.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jay Bookman highlights some excerpts from the Smith decision in which Scalia, “himself a devout and very conservative Catholic,” makes the case for Obama. Scalia wrote:

When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes that are binding on others in that activity. Granting an exemption from social security taxes to an employer operates to impose the employer’s religious faith on the employees.

As Bookman notes, “You would not need to change a single word of that paragraph to apply it to the contraceptive debate.”

Constitutional Interpretation, Equality and Liberty, First Amendment, Individual liberties, Reproductive Rights, Supreme Court, Women's rights