Other conscience objections after ObamaCare abortion pill-mandate is dropped

The free exercise of religion was fundamental to the founding of America, but so is the right to freely bargain with health care and insurance providers

After President Barack Obama inevitably drops the recently announced mandate that even church-affiliated employers provide health insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and “Plan B” morning after abortion pills (aka RU-486), will we look back at this exercise as a ruse to make ObamaCare seem more palatable to voters this fall?

After all, the Messiah will be seen as having heard the public outcry including threats of civil disobedience, and graciously agreed to respect the consciences of Roman Catholics? In fact, the subject mandate applies to all religious group employers which include numerous Southern Baptist hospitals and other Protestant and Evangelical organizations, but I digress.

Yes, America’s founding by pilgrims and Puritans, not to mention the first freedom in the Bill of Rights, properly focuses this mandate to fund abortion coverage via insurance premiums on the free exercise of religion, but of course, when Democrats aka Dem-o-bats (pictured, that suck the blood out of health care) rule, our tax dollars regularly fund abortion and yet we don’t see threats of civil disobedience to withhold taxes, do we? Moreover, if theObamaCare mandate is actually put into effect in August 2013 (after the election of course) the only recourse people of conscience would have would be to refuse to pay the ObamaCare fine for refusing to comply.

There will be no option to purchase an insurance policy that excludes the contraceptive and abortion coverages because private health insurance companies will be prohibited from issuing such policies and if they did, the Supremacy Clause would require that any such contracts be declared void.

What happened to free enterprise between a willing buyer and willing seller?

But wait a minute. Let’s back up. What ever happened to my right to bargain with an insurance company for the coverage I desire at a price we mutually agree upon?

The fact is that health insurance prices are artificially high now due to numerous other government mandates due to ObamaCare as well as federal and state laws that existed before anyone ever heard of the senator from Illinois that led the fight to prohibit a law requiring abortionists to try and save the lives of babies that escape the womb during attempted abortions.

Last week’s decision by the Obama Administration to use the blank check “discretion” Democrats gave  it to regulate our lives via his health care “affordability act” aka ObamaCare, forces private insurance companies to cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing morning after pills (RU-486).

Most of the conservative news coverage has focused on how the Sebelius Edict continues an assault by the administration on the Roman Catholic Church and its possible violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise (of religion) Clause.

Of course, the requirement that any organization (All Christians and many non-Christians) fund abortion is repugnant and while DeVine Law is not certain that the employer-provided health insurance mandated coverages technically violate the usually narrow application of the Free Exercise clause (right to worship), isn’t there an even more fundamental, if that is possible, freedom involved here?

Unlike many conservatives, this gamecock variety takes a fairly expansive view of the Commerce Clause. One of the major reasons that the framers of the U.S. Constitution convened to address the Articles of Confederation was to stop the states from acting as foreign nations and to forge a national economy. To that end they empowered Congress to “regulate interstate clause”. Much of the early application of that clause ended state monopolies over certain industries (one wishes that Congress would do the same with respect to interstate health insurance sales, but I digress) and played referee to ensure fairness and prevent fraud.

Sadly, Congress and the courts began to interpret “regulate” to include product planning in the last century, which practice has morphed, under this President to include the take over of automobile companies (and without even asserting a war power that couldn’t even save President Harry Truman’s Supreme Court-rebuffed attempt to seize steel companies during the Korean War, er um “police action”) while abrogating bondholder rights under duly-passed Bankruptcy laws and giving General Motors to the United Auto Workers as a tax payer-funded welfare program.

But also unlike the Truman steel-seizure case, President Obama’s “regulation” has the imprimatur of a 2010 Democratic Party-majority of the House of Representatives and super-majority of said party in the Senate, along with scores, if not hundreds of Supreme Court precedents to bolster the liberal “living constitution” definition of the word, up to and including prohibiting farmers from growing wheat to eat at home.

Moreover, isn’t there something Third-worldish, if not outright totalitarian, when we hear of fundamental changes in the compact We the People have (or at least had) with the federal government we formed from a Cabinet secretary or even the President himself, much as it was a usurpation of our right to self government when 5+ lawyers made abortion a right.

Wasn’t Congress created as a separate power so that those they represent have a say in changes in the law that affect their lives? Obviously, and that right is also worthy of a conscience objection that trumps blank checks Democrats right into law for a royal head of state to issue edicts from on high at his whim that empty or pocketbooks along with our deeply held religious beliefs.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

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