Rep. Mike Kelly Responds to President Obama’s Contraceptive Mandate “Compromise”

Rep. Mike Kelly Responds to President Obama’s Contraceptive Mandate “Compromise”

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (PA-03) issued the following statement on President Obama’s announcement today that he has reached a compromise regarding the controversial contraceptive mandate:

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The president may have changed his message but his mission is essentially unchanged. Under today’s announcement, religious employers are still forced to purchase insurance plans from insurers that provide services to which the religious organization objects, such as sterilization, abortifacients, and contraceptives. Since the insurer is required to provide these services at no cost to the employee, common sense tells us that the insurer will have to pass the cost of these services to the religious employer, which brings us right back to square one: government forcing religious organizations to violate their consciences.  Furthermore, today’s announcement only exempts a few types of religious employers, namely ‘churches, other houses of worship, and similar organizations.’  The fate of other religious employers, such as hospitals, charities, religious colleges, nondenominational organizations, and for-profit religious companies, is still up in the air.  As the president often says, ‘We can’t wait,’ and all religious organizations deserve to know whether they will be exempt from this mandate now, not a year from now.”

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