That's right, Kathleen Sebelius ignored us. 

President Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services announced this week that despite the protests of millions of Americans (including tens of thousands of CV members), birth control must be covered for FREE by nearly every health insurance plan in America. 

That’s right. The Obama administration now considers the birth of a child “preventative care” – akin to care to avoid illnesses. In fact, Sec. Sebelius defended the new mandates saying: “Not doing it would be like not covering flu shots.” 

This means that starting January 1, 2013, nearly every health insurance plan will be forced to cover birth control, sterilizations, and Ella and Plan B (both of which kill a child before he or she can implant in their mothers womb). 

All of this will be subsidized by you or anyone who has health insurance. And all of this will be available free, without even a co-pay. 

This decision by the Obama administration is nothing but a federally-mandated handout to the monstrous abortion industry. In fact, NARAL called this “the biggest victory for women’s health in a generation.” 

But it gets worse. In an effort to keep us quiet, Sebelius and HHS allowed for a so-called "religious exemption" -- that honestly is an insult. 

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo explained: 

“Under the new rule our institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics. (emphasis added)

“Could the federal government possibly intend to pressure Catholic institutions to cease providing health care, education and charitable services to the general public?”

Catholic organizations that serve the sick and the poor have always opened their doors to persons of all faith or no faith. But under this new rule, if a Catholic institution employs, or cares for a non-Catholic, they will not qualify for the exemption. 

In essence, the Obama administration is saying: "Catholics must subsidize birth control, abortions and sterilizations or stop practicing their faith." This is outrageous.

As Archbishop Dolan recently said, people keep telling Catholics not to worry.  The sky's not falling.  Well in terms of our religious freedom, the sky may be falling!  But setting aside Obama's all-out attack on our religious freedom... One way to describe the root of this evil mandate is "dehumanization."  This is how Christopher West puts it in his book Theology of the Body for Beginners:

What purpose does contraception really serve?  This might sound odd at first, but let it sink in.  Contraception was not invented to prevent pregnancy.  We already had a 100% safe, 100% reliable way of doing that - abstinence.  In the final analysis, contraception serves one purpose:  to spare the difficulty we experience when confronted with the choice of abstinence.  When all the smoke is cleared, contraception was invented because of our lack of self-control; contraception was invented to serve the indulgence of lust.

Why do we spay or neuter our dogs and cats?  Because they can't say no to their urge to merge; they're not free.  If we spay and neuter ourselves with contraception, we're reducing the "great mystery" of the one flesh union to the level of Fido and Fidette in heat.  What distinguished us from the animals in the first place?  Freedom!  God gave us freedom as the capacity to love.  Contraception negates this freedom.  It says, "I can't abstain."  Hence, contracepted intercourse not only attacks the procreative meaning of sex, it "ceases also to be an act of love" (JP2, Wed. Audience, 8/22/84).  If you can't say no to sex, what does your "yes" mean?  Only the person who is free with the freedom for which Christ set us free (see Gal 5:1) is capable of authentic love.

Obama clearly thinks Americans are dogs in heat.  "Preventive care" they call it.  They think this policy will help prevent unwanted pregnancies, but here's the problem:  It doesn't work!  

Helen Alvare puts it best:  "There is no data showing that at the level of a social policy, contraception has ever done anything but drive up rates of uncommitted sex, non-marital pregnancies, non-marital births, STDs, and abortion.  There is nothing 'preventive' about it.  The social ills it claims to solve are all exacerbated."  [It must be noted, of course, that even if it did "work," there are still grave moral problems with contraception.]

The secularists often accuse the Catholic Church of clinging to sacred dogmas at the expense of human lives.

Why doesn't the Church approve the use of contraception to help cut down on abortion?  Why doesn't the Church approve of condoms to help fight AIDS?  Why doesn't the Church approve embryonic stem cell research to help fight disease?

All of this criticism comes while ignoring the facts.  Contraception doesn't reduce abortions.  It increases them.  Even the Roe v Wade opinion recognized that.  Throwing condoms at the AIDS epidemic in Africa has been like throwing fuel on a fire.  Even a non-religious Harvard researcher admits the Pope was right about this.  And embryonic stem cells have shown ZERO promise.  They've done nothing but turn into cancer.  All successful treatments come from ADULT stem-cell research, which the Church encourages.  Furthermore, scientists have been able to reprogram adult stem cells to act like embryonic stem cells (induced Pluripotent Stem Cells) without destroying embryos, so it should be a moot point anyway.

So I ask you.  Who are the ones clinging to their "sacred dogmas" at the expense of human lives?