In Fighting Mandate, Dems Get Honorable Manchin
If the Department of Health and Human Services had a slogan, it would be: You don't have to agree with someone else's choices--but you do have to pay for them! Yesterday, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and some of her far-Left colleagues held a press conference to defend the President's new mandate, which strong-arms religious groups into funding drugs that violate their conscience. Like the administration, Sen. Boxer is trying to frame the debate as a women's rights issue or a health issue. But in doing so, she glosses over the most significant problem of all: the shattering of religious liberty. Unlike her liberal counterpart, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) wanted reporters to know, "This is not a women's rights issue. This is a religious rights issue."
Boxer also tried to persuade Americans that the rule is about "medicine," and "women deserve their medicine." First of all, she and the government need to recognize that children aren't a disease, and the pill is not the cure. Medicine is prescribed to treat illnesses--and pregnancy isn't one of them. Secondly, this isn't about what women do and do not deserve. This is about Americans who have access to birth control but who choose to spend their money elsewhere. Instead of making a financial commitment to family planning, they want to pass the responsibility for their sexual decisions on to others. As John Cochrane writes in a great op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, "It's not about 'access,' and it's not about 'insurance.' It's because Americans, when paying even modest co-payments... prefer a new iPod to a 'wellness visit' to the doctor."
Boxer argues that "too many women struggle to pay for birth control." Not true, Cochrane counters. "Poor women who can't afford birth control are a red herring in this debate," he explains. "The very poor typically don't have employer-provided health insurance in the first place." And notice Sen. Boxer's choice of words: women deserve. Only socialism would argue that people have a right to order someone to pay for whatever they want--particularly when that "someone" is morally opposed.
Even the President's own party sees the folly of that logic. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) called it "un-American." Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebr.) said it was "bone-headed." Even the House's fourth-ranking Democrat, Rep. John Larson (Conn.) pleaded with the White House to reconsider. But the President refuses. After a trip to his party's Senate retreat yesterday, leaders said he has no intention of softening his position. He is "sticking by what he said," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) told reporters. If the administration won't reverse the attack on religious freedom, "then Congress must," Speaker Boehner vowed.
Today, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) did just that by trying to offer his conscience rights legislation as an amendment to a bill dealing with highway funds. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) quickly put up a procedural roadblock to that move--happily joining the President in tearing up the First Amendment. The Nevada Senator might be standing with the President, but the support of most of the country is squarely in the religious freedom corner. More Americans object to the mandate--with Catholics (65%) and Protestants (62%) almost identically opposed.
They understand, as we do, that the real question isn't about contraception, but whether anyone can live freely when the government is " determined to do what it wants to do at any cost," as Daniel Henninger puts it. If the mandate stands, what other personal decisions will be left to the administration's discretion? Let's hope we never find out. Life, liberty, faith, and health won't be safe until ObamaCare is repealed. Until then, what people need isn't protection against pregnancy but the President's radical policies.
** Don't forget to tune in to tonight's live newscast at 8:00 p.m. (ET) for the latest developments in this war on religious freedom. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.), Catholic Bishop Walker Nickless of Iowa, and others will be here to explain the threat and what you can do to stop it. For complete details on tonight's event, click over to the website. **
M.S. Treated Before Your Barry Eyes!
Slapping hockey pucks around the ice rink, cracking balls around the golf course, and pounding out a 65-hour work week used to be commonplace for Barry Goudy. Then the unthinkable happened: doctors told the Southgate, Michigan businessman he had multiple sclerosis (MS). After the initial shock of the diagnosis, Barry's wife, Anne, went to work devouring all the information she could find about MS. She read about a new adult stem cell transplant procedure, part of a clinical trial approved by the FDA and conducted at Northwestern University by Dr. Richard Burt, one of the world's foremost researchers in finding treatments for a range of autoimmune diseases like MS. The trial involved replacing or "re-booting" Barry's diseased immune system with a transplant of healthy adult stem cells harvested from his own body.
Within hours after being approved for the adult stem cell transplant trial, Barry and Anne booked their non-stop flight to Chicago and arrived at Northwestern Hospital. Everything went according to plan and less than a week later Barry was back home with a fresh immune system and new hope. Hear how his life has been changed in FRC's brand new video, "Barry's Blessings" on our StemCellResearchFacts.org website. Then share the video with your family and friends.
The Main Events...
With several of our conservative friends, FRC celebrated the third annual Weyrich Awards, named for long-time leader Paul Weyrich, at last night's Washington, D.C. gala. Among the many honorees, I was proud to receive the Faith Community Leader of the Year Award. As always, the event, which is usually the unofficial kickoff to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), was a great tribute to the conservative icon for which it was named.
Today, CPAC is well underway, and I was pleased to be back at the podium, speaking about the importance of family and character. Freedom, faith, free enterprise, and the family are all under attack--and the only remedy for the future of our country is conservative unity. As I told the audience, we face not only an economic problem but also a virtue problem. And our nation will not have economic recovery until it has moral recovery. We may not agree on every detail of public morality, but it's vital that we get the big questions right. If we don't, our nation's character, and the character of all the Western nations, hangs in the balance. To read the speech, click here.
