by: Rita Diller
The chairman of the USCCB pro-life committee, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, said this week that the religious exemption in the HHS ruling to require health insurance plans to cover sterilization and contraception free of charge is so narrow that Jesus himself would not qualify for it.
Yet the Obama administration has refused to broaden the exemption. In a move she says “strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services,” Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, gave religious employers an extended deadline, until August 1, 2013, to comply.