My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

The founding fathers recognized the freedom of conscience as a fundamental human right since the inception of our democracy.  Unfortunately, in our own day and age we have begun to see an erosion of the principle of religious liberty.  Frequently this misunderstanding is grounded in rhetoric that invoked the Jeffersonian principle of the separation of Church and State.
In his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, Jefferson wrote, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”
Jefferson was explaining to the Danbury ministers that neither would the government establish an official religion of the state nor impose itself on the free exercise of religion and the individual’s conscience. Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has done just that by issuing regulation which forces private insurance plans to cover contraception, including abortifacients and sterilization.
A very narrow religious employer exception to this mandate has been included to protect religious oriented organizations that believe that contraception and sterilization are immoral.  This exemption basically holds that the employer must hire and serve only co-religionists.  This regulation is problematic when one considers that the Church employs and serves many non-Catholics in our educational and social service institutions. Therefore, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has initiated a campaign to abolish this new regulation that soon will take effect.  Never before has the federal government required private plans to include such coverage.
Our message to the Department of Health and Human Services must be that pregnancy is not a disease and drugs and/or surgery to prevent a pregnancy is not basic health care that the government should require all Americans to purchase and private employers to provide.  We must insist that sterilization prescriptions and contraceptives be dropped from the list of preventative services that the federal government is mandating.  This is especially important to exclude any drug that may cause an early abortion. The narrow religious exemptions in the new HHS rule protect almost no one and abrogate religious freedom protection found elsewhere in federal laws and regulations.
Sept. 30 is the deadline by which comments on this regulation can be accepted. Usually when a proposed rule receives negative comments the departments issuing the regulations may change those regulations. In order to make your opposition known, you may send an e-mail message to HHS by visiting www.usccb.org/conscience.  Once you send your comments to HHS, you will be automatically invited to send a message to your elected representatives in Congress, urging them to support the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179/S.1467).  It is important that we voice our opposition to this new intrusion into our fundamental rights of conscience.
The implementation of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is coercive of individual and corporate consciences.  The individual conscience, and the conscience of organizations, cannot be violated.  As we strive to protect these rights, we will put out into the deep and murky waters of the political situation, which today seeks to curtail individual rights in the name of imposing regulations developed by a few to the detriment of many.   Please take the time to voice your opposition to these unjustified regulations.