Barbara Boxer: Right to Insurance Trumps Religious Freedom
by Steven Ertelt
Barbara Boxer, the leading pro-abortion member of the U.S. Senate, made some comments in a recent MSNBC interview that are sparking outrage across the Internet today. Boxer essentially says the right to insurance trumps religious rights and freedoms.
The comments came during an interview concerning the controversial mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place recently requiring religious groups to pay for insurance coverage for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions.
As the Washington Examiner reports:
Senator Boxer warned yesterday that if the HHS contraception mandate was repealed it would set a dangerous precedence of religious rights trumping the right to be insured.
On MSNBC’s Politics Nation with Al Sharpton last night, Boxer affirmed that under the proposed amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt, an employer would not be forced by the government to pay for medical practices against his religion.
“I mean, are they serious? Sharpton exclaimed, “How do you make a law where an employer can decide his own religious beliefs violate your right to be insured?”
“Oh Absolutely,” Boxer said, “Let’s use an example, let’s say somebody believes that medicine doesn’t cure anybody of a disease but prayer does and then they decide no medicine.
“No medicine!” she exclaimed, “Under the Blunt amendment, they could do just that.”
The new mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place forcing religious employers to pay for insurance coverage including birth control and abortion-inducing drugs is so offensive more than 50 members of Congress will speak out against it today.
Congressman Jeff Fortenberry will hold a press conference today with supporters of the bipartisan, bicameral Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. His legislation would protect the religious liberty and conscience rights of every American who objects to being forced by the strong-arm of government to pay for drugs and procedures recently mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Related Links Tell Obama: Stop This Pro-Abortion Mandate
The Fortenberry bill currently has the support of approximately 220 Members of Congress and Senators, the most strongly-supported legislative remedy to the controversial HHS mandate. This measure would repeal the controversial mandate, amending the 2010 health care law to preserve conscience rights for religious institutions, health care providers, and small businesses who pay for health care coverage.
The press conference comes as the U.S. Senate is expected to vote soon, possibly as early as today, on an amendment that would stop the mandate President Barack Obama put in place to force religious groups to pay for insurance coverage that includes birth control and abortion-causing drugs.
Sen. Roy Blunt, a pro-life Missouri Republican, is putting forward the Blunt Amendment, #1520, again, and it is termed the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act. According to information provided to LifeNews from pro-life sources on Capitol Hill, the Blunt Amendment will be the first amendment voted on when the Senate returns to the transportation bill. The amendment would allow employers to decline coverage of services in conflict with religious beliefs.
Republicans are moving swiftly with legislation, amendments, and potential hearings on the mandatethe Obama administration has put in place that forces religious employers to pay for birth control and abortion-inducing drugs for their employees.
Congress will do what it can to fight back, starting this week, as pro-life Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, puts together a hearing on conscience rights.
“If this is what the President is willing to do in a tough election year, imagine what he will do in implementing the rest of his health care law after the election,” Issa said.
Rep. Dan Lipinski, a pro-life Illinois Democrat, and a host of Republicans from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), will hold a hearing entitled, “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?” on Thursday, February 16th at 9:30AM in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.
On Thursday, Senators Roy Blunt (R-MO), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and others offered Amendment #1520 to ensure Obamacare cannot be used to force health plan issuers or healthcare providers to furnish insurance coverage for drugs, devices, and services contrary to their religious beliefs or moral convictions. However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Democrat, blocked the amendment.
Leading pro-life groups, including Americans United for Life, are urging support for the Amendment, which could be added to another piece of legislation.
“The Obama Administration continued its unprecedented attack on Americans’ freedom of conscience by refusing to reverse its mandate that nearly all insurance plans must provide full coverage of all Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved “contraception,” including the abortion-inducing drug ella,” the organization said in an action alert to its members. “We must urge the Senate to protect Americans’ freedom of conscience by supporting Amendment #1520, which would protect the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in healthcare coverage that is consistent with one’s religious beliefs and moral convictions.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement saying Obama’s revised mandate involves “needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions” and it urged Congress to overturn the rule and promised a potential lawsuit.
Meanwhile, the Republican presidential candidates had been taking verbal swings at Obama for imposing the original mandate on religious employers, which is not popular in the latest public opinion poll and which even some Democrats oppose.
Congressman Steve Scalise has led a bipartisan letter with 154 co-signers calling on the Obama Administration to reverse its mandate forcing religious organizations to include drugs that can cause abortion and birth control in the health care plans of their employees.
Bishops across the country have spoken out against the original mandate and are considering a lawsuit against it — with bishops in more than 164 locations across the United States issuing public statements against it or having letters opposing it printed in diocesan newspaper or read from the pulpit.
“We cannot — we will not comply with this unjust law,” said the letter from Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix. “People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens.”
The original mandate was so egregious that even the normally reliably liberal and pro-abortion USA Today condemned it in an editorial titled, “Contraception mandate violates religious freedom.”
The administration initially approved a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine suggesting that it force insurance companies to pay for birth control and drugs that can cause abortions under the Obamacare government-run health care program.
The IOM recommendation, opposed by pro-life groups, called for the Obama administration to require insurance programs to include birth control — such as the morning after pill or the ella drug that causes an abortion days after conception — in the section of drugs and services insurance plans must cover under “preventative care.” The companies will likely pass the added costs on to consumers, requiring them to pay for birth control and, in some instances, drug-induced abortions of unborn children in their earliest days.
The HHS accepted the IOM guidelines that “require new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventive services” and those services include “FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling” — which include birth control drugs like Plan B and ella that can cause abortions. The Health and Human Services Department commissioned the report from the Institute, which advises the federal government and shut out pro-life groups in meetings leading up to the recommendations.
Poster Comment:
Now we know where a few people on here get their justification for implementing ObozoCare!!!
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
No, they hold a job with paid health care as part of their benefits package.
Really... so why do they get it for the rest of their lives, even after they leave that employment. Which usually occurs at a fairly young age?
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
Is it possible to sustain a healthy economy with a sickly workforce?
Henry Kaiser didn't think so.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
No, they hold a job with paid health care as part of their benefits package.
Really... so why do they get it for the rest of their lives, even after they leave that employment. Which usually occurs at a fairly young age?
Because that is the deal that your government offers.
If you want free health care, join the military.
Want to hear something really crazy? I was in the military, yet I have never been to a VA hospital or received any kind of government paid health care.
Is it possible that you two will stop putting forth your opinions and show me how or where health care is a right?
Is it possible for you to stop whining about other posters here? I already told you it was in the Preamble.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
Because that is the deal that your government offers.
If you want free health care, join the military.
Want to hear something really crazy? I was in the military, yet I have never been to a VA hospital or received any kind of government paid health care.
It's nice to know you think certain special citizens, of which you are one, should have certain guaranteed lifetime rights. Whether you use them or not is immaterial.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
It's nice to know you think certain special citizens, of which you are one, should have certain guaranteed lifetime rights.
LOL!
I don't think that, and I have not stated that I think that.
Simply because your government OFFERS free (and sucky, just ask any vet) health care for veterans doesn't mean that I think they are special citizens, or that they are deserving of any special rights, OR that I believe that health care is a right of veterans.
Why do you make this stuff up and attribute it to me?
Is it possible for you to stop whining about other posters here? I already told you it was in the Preamble.
It is also in Article I Section 8 Paragraph 1:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States...
Anyone claiming to be an expert is selling something. I brandish my ignorance like a crucifix at vampires. Aaron Bady
It's nice to know you think certain special citizens, of which you are one, should have certain guaranteed lifetime rights. Whether you use them or not is immaterial.
I've never been a vet and I don't get the benefits...I understand that...why don't you?
part of the employment package and benefits...you want those benefits...go join the military
The military has never open to all who would like to join.
And for most of it's existence it excluded women from all but some support and positions in nursing for which it required a BSN.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
#37. To: freedomsnotfree, We the People (#35)(Edited)
I've never been a vet and I don't get the benefits...I understand that...why don't you?
Unless you are We The People I wasn't posting that to you.
But no, I don't understand the concept of a special citizen class that has it's own health care system especially dedicated and restricted to those certain citizens and even certain non citizens. And that sure wasn't mentioned in the Constitution. You do understand that don't you?
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
There are much better arguments than the preamble, that ARE listed in the Constitution, but I'm not going to present them for you.
So you admit it's in the Constitution.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States...
Very good!
And here is part of what Madison says in Federalist 41:
It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms “to raise money for the general welfare.” But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.........
But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare?
The powers conferred in Article 1, Section 8, are enumerated after the general opening statement, and strangely enough, no mention of welfare payments or free health care is found.
nice try...that's certainly NOT the case now, and hasn't been for decades. You never answered my question...why do you feel entitled to the fruits of another persons labor?That's called slavery... or, is that OK with you because you are on the receiving end?
There are much better arguments than the preamble, that ARE listed in the Constitution, but I'm not going to present them for you.
So you admit it's in the Constitution.
No, I said there are much better arguments than the preamble and that I could also prove those better arguments false.
lucysmom just found one of them, but I had to show the original intent as described by Madison, to refute the general statement of Article 1, Section 8.
nice try...that's certainly NOT the case now, and hasn't been for decades.
Stop trying to make it personal.
It was the case for a distinct majority of citizens now alive in the US. And they have never, ever taken the infirm.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
he powers conferred in Article 1, Section 8, are enumerated after the general opening statement, and strangely enough, no mention of welfare payments or free health care is found.
This was one man's opinion. The Federalist Papers are not part of the Constitution and as such have no direct bearing. The framers were free to include limitations to the phrase if they so desired.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
why should they...it's not in their hiring policies to do so. why do you ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to answer the question...WHY are you, are anyone else, ENTITLED to the fruits of any persons labor...THAT by definition is slavery.
...funny how the liberals reference Jeffersons letter to the Danbury Baptists church about the separation of church and state and use it ALL THE TIME. It was a personal letter...not the federalist paper. Liberals are the master of twist...are they not.
he powers conferred in Article 1, Section 8, are enumerated after the general opening statement, and strangely enough, no mention of welfare payments or free health care is found.
This was one man's opinion. The Federalist Papers are not part of the Constitution and as such have no direct bearing. The framers were free to include limitations to the phrase if they so desired.
I'm not sure how to respond to that, because I'm not even sure if you're being serious.
That one man, was James Madison aka Publius, who was one of the framers of the constitution. The Federalist papers were written to explain the constitution to the people of the state of New York and explicitly explains the original intent of the framers.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
The framers were free to include limitations to the phrase if they so desired.
And they did, as Madison explains in Federalist 41, by enumerating those powers below the general statement.
Those enumerated powers below the general statement, were the totality of powers granted to Congress in the constitution to 'provide for the common defense and general welfare".
That one man, was James Madison aka Publius, who was one of the framers of the constitution. The Federalist papers were written to explain the constitution to the people of the state of New York and explicitly explains the original intent of the framers.
You said it yourself, he was ONE of the framers. Obviously they didn't all agree. The Federalist papers were written by various framers to give their opinion because, again, obviously they didn't all agree.
Anymore than those who write and pass laws now can always agree on intent.
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
Then why did you ask the question? But a god given right covers lots of territory especially when the constitution explicitly mentions the 'general welfare'.
So Santorum can kill liberals under the general welfare clause. It would be in our best interests if there were no liberals screwing things up.
So Santorum can kill liberals under the general welfare clause. It would be in our best interests if there were no liberals screwing things up.
So are you saying the lack of health care is akin to murder?
Almost every country in the Middle East is awash in oil, and we have to side with the one that has nothing but joos. Goddamn, that was good thinkin'. Esso posted on 2012-01-13 7:37:56 ET
You said it yourself, he was ONE of the framers. Obviously they didn't all agree. The Federalist papers were written by various framers to give their opinion because, again, obviously they didn't all agree.
Anymore than those who write and pass laws now can always agree on intent.
You're actually making a better argument than I believe you know.
The two primary authors of the The Federalist essays set forth two separate, conflicting interpretations:
James Madison advocated for the ratification of the Constitution in The Federalist and at the Virginia ratifying convention upon a narrow construction of the clause, asserting that spending must be at least tangentially tied to one of the other specifically enumerated powers, such as regulating interstate or foreign commerce, or providing for the military, as the General Welfare Clause is not a specific grant of power, but a statement of purpose qualifying the power to tax.[9][10] Alexander Hamilton, only after the Constitution had been ratified,[11] argued for a broad interpretation which viewed spending as an enumerated power Congress could exercise independently to benefit the general welfare, such as to assist national needs in agriculture or education, provided that the spending is general in nature and does not favor any specific section of the country over any other.[12]
While Hamilton's view prevailed during the administrations of Presidents Washington and Adams, historians argue that his view of the General Welfare Clause was repudiated in the election of 1800, and helped establish the primacy of the Democratic-Republican Party for the subsequent 24 years.[13]
Prior to 1936, the United States Supreme Court had imposed a narrow interpretation on the Clause, as demonstrated by the holding in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co.,[14] in which a tax on child labor was an impermissible attempt to regulate commerce beyond that Court's equally narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause. This narrow view was later overturned in United States v. Butler. There, the Court agreed with Associate Justice Joseph Story's construction in Story's 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Story had concluded that the General Welfare Clause was not a general grant of legislative power, but also dismissed Madison's narrow construction requiring its use be dependent upon the other enumerated powers. Consequently, the Supreme Court held the power to tax and spend is an independent power and that the General Welfare Clause gives Congress power it might not derive anywhere else. However, the Court did limit the power to spending for matters affecting only the national welfare.
Shortly after Butler, in Helvering v. Davis,[15] the Supreme Court interpreted the clause even more expansively, conferring upon Congress a plenary power to impose taxes and to spend money for the general welfare subject almost entirely to its own discretion. Even more recently, the Court has included the power to indirectly coerce the states into adopting national standards by threatening to withhold federal funds in South Dakota v. Dole.[16] To date, the Hamiltonian view of the General Welfare Clause predominates in case law.
However, another framer, Thomas Jefferson stated;
1. To lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the United States, that is to say, “to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.” For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.
To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.
It is an established rule of construction where a phrase will bear either of two meanings, to give it that which will allow some meaning to the other parts of the instrument, and not that which would render all the others useless. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers, and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect. It is known that the very power now proposed as a means was rejected as an end by the Convention which formed the Constitution. A proposition was made to them to authorize Congress to open canals, and an amendatory one to empower them to incorporate. But the whole was rejected, and one of the reasons for rejection urged in debate was, that then they would have a power to erect a bank, which would render the great cities, where there were prejudices and jealousies on the subject, adverse to the reception of the Constitution.
In my book, that's two framers to one on the original intent of the general welfare clause.
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Albert Gallatin, dated June 16, 1817;
"You will have learned that an act for internal improvement, after passing both houses, was negatived by the President. The act was founded, avowedly, on the principle that the phrase in the constitution, which authorizes Congress 'to lay taxes, to pay the debts and provide for the general welfare,' was an extension of the powers specifically enumerated to whatever would promote the general welfare; and this, you know, was the federal doctrine. Whereas, our tenet ever was, and, indeed, it is almost the only land-mark which now divides the federalists* from the republicans, that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action: consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money.
