Washington D.C., Feb 3, 2012 / 01:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has pledged to overturn the HHS contraception mandate that he says takes “particular aim” at Catholics.
“I stand with the Catholic bishops and all religious organizations in their strenuous objection to this liberty- and conscience-stifling regulation,” Romney wrote in a Feb. 3 Washington Examiner column titled “President Obama vs. religious liberty”
If elected president, the former Massachusetts governor said, he would eliminate the mandate “on day one.”
“Such rules don’t belong in the America that I believe in.”
Sounds good, really how is what the Obama Administration that much different than what Gov. Romney did when he forced Catholic hospitals to administer Plan B in 1995.
“I think it’s, in my personal view, it’s the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape,” he added.
This was after he public conversion to the pro-life cause in forcing hospitals to administer a possible abortafacient. This was also just two days after he had taken the opposite position. This is purely big government in action getting involved in telling what medicines a hospital should provide. That it is okay to violate the consciences of Catholic health care workers to administer a drug when there is no certainty if a child had already been conceived and would be murdered by such a drug.
Though his pro-life conversion also includes murdering those as a result of rape, incest, danger to the life of the mother, and frozen embryos.
He really considers abortion an important part of his campaign that is why he has it listed prominently on his campaign site. Oh wait it is nowhere on his site under “Issues”. In fact he is the only GOP candidate that does not list the pro-life cause under his issues section.
I just don’t see Romney’s appeal to conservative voters. President Obama’s Achilles Heel is Obamacare and Romney’s is Romneycare. Sure there are differences between a Federal and a State program, but the individual mandates of both are from the same big government mindset. With the outcry even from liberal Catholics on the HHS mandate of contraception and sterilization coverage that is another Achilles Heel and one that Romney also shares.
5 comments
I believe the bill passed over his veto. Here’s a link from a distinctly unsympathetic source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/09/mitt-romney-contraception-veto-morning-after-pill_n_1194422.html
Elizabeth,
It really only makes it worse. While he did veto a bill in regards to pharmacists he reversed course on conscience protection for Catholic hospitals. His order scrapped rules exempting Catholic hospitals and was on his direction. This decision was a big flip that was all he own and not from the legislature.
The way this reads to me is that, once the bill became law, he considered himself obliged to enforce it as his legal team determined it to apply. This explanation avoids the obvious inconsistency. Certainly I may be wrong – and as a former Massachusetts citizen I do remember the gubernatorial debate where he defended how pro-choice he was. I would prefer other candidates, but I’ll give him a tentative pass on this. His conversion on the abortion issue rings true to me, perhaps due to that MA experience (so glad to have moved to Missouri).
I was excoriated in a comments section of another blog when I mildly mentioned I couldn’t vote for Romney–but this is why. What the %^&( position does he hold anyway? I frankly have more respect for politicians who hold a consistent line, because then I could argue with them. With Romney, you bring something up and whatever it is, he says “Oh. See, I agree with you.” Please stop insulting my intelligence.
Here’s the thing: We know Obama is actively, belligerently opposed to us. We know Romney at worst will blow where the wind blows.
I say between the two we vote against Obama so we can exhale a bit. If Romney is president because of it, we just have to remember to exhale a lot.