{"id":272,"date":"2011-08-06T06:59:57","date_gmt":"2011-08-06T13:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/blog\/?p=272"},"modified":"2011-08-06T06:59:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-06T13:59:57","slug":"comment-on-religious-exception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/?p=272","title":{"rendered":"Comment on Religious Exception"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>to <a href=\"mailto:E-OHPSCA2713.EBSA@dol.gov\">E-OHPSCA2713.EBSA@dol.gov<\/a><\/p>\n<p>August, 6, 2011<\/p>\n<p>DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY<br \/>\nInternal Revenue Service<br \/>\n26 CFR Part 54<br \/>\nTD 9541<br \/>\nRIN 1545-BJ60<br \/>\nDEPARTMENT OF LABOR<br \/>\nEmployee Benefits Security Administration<br \/>\n29 CFR Part 2590<br \/>\nRIN 1210-AB44<br \/>\n\u00a0DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES<br \/>\nCMS-9992-IFC2<br \/>\n45 CFR Part 147<br \/>\nRIN 0938-AQ07<br \/>\nGroup Health Plans and Health Insurance Issuers Relating to Coverage of Preventive<br \/>\nServices under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act<\/p>\n<p>We applaud HHS&#8217; regulations accepting the Institute of Medicine&#8217;s well-grounded recommendations for adding 8 new preventive services for women to be covered without additional co-payments and deductibles.\u00a0 The scientific recognition of these important services, including contraception and screening for domestic violence, and easing the economic burden to access them, will enormously improve the lives of all women and their partners and families.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWe regret however the amendment offering certain religious employers the option not to include contraception as a preventive service.\u00a0 We appreciate that the religious employers in question are narrowly defined, in accordance with earlier court cases;\u00a0 in essence, church employees could be affected, but not church-affiliated hospitals or health plans.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nNevertheless, many women who work for and attend the Catholic Church, for example, do not necessarily agree with the Church&#8217;s position banning all but one method of contraception. Virtually all sexually active Catholic women have used a banned method of birth control, and 63% support covering contraception through insurance.\u00a0 It is unfortunate that some of these women would be asked to choose among their faith, their families, and the opinions of their employers.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWe request that HHS reconsider and reverse this amendment.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nEllen R. Shaffer, PhD MPH, Trust Women\/Silver Ribbon Campaign<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Trust-Women-comment-on-religious-exception.pdf\">Trust Women comment on religious exception<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>to E-OHPSCA2713.EBSA@dol.gov August, 6, 2011 DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY Internal Revenue Service 26 CFR Part 54 TD 9541 RIN 1545-BJ60 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Employee Benefits Security Administration 29 CFR Part 2590 RIN 1210-AB44 \u00a0DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES CMS-9992-IFC2 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/?p=272\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oursilverribbon.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}