HHS Mandate

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. Madam President, I certainly share the concerns of my colleague from Missouri, and I share the concerns of my constituents in New Hampshire and citizens across this Nation who see the recent rule issued by the administration for what it is, an unprecedented, unnecessary affront to religious liberty in our country.

I wish to say at the outset that this issue is not limited to the Catholic Church. The administration's new health care mandates on religious institutions impact all religions. Religious freedom is a foundational American right enshrined in our Bill of Rights. The first amendment to our Constitution makes clear that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Unfortunately, I see the administration chipping away at these bedrock freedoms as it engages in a troubling pattern here with respect to this rule, and I think we saw that the President's new mandate on religious institutions highlights the deep flaws in the health care bill.

This unconstitutional law was moved through Congress and signed by the President 2 years ago without the type of due consideration, transparency, or accountability we would all expect, and we have been suffering the consequences since. It is highlighted with what we see with these recent mandates from Health and Human Services.

I wish to share some of the concerns my constituents have raised about these mandates that were recently issued by Health and Human Services. There is a letter I received this week from William Edmund Fahey, who is the president of Thomas More College in Merrimack, NH, and he says: To condition the availability of medical benefits upon a community's willingness to violate a cardinal teaching of its faith effectively prevents the full practice of its religion; and thus, again, violates the free exercise of a constitutional liberty.

He pleaded with our delegation, the New Hampshire congressional delegation, and he said: I hope you will see that the mandate undermines the Constitution, compromises the integrity of the government and abuses the foundational principle that free associations form an essential part of the social fabric of the United States.

We are fortunate in New Hampshire to have a number of very effective Catholic institutions and organizations. We have the Catholic Medical Center in Manchester which serves so many in the Manchester community and surrounding areas. The Catholic Medical Center has also expressed concerns about the mandate, saying: It would force us to offer services that were against our ethical and religious directive or force us not to offer insurance altogether.

They added: Neither are acceptable options.

The president of one of our great colleges in New Hampshire, Saint Anselm College, President Jonathan DeFelice, said: In a country and a State that values and respects individuals' rights to exercise their religious beliefs and live according to their conscience's best light, it is simply appalling to think that this mandate is anything other than an unprecedented incursion into freedom of conscience.

I have heard many concerns from my constituents, and I would hope that Health and Human Services would stop what it

is doing right now, this mandate that places religious institutions in this impossible position, with this impossible choice of violating their core beliefs in order to comply with a mandate or dropping employee insurance coverage altogether. We should not be putting these organizations that do great work throughout this country in that position. And, again, this is not an issue that just applies to the Catholic Church; this applies to all religious institutions.

I would ask my colleague from the State of Missouri: As a result of our concerns about the actions of the administration, we have offered legislation to address this, and what does that legislation do in order to make sure that this mandate does not go forward?

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