To: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
No Compromise on Women's Health
Congress must not compromise the health of American women in order to appease the Catholic Church. Freedom of religion means the freedom of the individual to worship as she sees fit; it does not mean allowing a religious institution to bully American women into following its doctrines, rather than their own consciences.
Why is this important?
The new federal health law requires that Catholic-affiliated organizations with a largely secular workforce and/or serving a secular public must purchase insurance plans that cover birth control. The Catholic Church claims that this is a violation of the Church's religious freedom, and members of Congress are already talking about the need to compromise the requirement or get rid of it entirely. Tell Congress to protect the religious freedom of the tens of thousands of women who, without the mandate, will either have to continue to pay ten times the typical price of the birth control pill or simply do without it.