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73–614 PDF 2012

LINES CROSSED: SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND

STATE. HAS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

TRAMPLED ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

Serial No. 112–122

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov

http://www.house.gov/reform
(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah

CONNIE MACK, Florida

TIM WALBERG, Michigan

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee

JOE WALSH, Illinois

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking

Minority Member

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

PETER WELCH, Vermont

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JACKIE SPEIER, California

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 16, 2012 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Garvey, John H., president, the Catholic University of America; William

K. Thierfelder, president, Belmont Abbey College; Samuel W. ‘‘Dub’’

Oliver, president, East Texas Baptist University; Allison Dabbs Garrett, senior vice president for Academic Affairs, Oklahoma Christian

University; and Laura Champion, M.D., medical director, Calvin College Health Services ..................................................................................... 116

Champion, Laura ....................................................................................... 153

Garrett, Allison Dabbs .............................................................................. 147

Garvey, John H. ........................................................................................ 116

Oliver, Samuel W. ‘‘Dub’’ .......................................................................... 141

Thierfelder, William K. ............................................................................. 134

Lori, Reverend William E., Roman Catholic Bishop of Bridgeport, CT,

chairman, Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, U.S. Conference

of Catholic Bishops; Reverend Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president,

the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod; C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D., Graves

professor of moral philosophy, Union University; Rabbi Meir

Soloveichik, director, Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought,

Yeshiva University, Associate Rabbi, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun;

and Craig Mitchell, Ph.D., associate professor of ethics, Chair, Ethics

Department, associate director of the Richard Land Center for Cultural

Engagement, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary ....................... 38

Harrison, Reverend Dr. Matthew C. ........................................................ 44

Lori, Reverend William E. ........................................................................ 38

Mitchell, C. Ben ......................................................................................... 48

Mitchell, Craig ........................................................................................... 58

Soloveichik, Rabbi Meir ............................................................................ 52

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Champion, Laura, M.D., medical director, Calvin College Health Services,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 155

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, information concerning Catholic Institutions that provide

contraceptive coverage .................................................................................. 127

Garrett, Allison Dabbs, senior vice president for Academic Affairs, Oklahoma Christian University, prepared statement of ................................... 149

Garvey, John H., president, the Catholic University of America, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 119

Harrison, Reverend Dr. Matthew C., president, the Lutheran Church,

Missouri Synod, prepared statement of ...................................................... 46

Issa, Hon. Darrell E., a Representative in Congress from the State of

California:

Information conerning Catholic Charities USA ............................................. 6

Letter dated Februay 15, 2012 ........................................................................ 8

Record of dialog ................................................................................................ 34

Lori, Reverend William E., Roman Catholic Bishop of Bridgeport, CT,

chairman, Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, U.S. Conference

of Catholic Bishops, prepared statement of ................................................ 41

Mitchell, C. Ben, Ph.D., Graves professor of moral philosophy, Union

University, prepared statement of ............................................................... 50

Mitchell, Craig, Ph.D., associate professor of ethics, Chair, Ethics Department, associate director of the Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 60
Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Oliver, Samuel W. ‘‘Dub’’, president, East Texas Baptist University, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 143

Quigley, Hon. Mike, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Illinois, information concerning JFK’s speech on his religion ................... 86

Soloveichik, Rabbi Meir, director, Straus Center for Torah and Western

Thought, Yeshiva University, Associate Rabbi, Congregation Kehilath

Jeshurun, prepared statement of ................................................................ 54

Thierfelder, William K., president, Belmont Abbey College, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 137

Towns, Hon. Edolphus, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of the National Health Law Program . 69
(1)

LINES CROSSED: SEPARATION OF CHURCH

AND STATE. HAS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TRAMPLED ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2012

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Darrell E. Issa (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Issa, Burton, Turner, McHenry, Jordan,

Chaffetz, Walberg, Lankford, Amash, Buerkle, Gosar, DesJarlais,

Walsh, Gowdy, Ross, Farenthold, Kelly, Cummings, Towns,

Maloney, Norton, Kucinich, Tierney, Clay, Connolly, Quigley,

Davis, and Murphy.

Also present: Representatives Mulvaney and DeLauro.

Staff present: Ali Ahmad, communications advisor; Alexia

Ardolina, Will L. Boyington, Drew Colliatie, and Nadia A. Zahran,

staff assistants; Kurt Bardella, senior policy advisor; Brien A.

Beattie, Brian Blase, and Ryan Little, professional staff members;

Michael R. Bebeau and Gwen D’Luzansky, assistant clerks; Robert

Borden, general counsel; Molly Boyl, parliamentarian; Lawrence J.

Brady, staff director; Sharon Casey, senior assistant clerk; John

Cuaderes, deputy staff director; Adam P. Fromm, director of Member services and committee operations; Linda Good, chief clerk;

Justin LoFranco, deputy director of digital strategy; Mark D.

Marin, director of oversight; Ashok M. Pinto, deputy chief counsel,

investigations; Laura L. Rush, deputy chief clerk; Rebecca Watkins,

press secretary; Kevin Corbin, minority deputy clerk; Ashley

Etienne, minority director of communications; Susanne Sachsman

Grooms, minority chief counsel; Jennifer Hoffman, minority press

secretary; Carla Hultberg, minority chief clerk; Adam Koshkin, minority staff assistant; Una Lee, Brian Quinn, and Ellen Zeng, minority counsels; Suzanne Owen, minority health policy advisor;

Dave Rapallo, minority staff director; and Mark Stephenson, minority director of legislation.

Chairman ISSA. The committee will come to order.

The Oversight Committee exists to secure two fundamental principles. First, America has a right to know that the money Washington takes from them is well spent; and, second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. Our

duty on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee is to
2

protect these rights. Our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to

know what they get from their government. Our responsibility is

to work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver

the facts to the American people and bring genuine reform to the

Federal bureaucracy.

Today’s hearing is a solemn one. It involves freedom of conscience. Ultimately, without the first pillar of our freedoms, the

freedoms that we did not give up to our government, the American

democracy and the experiment that has lasted over 200 years falls

for no purpose. The architects of our Constitution believed our

country would be a place that would accommodate all religions. In

fact, they could not agree on religion more than anything else.

Our Founding Fathers came from different religions, and they

did not trust that one religious order would not circumvent another, for, in fact, many came from a country in which they were

of one religion and had to change to another on a government edict.

Many looked at establishment of religion as all it is about, but

ultimately our Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, including George Washington and others, all understood that, in fact,

their conscience was their guide, and their conscience came overwhelmingly from their religious convictions, and therefore time and

time again they made it clear that a man’s conscience, particularly

if it flowed from his faith, had a special role in our freedoms.

I might note, not for a subject that many would bring up today,

but that, in fact, since our founding, men primarily, and now men

and women, can refuse to serve under arms for reasons of personal

conviction stemming from their faith. There is no greater obligation

than to serve your country in time of war, but, in fact, our country

for hundreds of years has understood that faith comes first, and

that no man or woman should ever be forced to betray that faith.

Many will frame today not as First Amendment, but about the

particular issue that comes before us related to the Obama health

care plan. This is not about that. In fact, if it is about that, we

should be over in the Energy and Commerce Committee or some

committee dealing with health or other issues. This committee

wants to fully vet with the most knowledgeable of both clergy and

lay people that we could find the real questions of where does faith

begin, and where does it end; where does government’s ability to

influence decisions made by people of faith begin, and where does

it end. These basic questions go to the heart of the Constitution.

I recognize that there will be people who do not like the outcome

of any decision involving the Constitution, whether it is the Miranda warning related to self-incrimination, whether it is, in fact,

a free press able to denounce people in government or others;

whether it is one after another of the Bill of Rights or other items

so entrenched in the Constitution. Many of them are objectionable

to others. But let us understand, inalienable rights flow from all

of us, whether we are in the majority or an incredibly small minority. That ultimately is what we are going to discuss today.

I expect that we will hear from people who have spent their entire life pondering these very questions of faith and conscience. I

expect we will meet in the second panel particularly from people

who must execute both faith and often education and other respon-
3

sibilities that have fallen to church and churchlike groups since our

founding.

I take this as very solemn. I know that all of us on the panel

do. The tone today is about learning and listening, and I certainly

hope all of us who came here, including the students who are in

the audience today, recognize how important this juncture in our

democracy is.

With that, I recognize the ranking member for his opening statement.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

As the son of two Pentecostal ministers from a small church in

Baltimore, I understand the position of the religious community on

this issue. I know both through my faith and my legal training that

we have an obligation as a Nation to make accommodations when

appropriate to avoid undue interference with the practice of religion.

But there is another core interest we must consider, and that is

the interest of women. The pill has a profound impact on their

well-being, far more than any man in this room can possibly know.

It has allowed women to control their lives and make very personal

decisions about how many children to have and when to have

them.

I think everyone understands what is going on here today. The

chairman is promoting a conspiracy theory that the Federal Government is conducting a war against religion. He stacked the hearing with witnesses who agree with his position. He has not invited

Catholic Health Association, Catholic Charities, Catholics United

or a host of other Catholic groups that praise the White House for

making the accommodation they made last week. He also has refused to allow a minority witness to testify about the interests of

women who want safe and affordable coverage for basic preventive

health care, including contraception.

In my opinion, this committee commits a massive injustice by

trying to pretend that the views of millions of women across this

country are meaningless or worthless or irrelevant to the debate.

For these reasons I yield the rest of my time to the Congresswoman from New York, Carolyn Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Elijah. I know firsthand of your deep

faith, and I know you place tremendous value on your faith and on

open dialog, so I appreciate your efforts to get a more balanced

hearing today.

What I want to know is where are the women? When I look at

this panel, I don’t see one single woman representing the tens of

millions of women across the country who want and need insurance

coverage for basic preventive health care services, including family

planning. Where are the women?

Mr. Chairman, I was deeply disturbed that you rejected our request to hear from a woman, a third-year student at Georgetown

Law School named Sandra Fluke. She hoped to tell this committee

about a classmate of hers who was diagnosed with a syndrome that

causes ovarian cysts. Her doctor prescribed a pill to treat this disease, but her student insurance did not cover it. Over several

months, she paid out hundreds of dollars in out-of-pocket costs

until she could no longer afford her medication, and she eventually
4

ended up losing her ovary. Your staff told us you personally rejected Ms. Fluke’s testimony, saying, ‘‘The hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception.’’

Of course this hearing is about rights, contraception and birth

control. It is about the fact that women want to have access to

basic health services, family planning through their health insurance plan. But some would prevent them from having it by using

lawsuits and ballot initiatives in dozens of States to roll back the

fundamental rights of women to a time when the government

thought what happened in the bedroom was their business and

contraceptives were illegal. Tens of millions of us who are following

these hearings lived through those times, and I can tell you with

great certainty we will not be forced back to that dark and primitive era.

This is why last week the administration announced a commonsense accommodation. Churches do not have to provide insurance

coverage for contraceptives. They do not have to approve them.

They do not have to prescribe them, dispense them or use them.

But women will have the right to access them. Women who work

at nonprofit religious entities like hospitals and universities will be

able to obtain coverage directly from their insurance companies;

not from religious organizations, but from independent insurance

companies. Medical and health experts support this policy, economists support it, and a host of Catholic groups that were conspicuously not invited to testify today.

The vast majority of women, including women of faith, use some

form of birth control at some point in their lives, whether to plan

the number or spacing of their children or to address significant

medical conditions. With all due respect to religious leaders,

though you have every right to follow your conscience and honor

the dictates of your faith, no one should have the power to impose

their faith on others, to bend them to your will, simply because

they happen to work for you. That in itself is an assault on the fundamental freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.

I ask, Mr. Chairman, for an additional 30 seconds.

Chairman ISSA. I apologize, but the gentleman’s time has expired

that he yielded to you.

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. I would ask unanimous consent that the

gentlelady be allowed to speak out of order for an additional 30 seconds.

Without objection, so ordered.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am using this

to urge you once again to let Ms. Fluke testify. Let one woman

speak for the panel right now on this all-male panel. She is here

in the audience today. She is steps away. Even if you think you

will disagree with everything she says, don’t we owe it to the tens

of millions of American women whose lives will be affected to let

just one, just one woman speak on their behalf today on this panel

as requested by the Democratic minority?

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady.

I now ask unanimous consent that the statements, including the

Web site—there we go. That is better. I now ask unanimous consent that both the Web site image and the statement by the Catho-
5

lic Charities be accepted into the record, in which they say, ‘‘In response to a great number of mischaracterizations in media, Catholic Charities USA wants to make two things very clear: We have

not endorsed the accommodations of the HHS mandate that was

announced by the administration last Friday; and, second, we unequivocally share the goal of the U.S. Catholic bishops to uphold

religious liberty and will continue to work with the Catholic

bishops toward that goal. Any representation to the contrary is

false.’’

Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]
6
7

Chairman ISSA. Additionally, I ask unanimous consent that the

letter dated February 15, 2012, entitled ‘‘Unacceptable’’ be placed

in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
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25
26
27
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Chairman ISSA. I will note that the letter is in response to the

President’s announcement that the government compromised and

is signed by over 300 individuals and groups, including universities, professors, religious leaders, journalists, independent scholars, lawyers and think tanks.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman——

Chairman ISSA. For what purpose does the gentlelady seek recognition?

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, could I make an inquiry? The

gentlelady from New York asked a direct question of the chair, and

I did not hear an answer. She asked that the witness——

Chairman ISSA. I understand, and I was prepared the next item

to respond to both the ranking member and the gentlelady.

This House takes very seriously the committee rules. It is a tradition, but not a rule, of the committee that the minority have a

witness. It is a tradition that the minority have one witness. Just

yesterday, the minority asked for and received two witnesses, one

on each panel. They were both qualified, one being a U.S. Senator,

but yet qualified.

The second, today, we received, not 3 days in advance or 2 days

or even a full day in advance as is the committee’s requirement,

but yesterday beginning at 1:30 there was a dialog, and I would

ask unanimous consent that the record of that dialog by email be

placed in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]
34
35

Chairman ISSA. In that—I will give it to you in a second. In that

dialog, beginning only at 10:45 a.m., and going through 4:59, there

was an exchange of requests. The initial request by the minority

was for two witnesses, the one who has been mentioned, and Barry

Lynn. Barry Lynn is a well-known, I understand, ordained minister, who has spoken on the issues of religious freedom; has entered into both civil and, in fact, legal proceedings for many, many

years; is well regarded and well known, even if I disagree.

When asked about the two witness request, I asked, what are

their qualifications? Additionally, I recognized immediately Barry

Lynn as the executive director of Americans United for Separation

of Church and State. He was, in fact, both because of his religious

background and because of his position and because of his longstanding on that issue, he was fully qualified, and I accepted him.

During the intervening time outlined here, there was a retraction

when we said there would only be one, and instead the minority

chose the witness we had not found to be appropriate or qualified.

Now, ‘‘appropriate and qualified’’ is a decision I have to make. I

asked our staff what is her background, what has she done? They

did the usual that we do when we are not provided the 3 days and

the forms to go with it. They did a Google search. They looked and

found that she was, in fact, and is a college student, who appears

to have become energized over this issue and participated in approximately a 45-minute press conference, which is video available.

For that reason I have asked my staff to post her entire—the link

to the 45-minute press conference so that the public can see her

opinion.

I cannot and will not arbitrarily take a majority or minority witness if they do not have the appropriate credentials, both for a

hearing at the full committee of the U.S. House of Representatives

and if we cannot vet them in a timely fashion.

I believe that you did suggest two witnesses. One was clearly appropriate and qualified. And I might note in closing that if you had

asked for a representative of Catholic Charities or some other

group, in other words if you had asked for two fully qualified individuals, and particularly if you asked for three or four but done it

on Monday when we began saying, where are your witnesses, we

would likely have had one on each panel.

So today we will have Barry Lynn. If he comes in time for the

second panel, we will include him, and you will not have a witness

otherwise. But understand for all the folks that have made this

point, you did not ask for it in a timely fashion, not accepting the

one of the two that you asked for that we accepted makes it very

difficult beginning yesterday and going through the afternoon.

Does that fully answer the gentlelady’s question?

Mrs. Maloney.

Mrs. MALONEY. Ms. Fluke is a student at a well-respected Catholic university. She is affected by these policies. Why in the world

is she not qualified?

Chairman ISSA. I appreciate the gentlelady’s question. We are

not having a hearing on the policies or the details related to the

single issue of ObamaCare and this particular mandate. This hearing is about religious freedom. As you will note, the men that you

have noted on the panel come from denominations other than
36

Roman Catholic. They are, in fact, here to speak about a broad

question.

If this hearing were more broadly about health care or

ObamaCare, it would likely be—and the President’s now legal

thing, which we often call ObamaCare—the fact is it probably

would be a Ways and Means Committee hearing or an Energy and

Commerce. We are here looking at government’s bounds of, in fact,

not is it a good idea, not does it save or cost money, but, in fact,

how does it impact religious organizations and people of conscience

and faith. That is the limit of this hearing today, and we have chosen and informed the minority in an appropriate time, starting a

week ago, we have said this is the type of people we are going to

have and why, and that is hopefully what we will all understand.

Why does the gentleman from Illinois seek recognition?

Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, if I could just address this point

with you for a moment?

Chairman ISSA. Please.

Mr. QUIGLEY. You and I have always worked well together.

While not always agreeing on issues, we formed the Transparency

Caucus together. You know there have been several times when I

have crossed party lines to work with you on issues. I just——

Chairman ISSA. Will today be one of those times?

Mr. QUIGLEY. I am betting not. But with all due respect, I think

the American public has a funny way of deciding what the core

issue is when something happens before this committee. All I am

suggesting with the greatest respect is for you to decide what the

issue is. Others look at the same points of fact and say the issue

is really this. And I think if you talk about liberties and expression,

I think freedom of thought is as important as any that you have

discussed, and I think that—and I say this without trying to raise

your hackle, is that is suppressing that freedom of thought.

It is this notion that one person, as fair as you might be attempting to be, is unilaterally deciding what the issue is. And the core

here is—and that is why there is so much controversy on this matter—is people see it in a different way. Until we get past that

point, we are going to have problems.

Chairman ISSA. Well, I appreciate the gentleman’s—I will take

this as the last comment, if you don’t mind. The fact is it is the

obligation of the majority to set the agenda. When Mr. Towns was

chairman, he set the agenda. On occasions he gave me no option

for a witness. When Mr. Waxman was, in fact, the chairman, including the staff director who is now whispering in your ear, they

gave us one witness on a third panel, and, by the way, we had to

have it in a timely fashion.

So I appreciate your comments. The fact is we will now go to our

first panel of witnesses. With that, for what purpose does Mr.

Turner seek a limited time?

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman is recognized for 1 minute.

Mr. TURNER. I would like to welcome to this hearing Dr. Conroy’s

advanced placement U.S. Government class. Among the 25 high

school seniors that we have with us from Georgetown Visitation
37

Preparatory High School includes my daughter Carolyn, and I appreciate your willingness to allow me to recognize them today.

This is a government class. They, of course, study the issue of

the Constitution, the issue of freedom of religion, the issues of freedom of State. This is a hearing that will be very important to them.

I appreciate and welcome them on a bipartisan basis to this hearing.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady will state her parliamentary inquiry.

Ms. NORTON. You have just made an interpretation of the rules,

and I stress the word ‘‘interpretation,’’ because it is precisely that.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman will state her parliamentary inquiry.

Ms. NORTON. I ask the staff to get me the rules, Mr. Chairman.

And one thing, Mr. Chairman, we have been denied the right to

have a witness. I am going to have the right to make a parliamentary inquiry.

Chairman ISSA. Then state your parliamentary inquiry.

Ms. NORTON. The rule that I am citing, Mr. Chairman, is a rule

of the committee, rule 2, and it states, ‘‘that every member of the

committee shall be provided with a memorandum at least 3 calendar days before each meeting or hearing explaining the names,

titles, background and reasons for the appearance of any witnesses.’’

Last night at 4:59 p.m., committee members were sent a notice

that invited two additional Republican witnesses for today’s hearing. This notice was less than 24 hours before this morning’s hearings, and therefore your actions have violated rule 2, which requires a minimum of 3 days’ notice to give committee members

adequate time to prepare for the hearing.

Now, of course, under normal circumstances if there had been

any deference to the minority, I would not even raise this procedural matter. But you yourself have raised the rules, and in light

of that fact, and particularly in light of the fact——

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady’s inquiry is noted. The

gentlelady’s inquiry is noted. The chairman is prepared to respond.

That same rule 2 says, unless there are unusual circumstances.

Since you might be aware that one of the two witnesses was Barry

Lynn, and since only yesterday, 2 days after what would be the appropriate time for the minority to name their witness request, we

were given it. With the short notice, final schedule was determined

based on the unusual circumstances of the minority not in a timely

fashion submitting any valid request for any witnesses, even

though on a daily basis, actually multiple times per day, the majority requested that.

With that, the chair will now welcome our first panel of witnesses.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I ask for a vote on my inquiry.

Chairman ISSA. That we now welcome the Reverend William

Lori, Roman Catholic Bishop, of Bridgeport, CT. He is chairman of

the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference

of Catholic Bishops; in other words, the go-to on this issue.
38

The Reverend Matthew Harrison is president of the Lutheran

Church, Missouri Synod.

We have two Dr. Mitchells, so this is going to be an interesting

day. Dr. C. Ben Mitchell is the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University.

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik—close? You are the only rabbi, this will

make it a little easier—is director of the Straus Center for Torah

and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and associate rabbi of

the Congregation—that one you are going to have to help us with.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun.

Chairman ISSA. So it will be.

And Dr. Craig Mitchell is associate professor of ethics, chair of

the ethics department, and associate director of the Richard Land

Center of Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I know you are clergy, I know you are sworn to God, but this

committee has a rule that you will also be sworn here. Will you

please rise to take the oath. Raise your right hands, please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman ISSA. Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Thank you. Please be seated.

Today is a large panel on the first and the second panel, so your

entire statements and extraneous information you would like to

supplement within 5 days will be placed in the record. So I would

ask you as close as possible to observe the lights or the timers in

front of you and stay as close as you can to 5 minutes, recognizing

that there are no sermons here today.

With that, Bishop Lori is recognized.

STATEMENTS OF REVEREND WILLIAM E. LORI, ROMAN

CATHOLIC BISHOP OF BRIDGEPORT, CT, CHAIRMAN, AD

HOC COMMITTEE FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS; REVEREND DR. MATTHEW

C. HARRISON, PRESIDENT, THE LUTHERAN CHURCH, MISSOURI SYNOD; C. BEN MITCHELL, PH.D., GRAVES PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY, UNION UNIVERSITY;

RABBI MEIR SOLOVEICHIK, DIRECTOR, STRAUS CENTER

FOR TORAH AND WESTERN THOUGHT, YESHIVA UNIVERSITY, ASSOCIATE RABBI, CONGREGATION KEHILATH

JESHURUN; AND CRAIG MITCHELL, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ETHICS, CHAIR, ETHICS DEPARTMENT, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF THE RICHARD LAND CENTER FOR CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT, SOUTHWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

STATEMENT OF BISHOP WILLIAM E. LORI

Bishop LORI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, distinguished

members of the committee, for the opportunity to testify today.

For my testimony today, I would like to tell a story. Let’s call it

the parable of the kosher deli. Once upon a time, a new law was

proposed so that any business that serves food must serve pork.

There is a narrow exception for kosher catering halls attached to

synagogues since they serve mostly members of that synagog, but

kosher delicatessens are still subject to the mandate.
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The Orthodox Jewish community, whose members run kosher

delis and many other restaurants and groceries besides, expresses

its outrage at the new government mandate, and they are joined

by others who have no problem with eating pork, not just the many

Jews who eat pork, but people of all faiths, because these others

recognize the threat to the principle of religious liberty. They recognize as well the practical impact of the damage to that principle.

They know that if the mandate stands, they might be the next ones

to be forced under the threat of government sanction to violate

their most deeply held beliefs, especially their unpopular beliefs.

Meanwhile, those who support the mandate respond, ‘‘But pork

is good for you.’’ Other supporters add, ‘‘So many Jews eat pork,

and those who don’t should just get with the times.’’ Still others

say, ‘‘Those orthodox are just trying to impose their beliefs on everyone else.’’

But in our hypothetical, those arguments fail in the public debate, because people widely recognize the following points. First, although people may reasonably debate whether pork is good for you,

that is not the question posed by the nationwide pork mandate. Instead, the mandate generates this question; whether people who

believe, even if they believe in error, that pork is not good for you

should be forced by government to serve pork within their very own

institutions. In a Nation committed to religious liberty and diversity, the answer, of course, is no.

Second, the fact that some Jews eat pork is simply irrelevant.

The fact remains that some Jews do not, and they do not do so out

of their most deeply held religious convictions. Does the fact that

large majorities in society, even large majorities within protesting

religious communities, the fact that they reject a particular religious belief, does that make it permissible for the government to

weigh in on one side of the dispute? Does it allow government to

punish that minority belief with coercive power? In a Nation committed to religious liberty and diversity, the answer, of course, is

no.

Third, the charge that the Orthodox Jews are imposing their beliefs on others has it exactly backward. Again, the question generated by government mandate is whether the government will impose its belief that eating pork is good on objecting Orthodox Jews.

Meanwhile, there is no imposition on the freedom of those who

want to eat pork; that is, they are subject to no government interference at all in their choice to eat pork, and pork is ubiquitous and

cheap and available at the overwhelming majority of restaurants

and grocers. Indeed, some pork producers and retailers, even the

government itself, are so eager to promote the eating of pork that

they sometimes give it a way for free.

In this context, the question is this: Can a customer come to a

kosher deli, demand to be served a ham sandwich, and, if refused,

bring down severe government sanction on the deli? In a Nation

committed to religious liberty and diversity, the answer is no. So

in our hypothetical story, because the hypothetical nation is committed to religious liberty and diversity, these arguments carry the

day.

Now, in response, those proposing the new law claim to hear and

understand the concerns of kosher deli owners and offer them a
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new accommodation. You are free to call yourself a kosher deli. You

are free not to place ham sandwiches on your menu. You are free

not to be the person to prepare the sandwich and hand it over the

counter to the customer. But we will force your meat supplier to

set up a kiosk on your premises and offer, prepare and serve ham

sandwiches to all your customers free of charge, and when you get

your monthly bill from your meat supplier, it will include the cost

of any of the free ham sandwiches your customers may have accepted, and you will be required to pay the bill.

Now, some who supported the deli owners initially began to celebrate the fact that ham sandwiches didn’t need to be on the menu

and didn’t need to be prepared or served by the deli itself. But on

closer examination, they noticed three troubling things. First, all

kosher delis will still be forced to pay for the ham sandwiches; second, many of the kosher delis’ meat suppliers themselves are forbidden in conscience from offering, preparing or serving pork to

anyone; and, third, there are many kosher delis that are their own

meat supplier, so the mandate to prepare, offer and serve ham

sandwiches still falls on them.

Well, the story has a happy ending. The government recognized

that it is absurd for someone to come into a kosher deli and demand a ham sandwich, that it is beyond absurd for that private demand to be backed up with the coercive power of the State, and

downright surreal to apply this coercive power, when the government can get the same sandwich cheaply or even free just a few

doors down.

The question before the U.S. Government right now is whether

the story of our own church institutions that serve the public and

that are threatened by the HHS mandate will end happily, too.

Will our Nation continue to be——

Chairman ISSA. Bishop Lori, could you wrap up? I will ask for

15 additional seconds.

Bishop LORI. Thank you.

Will our Nation continue to be one committed to religious liberty

and diversity? We urge in the strongest possible terms that the answer must be yes. We urge you in the strongest possible terms to

answer in the same way.

Thank you for your attention.

Chairman ISSA. I thank you.

[The prepared statement of Bishop Lori follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. I will note for the record that witnesses swore

or affirmed, depending upon their faith.

With that, we go to Reverend Harrison.

STATEMENT OF REVEREND DR. MATHEW C. HARRISON

Rev. HARRISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be

here.

The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, is a body of some 6,200

congregations and 2.3 million members across the United States.

We don’t distribute voters list. We don’t have a Washington office.

We are studiously nonpartisan, so much so that we are often criticized for being quietistic. I would rather not be here, frankly. Our

task is to proclaim in the words of the blessed apostle St. John:

‘‘The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s son, cleanses us from all our sin.’’

And we care for the needy.

We haven’t the slightest intent to Christianize the government.

Martin Luther famously quipped one time, ‘‘I would rather have a

smart Turk than a stupid Christian governing me.’’

We confess there are two realms, the church and the state. They

shouldn’t be mixed. The church is governed by the word of God; the

state by natural law and reason, the Constitution. We have 1,000

grade schools and high schools, 1,300 early childhood centers, 10

colleges and universities. We are a machine which produces good

citizens for this country at a tremendous personal cost.

We have the Nation’s only Historic Black Lutheran College in

Concordia-Selma. Many of our people were alive today and walked

with Dr. King 50 years ago in the march from Selma to Montgomery. We put up the first million dollars and have continued to

provide finance for the Nehemiah Project in New York as it has

continued over the years to provide homeownership for thousands

of families, many of them headed by single women. Our agency in

New Orleans, Camp Restore, rebuilt over 4,000 homes after

Katrina, through the blood, sweat and tears of our volunteers.

Our Lutheran Malaria Initiative, barely begun, has touched the

lives of 1.6 million people in East Africa, especially those affected

by disease, women and children, and this is just the tip, the very

tip, of the charitable iceberg.

I am here to express our deepest distress over the HHS provisions. We are religiously opposed to supporting abortion-causing

drugs. That is in part why we maintain our own health plan. While

we are grandfathered under the very narrow provisions of the HHS

policy, we are deeply concerned that our consciences may soon be

martyred by a few strokes on the keyboard as this administration

moves us all into a single-payer system. Our direct experience in

the Hosanna-Tabor case with one of our congregations gives us no

comfort that this administration will be concerned to guard our

free-exercise rights.

We self-insure 50,000 people. We do it well. Our workers make

an average of $43,000 a year; 17,000 teachers make much less on

average. Our health plan was preparing to take significant costsaving measures to be passed on to our workers just as this health

care legislation was passed. We elected not to make those changes,

incur great costs, lest we fall out of the narrow provisions of the

requirement required for the grandfather clause.
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While we are opposed in principle not to all forms of birth control, but only abortion-causing drugs, we stand with our friends in

the Catholic Church and all others, Christian or non-Christian,

under the free exercise and conscience provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Religious people determine what violates their consciences, not the Federal Government.

The conscience is a sacred thing. Our church exists because overzealous governments in northern Europe made decisions which

trampled the religious convictions of our forebears. I have ancestors

who served in the Revolutionary War. I have ancestors who were

on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I have ancestors who served

in the War of 1812, who fought for the North in the Civil War. My

88-year-old father-in-law has recounted to me in tears many times

the horrors of the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, Bud Day, the most

highly decorated veteran alive, is a member of the Lutheran

Church, Missouri Synod. We fought for a free conscience in this

country, and we won’t give it up without a fight.

To paraphrase Martin Luther, the heart and conscience has room

only for God, not for God and the Federal Government. The bed is

too narrow; the blanket is too short. We must obey God rather than

men, and we will. Please get the Federal Government, Mr. Chairman, out of our consciences. Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Rev. Harrison follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. We now go to Dr. Mitchell.

Before you begin, pursuant to the tradition of this committee, I

ask unanimous consent that Mr. Mulvaney and other Members

who may join us not of this committee be allowed to sit on the dais,

and, if time permits, ask questions after all members of the committee have asked. Without objection, so ordered.

Dr. Mitchell.

STATEMENT OF C. BEN MITCHELL

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. As the chairman said, I am C. Ben Mitchell,

Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University, a Christian liberal arts university in Jackson, TN. I am also an ordained

minister in the Southern Baptist Convention and serve as a consultant on biomedical and life issues for the Ethics and Religious

Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

I am both honored and humbled to testify in support of the protection of religious freedom and liberty of conscience. I am honored

because I have the opportunity and privilege of following in the legacy of my Baptist forebears, who were such stalwart defenders of

religious freedom, and I am humbled because many of those forebears suffered and died so that you and I could live in a Nation

with religious freedom from State coercion.

I stand in the rich legacy of individuals like Roger Williams, a

one-time Baptist and founder of Providence Plantation, which became the State of Rhode Island, who declared in no uncertain

terms that the violation of a person’s religious conscience was nothing less than the rape of the soul. Williams understood that forcing

a person through the power of the State to violate his or her own

conscience is a monstrous harm.

Moreover, every American is a legatee of the freedoms secured in

our Constitution partly through the influence of the Reverend John

Leland, who was a Baptist minister in Massachusetts and Virginia,

and who became a friend of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and

other American Founders. It was Leland who helped frame the free

exercise clause of our First Amendment.

In a sermon Leland preached in 1791, he proclaimed, Every man

must give an account of himself to God, and therefore every man

ought to be at liberty to serve God in a way that he can best reconcile to his conscience. If government can answer in religious matters for individuals on the day of judgment, then let men be controlled by government. Otherwise, let men be free. He continued,

Religion is a matter between God and individuals, religious opinions of men not being the objects of civil government nor any way

under its control.

And finally, I must appeal to a 20th century colorful Texas Baptist minister, George W. Truitt, pastor of the historic First Baptist

Church of Dallas. In a sermon preached from the steps of the U.S.

Capitol on May 16, 1920, Reverend Truitt recounted a discussion

at a London dinner between an American statesman, Dr. J.L.

Curry, and a Member of the British House of Commons, John

Bright. Mr. Bright asked Dr. Curry, ‘‘What distinct contribution

has your America made to the science of government?’’ Curry responded immediately, ‘‘The doctrine of religious liberty.’’ After a
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moment’s reflection, Mr. Bright offered a reply, It is a tremendous

contribution.

I have two reasons for citing these historical examples. On the

one hand, it is to remind us that what American University law

professor Daniel Dreisbach and his coeditor Mark David Hall have

called the sacred rights of conscience which we Americans enjoy

were secured at an extraordinary cost. Our forebears were beaten,

imprisoned, and some died for the cause of religious freedom from

State coercion. On the other hand, it is to remind us that, as Truitt

said later in his sermon at the Capitol, religious liberty was at

least largely a Baptist achievement, and I would add, for the common good.

Every American is a beneficiary of this legacy. We are all freeloading on their sacrifice. That is why I am here to decry the contraception, abortifacient and sterilization mandate issued by the

Department of Health and Human Services on January 20, 2012.

The policy is an unconscionable intrusion by the State into the consciences of American citizens.

And contrary to portrayals in some of the popular media, this is

not just a Catholic issue. All people of faith, and even those who

claim no faith, have a stake in whether or not the government can

violate the consciences of its citizenry.

Religious liberty and the freedom to obey’s one’s conscience is

also not just a Baptist issue; it is an American issue, enshrined in

our founding documents. The Obama administration’s most recent

so-called accommodation for religious organizations is no accommodation at all. It is a bait-and-switch scheme, in my view, of the

most egregious sort.

Thank you for this opportunity.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you, Dr. Mitchell.

[The prepared statement of Mr. C. Ben Mitchell follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Rabbi, if you are going to do anything on Catholic rules, just do it as well as Bishop Lori did.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. No, I will stay out of that, thank you. I am

also very concerned about the pork being produced here in Washington actually.

Chairman ISSA. You know, we all say we are concerned, but

when it comes time to actually not serve it, it seems like it comes

out.

The gentleman is recognized.

STATEMENT OF RABBI MEIR SOLOVEICHIK

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Thank you, Chairman Issa, members of the

committee.

In August of 1790, Moses Seixas, a leading member of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, RI, composed a letter to then-President George Washington, who was visiting Newport. In his letter

Seixas gave voice to his people’s love of America and its liberties.

‘‘Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rise of free

citizens,’’ wrote Seixas, we now, with a deep sense of gratitude to

the Almighty behold a government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.’’

Washington responded with sentiments that Jews hold dear to

this day. ‘‘The citizens of the United States of America have a right

to applaud themselves,’’ wrote Washington, ‘‘for giving to mankind

a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience

and immunities of citizenship.’’

On Friday, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, I joined

Catholic and Protestant leaders in protesting a violation of religious freedom stemming from the Department of Health and

Human Services new directive obligating religious organizations

employing or serving members of other faiths to facilitate acts that

those religious organizations consider violations of their religious

tradition. Later that same day the administration announced what

it called an accommodation. Not religious organizations, but rather

insurance companies would be the ones paying for the prescriptions

and procedures that a faith community may find violative of its religious tenets.

This punitive accommodation is, however, no accommodation at

all. The religious organizations would still be obligated to provide

employees with an insurance policy that facilitates acts violating

the organization’s religious tenets. Although the religious leaders of

the American Catholic community communicated this on Friday

evening, the administration has refused to change its position,

thereby insisting that a faith community must either violate a

tenet of its faith or be penalized.

What I wish to focus on this morning in my very brief remarks

is the exemption to the new insurance policy requirements that the

administration did carve out from the outset; to wit, exempting

from the new insurance policy applications religious organizations

that do not employ or serve members of other faiths. From this exemption carved out by the administration at least two important

corollaries follow. First, by carving out an exemption, however narrow, the administration implicitly acknowledges that forcing employers to purchase these insurance policies may involve a violation
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of religious freedom. Second, the administration implicitly assumed

that those who employ or help others of a different religion are no

longer acting in a religious capacity and as such are not entitled

to the protection of the First Amendment.

This betrays a complete misunderstanding of the nature of religion. For Orthodox Jews, religion and tradition govern not only

praying in a synagogue, or studying Torah in a Beit Midrash, or

wrapping oneself in the blatant trappings of religious observance

such as phylacteries. Religion and tradition also inform our conduct

in the less obvious manifestations of religious belief, from feeding

the hungry, to assessing medical ethics, to a million and one things

in between.

Maimonides, one of Judaism’s greatest Talmudic scholars and

philosophers, and also a physician of considerable repute, stresses

in his Code of Jewish Law that the commandment to love the Lord

your God with all your heart is achieved not through cerebral contemplation only, but also requires study of the sciences and engagement in the natural world as this inspires true appreciation of the

wisdom of the Almighty.

In refusing to extend religious liberty beyond the parameters of

what the administration chooses to deem religious conduct, the administration denies people of faith the ability to define their religious activity. Therefore, not only does the new regulation threaten

religious liberty in the narrow sense in requiring Catholic and

other Christian communities to violate their religious tenets, also

the administration impedes religious liberty by unilaterally redefining what it means to be religious.

Washington concluded his missive to the Hebrew Congregation of

Newport by saying, ‘‘May the children of the stock of Abraham who

dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the

other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own

vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.’’

Benefiting from two centuries of First Amendment protections in

the United States, the Jewish ‘‘children of the stock of Abraham’’

must speak up when the liberties of conscience afforded their fellow

Americans are threatened and when the definition of religion itself

is being redefined by bureaucratic fiat. Thank you for the opportunity to do so this morning.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you, Rabbi.

[The prepared statement of Rabbi Soloveichik follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. And now the second Dr. Mitchell is recognized

for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF CRAIG MITCHELL

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. I have come to you today to express my

concerns not as a religious leader, but as an American. My father

served for 20 years in the——

Chairman ISSA. Dr. Mitchell, you have a great voice, but I think

your mic isn’t on.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. Okay.

Chairman ISSA. You were doing well without it, but not for the

folks that have to record. Thank you.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. I come to you today to express my concerns

not an a religious leader, but as an American. My father served for

20 years in the U.S. Air Force. My stepfather served for 20 years

in the U.S. Air Force also. I served for 12 years as an Air Force

officer and obtained the rank of major in the Reserves. I swore my

brother in when he became an Active Duty second lieutenant. So

with all this, I have a very strong view of what it means to be an

American.

I do not object to this mandate upon health care only because it

is not consistent with my faith. No, I object to this mandate because it is not good for America. To be an American means that

we stand for the Constitution of the United States. The more that

we find out about this health care bill, the more we find out that

our Constitution has been violated.

I and many others swore to defend this Constitution against all

enemies, foreign and domestic, yet our elected officials have created

this health care nightmare that requires every citizen to buy medical insurance, whether they want it or not. It is as if the commerce

clause did not even exist.

To be an American means that we stand for religious freedom.

This mandate is contrary to everything that I and every other person who wore the uniform stands for regardless of what their faith

was. This is true of people who have no faith. It is inconceivable

to me and many others that such a bald-faced attempt to step on

the Constitution of this great country was even proposed. It is for

this reason that I traveled here today to make my objections

known.

I am a Southern Baptist minister and a professor of Christian

ethics. As such, I know the Baptists have stood at the forefront of

religious liberty. This goes all the way to Isaac Backus, Hezekiah

Smith and others who pushed for the freedom of religion.

When Thomas Jefferson talked about a wall of separation between church and state, he was opposing persecution of people for

their beliefs, but that is exactly what this mandate does. This mandate in the name of health care seems designed to offend those who

have religiously informed moral sensibilities.

Simply put, this mandate forces people to violate their consciences. A government that will force its citizens to violate their

consciences has overstepped a critical boundary. If the purpose of

government is to serve its people, then this rule is wrong. The arguments used to defend this mandate are no different from the old
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argument that says we had to destroy the village in order to save

it.

It is the church that was responsible for the creation of hospitals.

The church is also responsible for much of the development of

health care. With this kind of history, it is ironic that religious organizations should have their rights crushed in the name of health

care. If this is allowed to stand, then there is nothing that the U.S.

Government cannot compel its citizens to do.

Explain to me how all of this is consistent with the American

ideal. On Friday, the President made some changes to the mandate

by having insurance companies pay for contraceptives and abortions. As an economist, I know that a tax liability on either the

buyer or seller of a good will still be felt by the other. Consequently, the requirement for insurance companies to pay for this

mandate will still be paid by their customers. In other words, this

solution does not in any significant way dodge the religious liberty

problems associated with this mandate because those in religious

institutions will still have to foot at least part of the bill. As such,

my religious freedoms are still being violated. If the President is

allowed to have his way, I and every other American will have no

recourse to address this egregious act.

As an economist, I also know that when the tax incidence is on

the supplier, that the cost of the good or service increases. The

President’s health care bill was sold with the idea it would cut

costs. We are finding thus far that it is becoming far more expensive than it was originally planned to be. This latest wrinkle only

adds to the cost. In effect, it adds insult to injury, especially when

you consider that most religious institutions are self-insured.

In conclusion, this rule is wrong not just for religious conservatives, it is wrong for all Americans, because it takes away the

freedom of the citizens while emboldening the Federal Government

to do whatever it wants. It is wrong because it violates the Constitution. It is wrong because it violates religious liberty. It is

wrong because it forces people to violate their consciences. It is

wrong because it is more expensive. This ruling is just plain wrong

for America.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Craig Mitchell follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. I will note that we are now joined by the

gentlelady from the Third District of Connecticut, Ms. DeLauro,

who also will be allowed to ask questions after all others.

I will note for the record that I don’t expect that to be able to

happen on the first panel, but we will certainly, at a minimum,

make it available on the second panel.

Thank you. Pleasure having you.

I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for a round of questioning.

Both in a letter I received yesterday and in his opening statement, the ranking member read or paraphrased the following paragraph: ‘‘As the son of two ministers from a small church in Baltimore, I completely understand the position of the faith-based community on this issue. I know both through my faith and my legal

training that we have an obligation as a Nation to make accommodations’’—I will now pause. He goes on to say, ‘‘where appropriate, to avoid undue interference with the practice of religion in

this country.’’

For each of you, if I simply strike from this paragraph ‘‘where appropriate,’’ obviously determined by the government, and ‘‘undue,’’

obviously determined by the government, and I read, ‘‘to make accommodations to avoid interference with the practice of religion in

this country,’’ is that paragraph and that statement consistent with

each of your views?

I see all yeses. So is it fair to say, then, that what we are debating here is government’s decision that it can determine on behalf

of people of faith and conscience the question of ‘‘where appropriate’’ and what is ‘‘undue?’’

Seeing also yeses, if, in fact, this stands—would you put that

poster up? Would you bring out the poster of our President John

F. Kennedy?

John F. Kennedy said, ‘‘I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.’’

For each of you, or any of you, do you believe that, in fact, we

have a President’s administration, not him personally, who is working to subvert the guarantees of religious liberty?

Rabbi.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Yes, absolutely, that is what the current policy does, in effect. What their motivation is, I can’t speak for that,

but there is no question that the current policy and intent announced by the Department of Health and Human Services does restrict and does effectively damage religious liberty in this country.

Chairman ISSA. Let me ask a question, because each of you has

expressed either opposition to the rule on the merits of what it does

or opposition because of how it affects future decisions of religious

freedom. Let me go briefly into the question of the actual health

items it affects.

I was brought up to believe that government in this country is

separate, clearly separate, from our faith and that often government does things which in our faith we object to, but that that is,

in fact, the part of ‘‘give Caesar his due’’ that we all grew up being

taught in one way or another.

So, in fact, if government were to provide these services over our

personal objections, if government were to take our tax money and
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fund that, something that we have a heated discussion about all

the time, would you change your position, not from objecting to the

particular funding, but to the question of whether or not it is, in

fact, impinging on or infringing your liberty and your ability to

teach your faith and to practice it?

Yes, Bishop.

Bishop LORI. Government already does supply those things with

our tax dollars, but what we are objecting to is that government

is now reaching into the internal governance of our religious bodies

and requiring us, directly or indirectly, to use our own resources

for it. Because there is no such thing as free.

Chairman ISSA. So, for all of you—and when you get to lead this

off, it is sometimes easy and sometimes hard, but I want to set the

stage, I think, for both sides.

The fact is, today, what many of the members of the minority

talked about—you know, women’s rights, reproductive rights, safety, health—the fact is the government spends your tax dollars involuntarily in many cases to do things that are along these lines,

either for the poor and indigent or for others, and although religiously you may object to it, you recognize that that is separate

from telling you you must participate directly through your activities.

Is that really what we are talking about here today?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. Definitely.

Chairman ISSA. Reverend Harrison.

Rev. HARRISON. Precisely. And it has been said that Caesar must

be given no less than what is Caesar’s, but no more either. And you

hit the nail right on the head. We participate by paying our taxes

in every aspect of society. We participate communally, etc. But this

provision is draconian, in that it invades the realm of our conscience, and it becomes impossible for us.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

My time has expired, but, Dr. Mitchell, you may answer briefly.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. Yeah, especially when you consider that

most religious organizations are self-insured, we have our own insurance agencies. And forcing us to use our own money to do this?

That is really getting into it.

Chairman ISSA. Rabbi, did you have anything to add?

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. I think that is exactly right, Chairman Issa.

And the President’s spokesman recently, when speaking about this

subject, said that what their concern is is that they don’t want religious employers or organizations restricting access to specific prescriptions, etc. But, of course, those who have a religious objection

are not seeking in America to restrict their access to it. What they

are seeking is the freedom in their own right not to facilitate something that violates the tenets of their own faith.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

The gentleman from—the ranking member is recognized for 5

minutes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Bishop Lori, I want to thank you—I want to

thank all of you for being here. And let me say that I am very

thankful for the service of your organization and other Catholic

groups that provide so much help to the poorest among us. So I

thank you.
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On today’s topic, I would like to ask about all the other Catholic

entities that praised the administration for their decision last week

to allow them to operate consistently with their faith and the law,

because people are becoming confused. Some still have questions

such as how entities that self-insure will be treated, but they all

commended the administration. Unlike you, they believe these remaining issues can be worked out.

For example, the Catholic Health Association represents the

largest group of nonprofit health care providers. They stated that

they were, ‘‘very pleased with the White House announcement that

a resolution has been reached that protects the religious liberty

and conscience rights of Catholic institutions.’’

Similarly, Catholic Charities USA, the largest private network of

social service organizations in the United States, stated that it,

‘‘welcomes the administration’s attempt to meet the concerns of the

religious community.’’

Catholics United is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the Catholic social tradition. They called the White House

plan, ‘‘a win-win solution,’’ and stated that, ‘‘President Obama has

shown us that he is willing to rise above the partisan fray to deliver an actual policy solution that both meets the health care

needs of all employees and respects the religious liberty of Catholic

institutions.’’

And I know we can all differ in our opinions, but, Bishop Lori,

do you disagree with all of these other Catholic leaders who believe

the administration has struck the right balance?

Bishop LORI. Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to

comment on that.

First of all, when the announcement was made last Friday, it

came upon certainly the Bishops’ Conference of a sudden. There

was no prior consultation, it was not given to us in writing, and

it was told to us not long before it was announced. When we first

heard it ourselves, we wondered if there might not also be a glimmer of hope, but upon further analysis within that same day we

immediately began to see problems.

Catholic Health Association put out its own statement, for which

it is responsible. Catholic Health Association does not speak for the

Church as a whole. The Catholic Bishops speak for the Church as

a whole. It is a lobbying group, it is a trade association, it is not

the Catholic Church as such. And it is instructive that as time has

passed on and there has been further opportunity for analysis, both

at the level of morality and at the level of policy, there are questions that Catholic Health Association itself is now rightfully asking.

Catholic Charities USA is in the same position. While it initially

offered a positive statement, it would seem as time goes on it has

also recognized that there are very serious problems at the level of

principle and at the level of practicality, and they have issued a

statement indicating their solidarity with the Bishops.

I don’t know much about Catholic United except it doesn’t have

any particular standing in the Church.

Mr. CUMMINGS. A few minutes ago, the chairman asked a question like—I think I got it right—did you all believe that the Obama
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administration was truly—do you really believe that it is trying to

subvert religion?

I think the rabbi did answer that. Did you answer that? Do you

really believe that?

Chairman ISSA. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. The word ‘‘subvert’’——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, why don’t you correct me? Tell me what

you asked. You held up the sign. Just tell me what you asked. I

just want to ask the question that you asked. I am asking him specifically.

Chairman ISSA. We will ask unanimous consent for an additional

1 minute.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I am not—I said very clearly—I wasn’t trying to

confuse anybody. The rabbi answered the question.

Do you remember, Rabbi? What was the question?

Chairman ISSA. Just for the record, Rabbi, I said that President

John F. Kennedy said, ‘‘I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.’’ And then I asked all about John F. Kennedy’s statement. And the gentleman was closer to right than I remembered.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. If I could just speak to that for one moment,

and I just—I did not say, Congressman Cummings, that the President or the administration is trying to subvert religious freedom.

What I said was that the policy, in effect, damages religious freedom. I made no statement at all about what they are intending to

do. That is not—I am not saying anything about that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what about you, Rabbi? I mean, do you really believe that?

Bishop LORI. You mean myself, Congressman?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yeah, you. Yes, sir.

Bishop LORI. I believe there are serious challenges, not just with

the HHS rule, but also we saw serious challenges with HosannaTabor and we saw serious challenges in an attempt by HHS to

deny contracts to Migration and Refugee Services and Catholic Relief Services because those organizations, in fidelity to the Church,

would not provide the so-called full range of reproductive services.

We have an ad hoc committee on religious liberty that is part of

the Bishop’ Conference because we have massive concerns about religious liberty at the State and Federal level—massive concerns.

Mr. CUMMINGS. If I remember, we had a hearing on that, on

these contracts that you just talked about, and it showed that—in

the hearing, it came out that the Catholic Church—I guess I am

saying this right—received millions upon millions of dollars in all

kinds of contracts. You are familiar with that, right?

Bishop LORI. Mr. Congressman, we don’t get a handout.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I never said that.

Bishop LORI. We contract for services, and we deliver, and we

bring to those services some moral convictions. And we shouldn’t

be at a disadvantage because we bring some moral convictions to

the table. We also bring the generosity of the Catholic people and

we bring volunteers. When you contract with the Church, you get

a bang for your buck.
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

We now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.

McHenry, for 5 minutes.

Mr. MCHENRY. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is a very simple and broad question for the whole panel. It

is a very simple question. Is this ruling by HHS—do you view this

as an issue of contraception and abortifacients or an issue of religious freedom and conscience protections?

Bishop Lori? And we will certainly go down the row.

Bishop LORI. We view it as an issue of religious liberty. We view

it first of all and primarily at the level of principle. It is a question

of government reaching in to the internal governance of religious

bodies and making a requirement contrary to church teaching.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, sir.

Reverend Harrison.

Rev. HARRISON. Yes, we view it completely as a matter of religious freedom. We have never gone on record opposing all forms of

birth control. We have only gone on record saying that we have

moral objections to abortifacients, abortion-causing medications.

So we are deeply concerned that this is a conscience issue. If we

are forced in situations at our universities and other institutions to

act in ways fundamentally contrary to our religious convictions, it

has a disparaging effect on our institutions. It denudes us of the

very faith that has driven us into those situations where we care

for people in need.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you.

Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. It is completely a religious-liberty issue

for us, a freedom-of-conscience issue for us. There is an erosion of

trust, I must say, among Baptists, or many Baptists, and the administration. And as we now are sort of experiencing the warm

winds of an Arab Spring in the Middle East, we worry seriously—

it is a solemn issue for us—we worry seriously that we may be entering thefirst chilling days of our winter of discontent.

Mr. MCHENRY. Rabbi.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Yes, Congressman, this is absolutely an

issue of religious freedom and only of religious freedom.

If there are members of this committee or of Congress or of the

executive branch who are concerned about access to contraception,

they can seek through legislation or otherwise to ensure greater access to that. That can be debated in Congress, the Members of Congress can vote on that, etc. And they are absolutely entitled and

able to do that as Members of Congress under the powers granted

to them by the Constitution.

What they cannot do—and that is why we are here today—is to

achieve this end by trampling on the religious freedoms and the

liberty of conscience of Americans. And they can’t do that because

that would be a violation of the Constitution that both Members of

Congress and of the executive branch have sworn to uphold and

protect.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, sir.

Dr. Mitchell.
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Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. Yes, this is clearly an issue of religious liberty, and it is one that I couldn’t have imagined coming. And I

think to see it as anything else is to completely miss the real importance of this issue. And so that is why I am here.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you.

Thank you for answering that question. A lot of folks, when I

pose this as a question of access to contraception, it is a deeper

question of conscience protection and compelling an individual not

simply to not do something, but compelling an individual to purchase something which they find morally objectionable and using

the force of the State to compel them to do that.

There is an additional question. You know, there is a distinction

within this rule about whether or not you are a religious institution

primarily, serving people only of your faith, or are you open to others.

So, Bishop Lori, there is a significant amount that the Catholic

Church does not just in Washington, DC, or Connecticut but across

the country, so why does—does the Catholic Church only serve

Catholics?

Bishop LORI. No, it does not. It is——

Mr. MCHENRY. Why?

Bishop LORI. We serve——

Mr. MCHENRY. And with all due respect. I am Catholic, and for

me to——

Bishop LORI. Oh, no.

Mr. MCHENRY [continuing]. Speak to a bishop like this is a little

bit of a challenge.

Chairman ISSA. It is your immortal soul you are risking.

Bishop LORI. Well——

Rev. HARRISON. There is room over here.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Reverend.

Bishop LORI. You know, it all started when the Lord said, ‘‘Go

and baptise all nations,’’ and that kind of put us on a course of

being out there. We serve people of all faiths and none, not because

they are Catholic but because we are Catholic and because our

faith prompts us to do it. It flows from what we believe, how we

worship, and how we are to live. And so, we regard, for example,

our Catholic Charities as really an outgrowth of our discipleship of

the Lord and our communion with another in the Lord, not a side

business.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you.

And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

I might note, just to be ecumenical, that Beth Israel provides

Sunday food for Father Joe Carroll’s food bank in San Diego, just

to make sure that all days are covered.

With that, we recognize the former chairman of the full committee, Mr. Towns, for 5 minutes.

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to submit testimony from the National Health Law Program for the

record.

Chairman ISSA. I am reserving—you said testimony. Is it a written statement?
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Mr. TOWNS. It is a written statement, yes.

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered.

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Mr. TOWNS. Let me begin by—and, first of all, you know, I must

say that I am concerned—and I know it has been expressed earlier—that we have before us five distinguished men but no women.

And I must admit that, being an ordained minister myself, I must

say that even in spite of all of that, I am a little nervous over the

fact that we have five men and no women. It sure would have been

nice to at least have that kind of dialog, because I really think that

that is very, very important.

And with that on the record, let me just move forward by saying,

it is my understanding—I guess, Bishop Lori, I will go to you—that

Georgetown University, a very prestigious university here in our

city, offers health insurance that covers contraception for its faculty

but not for its students. Is that correct?

Bishop LORI. I am not familiar with the insurance plan of

Georgetown University.

Mr. TOWNS. Well, let me ask you, if that is the case, do you believe Georgetown students should be offered the same health insurance benefit as the faculty? Do you believe that should happen?

Bishop LORI. Again, I don’t think I would be qualified to answer

specifics about what kind of coverage provided to students and faculty.

Mr. TOWNS. Well, let’s deal with generalities then.

Bishop LORI. All right.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. TOWNS. I would be delighted to yield to the chair.

Chairman ISSA. Just briefly, we will have representatives of

Catholic University, Abbey College, Baptist University, and Oklahoma Christian. So I think these are great questions, but we will

get it answered for you on the second panel.

Mr. TOWNS. Well, you know, I think what I am trying to do, before the Bishop departs, I am trying to understand exactly what

problems the Bishops have with the administration’s policy. That

is what I am really trying to understand. It is not clear to me.

Bishop LORI. Yes, well, the problems are at the level of principle

and at the level of practicality.

The principle is the government’s reaching in and forcing us to

do something. We might disagree inside of the Church, we might

have our problems inside of the Church, but it is not for the government to weigh in and be the arbiter of those things.

And, second, many church entities, such as the Diocese of Bridgeport, which I can certainly speak about, they are self-insured. And

so, as a result, I am not only the employer but also the insurer.

And so, certainly at the level of practicality, the new rule does

nothing to help.

And also there are many—there are religious insurers. There are

individuals who have conscientious objections, and the rules do

nothing for them.

So we have problems on all of those levels.

Mr. TOWNS. Right. Well, let me ask you this then. What if a

Catholic entity decides that it wants to obtain insurance for its employees from outside that covers contraceptives? Does that violate

Catholic doctrine?
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Bishop LORI. So, if you—your question is, if a Catholic entity

wishes or goes ahead and purchases coverage for contraception or

an abortifacient?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.

Bishop LORI. We would say it does, yes.

Mr. TOWNS. Anyone else, does it violate your doctrine? Very

quickly because I am running out of time.

Rev. HARRISON. More specifically, only in the case of those drugs

which specifically cause abortion.

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. And within the Southern Baptist Convention, we have a resolutions process in our denomination that, time

after time after time, has passed resolutions against any abortifacient drugs.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. My concern here, Congressman, is not what

one particular Jewish organization might say about a particular

prescription or procedure or whether their tenets are violated when

they are forced to provide that. My concern is when Congress or

the administration comes in and says, ‘‘Well, I see that there are

some members of one faith who say this, some members of faith

who say this, so we are going to unilaterally side with these people

and force everyone, even over their objections, to violate their conscience.’’

In general, a religious community and a religious organization

should be free to define what the tenets of their faith are, and they

should be listened to when they are told that a particular demand

or mandate by the Federal Government violates those liberties.

Rev. HARRISON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say ‘‘amen’’ to the

rabbi because I have never had the chance to do that before.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. TOWNS. Could I give Dr. Mitchell just one——

Chairman ISSA. Of course. The gentleman can answer if he

would like.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. Yes, the Southern Baptist Convention,

there is no one statement that speaks for all of us, but I think if

you were to poll all the professors at our Southern Baptist seminaries, what you would find is that we stand solidly against abortion and we believe that it is contrary to Christian faith and practice.

Mr. TOWNS. You know, the reason I asked this question, being

an ordained minister myself, you know, I still feel that the woman’s right to choose is something that we should just not ignore.

And, of course, as I indicated early on, you know, it sure would be

nice and make me feel a lot more comfortable if we had a couple

of females on this panel.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.

I might note that the Reverend Barry Lynn was not a female,

and that was who you requested that would have been on this

panel.

With that, we go to the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg,

for 5 minutes.

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would yield for

such time as needed.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.
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I just want to be very brief. Gandhi said, ‘‘In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.’’ Rabbi, in this case,

where you have no faith-specific objections to what is in HHS, isn’t

that essentially why you are here, that all of us, as minorities,

must stand together to say, there but for us goes someone else the

next time?

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Well, the concern of the Founding Fathers

was not only the democratic rights of the majority to engage in selfgovernance; their major concern in constructing the Constitution

was the rights of minority, what they called other factions or

groups, in this country.

And when I see the religious leaders of one pretty large religious

community in this country say that this government mandate will

force us—or is seeking to force us to violate a tenet of our faith,

and to see then the administration say, ‘‘Well, that’s too bad,’’ then

smaller denominations or faiths in this country begin to wonder,

well, not only is this an outrageous violation of one particular

faith’s religious freedom, it is quite frightening to all of us who care

about our own religious freedom.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I thank the panel for being here today. Thank you for your

voice that you have stated very clearly.

In the Declaration of Independence, it refers to ‘‘unalienable

rights.’’ How do you understand ‘‘unalienable rights?’’ What is the

meaning to you?

Please.

Bishop LORI. Thank you.

‘‘Unalienable’’ means that they are inherent in the human person, and they are inherent in the human person because they have

been put there by the Creator, and that they are, as John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural, they are not given by the generosity of

the State but by the hand of God.

Mr. WALBERG. I assume all the rest of you would agree to that?

Let me ask a followup question. Should your parishioners, speaking especially of those of you, Bishop Lori, as well as Reverend

Harrison, should your parishioners who are body shop owners or

lawyers, whatever, have First Amendment rights of conscience?

Bishop LORI. They most definitely should——

Mr. WALBERG. Regardless of being an institution or not.

Bishop LORI. Yes. Institutional rights rest on the foundation of

individual rights. And it is clearly the teaching of the church in its

declaration on religious liberty that we begin, really, with individual rights. And so it ought to be possible in this country, if one

wishes, to have a business, let’s say, run on Christian principles,

where people agree to work in such a business and where insurers

and employers and employees all come together and agree how that

is all going to work.

Mr. WALBERG. Reverend Harrison.

Rev. HARRISON. I agree completely.

It is surreal, this whole conversation is utterly surreal. If the Supreme Court can uphold the rights of a tiny sect to use a hallucinogenic drug in its religious rights, how is it that our fundamental
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rights of conscience over long-established moral principle, virtually

unchanging in the history of Christianity, is somehow dismantled?

And I find it totally offensive that we are subject to accommodations and grandfather clauses. You can’t accommodate and you

can’t grandfather-clause the First Amendment. It is our right.

Mr. WALBERG. Martin Luther would express appreciation for

your intensity of position on that.

In recent weeks, I have had the dubious privilege of sitting in

hearings where I have heard the Constitution being attacked, being

denigrated. When I have heard people at that table speak about

‘‘constitutional niceties’’ not dealing with the real world of today,

when I have heard a Justice of the Supreme Court refer to the fact

that new-forming-constitution nations ought to look away from our

Constitution and ought to look to some other constitutions, it is unbelievable. And then we come to this time, when, in fact, constitutional liberties are being stepped upon, trounced upon, not only for

institutions but for individuals, as you very clearly stated, in the

area of religion and conscience.

I am a minister. I was formerly a pastor. I am glad to see you

gentlemen here. I would encourage you, with great respect, to

speak with clarity, to call for your congregations to understand the

power of freedom and liberty. And as Jonathan Witherspoon, who

happened to be a Member of Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a signer of the Constitution, stated very

clearly: ‘‘A republic once equally poised must either preserve its

virtue or lose its liberty.’’ And John Adams followed, saying that,

‘‘Liberty once lost is liberty lost forever.’’

And let me finish my one statement, and I would ask for——

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman can have an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you——

Chairman ISSA. Only.

Mr. WALBERG [continuing]. Mr. Chairman.

I don’t normally quote from Joseph Stalin, but today he said

something appropriate about liberty. He said, ‘‘America is like a

healthy body, and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas,

America will collapse from within.’’

I would encourage the Church, I would encourage Congress, I

would encourage our administration to fight back strongly against

what Stalin understood and against what his principles, if he

would have carried them out, would have accomplished through

these—

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. I presume the gentleman brought Stalin up only

to put him down.

Mr. WALBERG. Absolutely. And I think I brought him up—

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now recognize the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Quigley, for

5 minutes.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, I was waiting for the picture of Stalin to appear before us.
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But one of the things I enjoy about this place is that we quote

Reagan to counter your arguments and you sometimes quote Kennedy to counter ours. So I did find the—

Chairman ISSA. I have Martin Luther King ready, too.

Mr. QUIGLEY. I know, I am sure.

What we did was we found the actual speech that President Kennedy as a candidate gave before the Greater Houston Ministerial

Association, September 12, 1960. He said, ‘‘Because I am Catholic

and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in

this campaign have been obscured, perhaps deliberately.’’ Comes to

mind what is happening today. ‘‘I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant, nor Jewish, where no pubic official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the

Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any ecclesiastical

source.’’

He also says, ‘‘I do not speak for my church on public matters,

and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come

before me as President, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling, or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance

with these views and in accordance with what my conscience tells

me to be the national interest and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment

could cause me to decide otherwise.’’ Just to give the full context

of that.

And I would ask, without objection, if this transcript could be included in the record?

Chairman ISSA. Without objection, so ordered. I am pleased.

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Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield, briefly?

Mr. QUIGLEY. Sure.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. I couldn’t agree with you more that

we need to put it all into context of what government might consider at government expense.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Bishop—and I ask these questions, as I recognize Members on

the other side were concerned, with the greatest respect, but it

helps us understand how far this can go. Because, for me, the question sometimes comes to, where does the conscience decision lie?

Does it lie with a group of men, as the panel today or the Council

of Bishops? I mean, who does it lie with? Does it lie with the individual woman to make those decisions?

And, also, do you support this same policy that you have as it

relates to the private sector? In other words, do you think that a

fast-food restaurant person can, because of his moral objection, say

to his employees, ‘‘I am not going to provide birth control, as well,’’

or a larger corporation?

Bishop LORI. You know, if there is real religious liberty in our

country, then churches, even if there is disagreement within those

churches, have the God-given right to run their own institutions

and their own internal affairs according to their teachings. And if

there should be discussion within that church or even dissent within that church, it is not for the government to reach in and to decide or to weigh in on one side or the other.

The fact of the matter is that a lot of people like to work for the

Catholic Church—that is the one I can speak for—because they like

to work for mission. They understand that when they sign up to

work for a diocese or a Catholic school or for Catholic Charities

what the teaching is. We have an organized magisterium with the

Pope and the bishops, and that sometimes people agree with it,

sometimes they don’t, but they love the mission and they come and

work. We have no trouble retaining and attracting people to work

for us.

We provide great health-care plans. But, you know, under these

rules, we might have the best health-care plan in the world, but

if even one of these so-called preventive services were not in our

plan, we would be fined $2,000 per employee.

Mr. QUIGLEY. But—

Ms. BUERKLE. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. QUIGLEY. I am sorry. I am just so short on time.

Bishop, getting to the question, do you believe that a private-sector company, if the owner or the board had moral objections, the

same moral objections you do, which I respect, do you think that

they have a right to deny offering contraceptive services?

Bishop LORI. I think that that freedom obtains right now. It already obtains. They can already do that.

Mr. QUIGLEY. But we are talking about legislation, Bishop—

Bishop LORI. Right.

Mr. QUIGLEY [continuing]. And there is legislation also proposed

right now that would extend this to the private sector.
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Bishop LORI. We are saying that this legislation should not do so.

We have been able to have that freedom now, and the world has

not fallen in upon itself.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired.

We now recognize the gentleman from Ohio—we have the

gentlelady from New York, Ms. Buerkle, for 5 minutes.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And let me begin by saying what an honor it is to have you here

before us this morning and to hear your profound defense of First

Amendment rights in a time when there is so much discussion and

debate about this. It is so uplifting for me to listen to so many different denominations talk about religious freedom, because I believe that is the reason, as was so clearly stated by many of you,

why people came to this country and why they continue to come

to this country, because we offer a freedom of exercising your religion. So thank you very much for being here this morning.

I am a nurse. I have spent most of my professional career both

as a nurse and a health-care attorney. I am a mother. I have been

blessed with 6 children and soon to be 13 grandchildren. So I feel

like I can speak to this issue.

And I really find it so objectionable that my colleagues on the

other side of the aisle would characterize this as an issue as narrow as contraceptives or abortion or sterilization. This is a fundamental assault on one’s conscience. And folks who don’t believe in

God or folks who do believe in God or believe in a certain—it is an

affront to each and every American’s conscience.

So to try to narrow this down into a contraceptive or a women’s

health issue, I am so appalled that that is the approach. This is

a fundamental assault on our First Amendment rights. And we

have to challenge the media and, as my colleague mentioned, challenge the churches to articulate, this is the issue; this is a First

Amendment assault, and we need to defend our Constitution.

So I thank all of you very much for being here.

I want to just briefly talk—I think we have established that you

feel that this is a violation of conscience. I would like to just quickly go down the panel and ask each one of you, how do you perceive

this new rule?

And I want to clarify, first of all, before I ask you my question,

the HHS rule was not changed. Do you agree with that?

Okay. So let’s establish that for the record, that, despite this accommodation, the rule hasn’t been changed. And it was a verbal,

as you mentioned—nothing was put in writing, which is always of

concern.

But I want to now ask each one of you, how would you see this

rule that has not been changed that violates conscience rights, how

do you see that affecting the missions of each one of your churches?

Bishop, we can begin with you.

Bishop LORI. First of all, it does not remove the mandate, and,

as a result, it is still a great intrusion into the freedom of our

churches. And besides that, we think it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because it substantially burdens our religious

freedom by forcing us, indirectly but nonetheless forcing us, to provide the so-called preventive services in violation of our teaching.
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And it also is simply unworkable, because many religious entities

are self-insured, and as a result, we are not only the employer but

the insurer. And so then it directly involves us in providing the

prescribed services.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you, Bishop.

And for the remaining members of the panel, do you anticipate

that there will be fines or penalties that you will have to face because of this?

Rev. HARRISON. Well, the penalties are variegated and applied

over time, but we could face multimillion, tens of millions of dollars

of fines, according to what our preliminary research has shown,

should we fall out of the grandfather clause in some fashion.

Aside from that, this entire thing has already cost us a lot of

money because we were not able to take the steps, cost-savings

steps. We had to freeze everything already, when the health legislation was on the table and passed.

Ms. BUERKLE. And, Dr. Mitchell, do you anticipate that it will affect the mission of all of the institutions and the mission going forward?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. Yes, ma’am, I do. Southern Baptist, my

own denomination, is a free church. That is to say, we are not unlike our Catholic friends. We are not—we don’t have a

magisterium. Every church is an autonomous body—16.8 or 17 million members and 5,000 or so denominations.

I can tell you this. Because we are a free church and because we

are so committed to a free state, because, as I tried to indicate in

my comments, our genesis in America was committed to that freedom of conscience and liberty of religious expression, tens of thousands of us, maybe hundreds of thousands of us, would be very

willing to spend nights in jail for the sake of the preservation of

religious liberty.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you.

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. It is not just our coffers that are at risk,

it is our very freedom.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you.

Rabbi, I am over time. If we could just ask for two quick answers, so we can get you in the record.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. My concerning, Congresswoman, is both for

the objective religious-freedom rights of everyone in this country,

but I am also quite worried about the long-term implications when

I see an administration feeling free to say, first of all, what a religious denomination’s tenets require and do not require. And I am

also greatly concerned about the long-term implications when an

administration declares that a particular organization is not a religious organization precisely because they are motivated—in a situation where that organization is motivated by its faith to reach out

to people beyond their faith.

Ms. BUERKLE. Thank you.

Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. The thing that concerns me is that, if they

don’t see this as a religious-liberty issue, what do they see as a religious-liberty issue? And where do they stop? What I see here is a

hollowing out of what the concept of religious liberty is, almost to

the point where eventually it will be nonexistent.
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Ms. BUERKLE. I thank you all very much.

And I yield back. Thank you.

Mr. LANKFORD [presiding]. Thank you.

The chair recognizes Mrs. Maloney for 5 minutes.

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you.

And I thank all of you for your work and for being here today.

I have serious concerns that the issue we are focusing on today,

whether women should have access to contraceptives in their insurance coverage, is only a very small part of a broader campaign to

attack the use of contraceptives generally for women across this

country.

For example, right now, in 14 States in this country, in this year,

activists have been pushing initiatives to amend State constitutions

to define an embryo as a person from the second of fertilization.

Voters have already rejected fertilization personhood laws three

times—twice in Colorado and once in Mississippi. The effect of

these initiatives would be to criminalize certain birth control methods.

So my question to the panelists is a general question, is whether

you agree that we should outlaw any form of contraception starting

at the moment of fertilization.

And if I could get a brief answer from Bishop Lori and then Reverend Harrison and all down the line.

Bishop LORI. The pointed issue here is whether or not a church

that teaches the sacredness of life from the beginning or opposes

contraception or sterilization on moral grounds should be forced to

pay for it, not whether or not it should be illegal.

Mrs. MALONEY. But do you consider birth control pills to fall in

that category? In other words, would you favor making the use of

birth control pills illegal in this country?

Reverend Harrison.

Rev. HARRISON. No, I would not. But neither do we include

birth—do we include those abortion-producing medications as birth

control.

Mrs. MALONEY. When you say ‘‘abortion-inducing medications,’’

what are you referring to?

Rev. HARRISON. I am referring to those medications that can

cause a fertilized egg or an embryo to be aborted.

Mrs. MALONEY. Is that so-called Plan B?

Rev. HARRISON. Yes, Ella and Plan B.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, what about IUDs, Dr. Mitchell? Do you believe that they should be illegal?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. We believe that they are contrary to our

view of the sanctity of human life because they allow fertilization

but they prevent implantation, and we believe that human life begins at conception, not at implantation.

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, what I understand from the administration’s proposal and what I understand from the public comment in

opposition to his proposal was that you do not want to pay for

these services. And under its proposal, you would not pay for these

services. They would be absolutely separate in an insurance plan.

Now it seems that you are saying that no women should have access to them and that they should be criminal. And what are your

comments on that?
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I mean, I support religious freedom. I support every type of religion in America. But I do not support imposing my religious beliefs

or anybody else’s on anybody else.

Bishop LORI. In fact, the cost of providing those services are

borne someplace, either in the premiums that religious entities

pay, or they are borne because our plans are self-insured and

therefore we are the insurer as well as the employer, or because

we have religious insurers. In other words, these so-called accommodations were made without reference to the real world that the

Church operates in, and, as a result, they still entail us in cooperating with this and in paying for it.

Mrs. MALONEY. But I would say, with all respect, that in a pluralistic society where we all have different beliefs—I, for one, am

opposed to the war in Afghanistan, but my tax dollars are supporting the war in Afghanistan.

Bishop LORI. Congressman—

Mrs. MALONEY. May I continue, please, sir?

I support—I am opposed to—many Americans are opposed to

capital punishment, yet their dollars are supporting capital punishment. So, in many ways, when we live in America, and it is a total

society, then we are all a part of it. And I believe that the President bent over backward, or rather the administration, to make

this separate.

And I would just like to conclude by saying that, although I respect your right to have your own opinions about birth control, I

really do believe and think that the majority of Americans do not

share them. And they should be entitled to have their beliefs, too.

I yield back.

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you.

With that, I yield to Mr. Jordan.

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the chairman.

I want to thank our witnesses for coming today.

Doesn’t this just get, this ruling, get to the very heart, the very

foundation of what America is about? You think about this country,

this experiment in freedom we call America. People came here because in Europe they said, ‘‘You have to practice your faith a certain way,’’ and they said, ‘‘No, we don’t. We are going to go to

America where we can do it the way we think the good Lord wants

us to do it.’’ And that very fact is fundamental to what we call this

great Nation of America.

So this gets right at the heart of what we are as a country, what

we are as a people, what the Founders envisioned this Nation

would offer its citizens. Isn’t that what—forget all of this other talk

we have been hearing from the other side. This is fundamentally

what is at stake here, the heart and soul of what America is about.

Bishop LORI. Certainly, that is the glory of our country. Religious

freedom is the first of the freedoms in the Bill of Rights, and it is

really the source—

Mr. JORDAN. But I would say even before the First Amendment,

the citizens of this country understood this is what America was

going to be about. Yes or no, Bishop?

Bishop LORI. Oh, yes, absolutely.

Mr. JORDAN. Reverend.
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Rev. HARRISON. In my position over the last 10 years, I have had

to travel all over the world, 40 or 50 countries or more. And every

time I return home, I want to kneel down and kiss the ground—

Mr. JORDAN. Thank the good Lord you live here, yep.

Rev. HARRISON. —because of the blessings that we enjoy in this

country. And I will stand, personally, for and fight for the rights

of every single citizen in this country to believe and act—

Mr. JORDAN. And this administration is putting that very principle in jeopardy.

Rev. HARRISON. I will fight for, give my sons up to fight for—I

have two sons, no daughters—and sacrifice everything I have for

the sake of guaranteeing the rights of every single—

Mr. JORDAN. Well said.

Rev. HARRISON [continuing]. Citizen in this country.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you.

Dr. Mitchell, yes or no?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. I think this issue does focus very, very

clearly the issue of religious liberty—

Mr. JORDAN. Yep.

Rabbi.

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL [continuing]. Whatever the other issues

may be.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you.

Rabbi.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. That is right, Congressman. This is an issue

of religious liberty, and only an issue of religious liberty, that

brings us here today.

Mr. JORDAN. Yep.

Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. This is what America is about. And if we

let this go, we are in trouble.

Mr. JORDAN. Okay. I want to play a tape for you. Let me just

change gears a little bit. I am going to play a tape of what the

President said, and I want to see if you think he has kept his

promise and honored what he said he was going to do with the

overall ObamaCare legislation.

Play the tape, if you would, please.

[Audio played.]

Mr. JORDAN. Bishop, do you think, in light of what HHS has

ruled, do you think the President has kept his word?

Bishop LORI. I think right from the beginning we bishops have

been very concerned that conscience protection be built into any

form of health-care reform that would emerge—

Mr. JORDAN. And because it isn’t, there is no way that statement

that the President made can actually be true.

Bishop LORI. We feel that—

Mr. JORDAN. As it applies to you.

Bishop LORI. We feel that we have good relationships and we

have exercised our freedoms wisely, and therefore it has not been

broken and shouldn’t be fixed in the way it is so-called fixed.

Mr. JORDAN. Reverend, did the President—

Rev. HARRISON. As a church body, we have no official position on

the rightness or wrongness of the President’s—

Mr. JORDAN. The President said if you like—
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Rev. HARRISON [continuing]. Health plan.

Mr. JORDAN. The President said if you like your plan, you can

keep it. Is that true?

Rev. HARRISON. All I would like to say is that we are here, I am

here today because we are deeply concerned about the religious-liberties provision.

Mr. JORDAN. Will you be able to keep the same plan if this rule

is in place?

Rev. HARRISON. We are hanging on by a fingernail. And, as I said

in my opening statement, I believe a couple of strikes of a keyboard

could eliminate our freedoms very easily.

Mr. JORDAN. Doctor, did the President honor his promise?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. I think it is very ironic that he used the

word several times ‘‘trust’’ and predicated his comments on the

word ‘‘trust.’’ I am not from Missouri. I have lived there before, but

I am not from Missouri. I have to say that any future rulings from

the HHS I will have to see to believe.

Mr. JORDAN. Yeah. Will you be able to keep the plan that you

offer?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. Well, we have—yes.

Mr. JORDAN. Rabbi.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. I am not here to represent an institution

that offers a plan or does not offer a plan.

Mr. JORDAN. Right. Got it. You are here—

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. What brings me here is great concern when

an administration or HHS claims the power in a mandate to define

what is a violation of religious belief and what is not a violation

of religious belief.

Mr. JORDAN. Finally, if I could, Dr. Mitchell, do you think the

President kept his word with the clip you saw?

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. I don’t think that he did. I think that rather than fix what is broken, he has broken what was already working.

Mr. JORDAN. Okay.

I yield back. Thanks.

Chairman ISSA [presiding]. I thank the gentleman.

We now go back to the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Davis, for

5 minutes.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here.

As I listened, this is a very serious discussion, and I think all of

America is really watching and listening to what it is that we have

to say.

I, first of all, want to associate myself with the comments made

by the former chairman of the full committee, Mr. Towns, and my

colleague from Illinois, Mr. Quigley, relative to the absence of

women on this particular panel.

With that said, it seems to me that we have not talked a great

deal about the health-care benefits of the discussion, of the issue.

And given the fact that the discussion emanated from implementation of provisions of the Affordable Care Act, let me ask if either

one of you gentlemen have a health background, in terms of any

kind of health delivery to individuals?

No? All right.
96

Let me just—obviously, there are many well-known benefits for

women to be able to control their own lives and to plan their pregnancies, including by using contraception to determine whether or

when they get pregnant.

But that is merely the contraceptive use. A significant proportion

of women, 1.5 million, use the pill exclusively for medical purposes

other than contraception. They use contraceptives to treat severe

menstrual pain, migraines, uterine fibroids, and endometriosis.

Oral contraceptives also help prevent ovarian cancer. One study

found that oral contraceptives have prevented 200,000 ovarian cancers and 100,000 deaths from the disease.

Is it your understanding that—or do your religious teachings prohibit the use of contraception for health-related purposes such as

treating ovarian cancer?

Bishop, perhaps we could start with you.

Bishop LORI. I think Catholic moral theology is very nuanced. It

recognizes that the same drug can operate in different ways and

accomplish different things. If it is used to prevent birth, it is

against our teaching. And so we have operated with a considerable—with a lot more nuance than we are usually given credit for.

I would also observe, by the way, that 90 percent of all private

health-care plans give access to contraception. We are talking

about a very narrow band and for very specific purposes here.

Mr. DAVIS. Anyone else?

Rev. HARRISON. We are all for medicine for women. In fact, I

have spent years of my life working with relief and development

and charitable organizations providing specifically services to

women. So we are all for medications that help women. We are just

not for using certain medications to end pregnancies.

Mr. DAVIS. I think the—

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. I was just going to add, in our setting,

because we are a free church, the use of contraception, the contraceptive pill for instance, is a matter of Christian liberty. So that

is, the use of the pill is a matter of Christian liberty.

Mr. DAVIS. I think there are perhaps some people who get a bit

confused when they try and sort out what the most rational, logical

approach might be, especially if we are trying to improve health

care and if we are trying to provide the best health-care delivery

system. And so we see numerous health experts who recommend

the use of family planning as part of preventive care for women:

the American College of Gynecologists, the American Academy of

Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics—

Chairman ISSA. I would ask that the gentleman have an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. DAVIS [continuing]. And the American Public Health Association.

So my 15-second question is, if a woman who worked for one of

the institutions that you might be associated with had need for

these services as a health measure, what would your position be?

Should she receive them? Should she get them?

Chairman ISSA. You can answer briefly. Anyone who wants to

answer can answer briefly. Time has expired.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Congressman, if you as a legislator or the

administration or Health and Human Services sought to provide
97

greater preventive care, seeking in an initiative to prevent illnesses

among women or men, and that was the focus, none of us would

be here today. We are not here because we wish to in any way hurt

preventive care of anybody. And you absolutely could have done

that, and the administration could have done that.

We are here today because the administration is showing insensitivity to the liberties of conscience of some faith communities in

America, not necessarily in this case, my faith community, but that

is the insensitivity being shown here. And that is why we are all

here today.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

And thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

And, with that, we go to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.

Kelly, for 5 minutes.

Mr. KELLY. I thank the chairman.

And I would like to just yield 15 seconds or so to Ms. Buerkle.

Ms. BUERKLE. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Just briefly, because it was just raised, the issue of access to

health care, on Monday of this past week I toured a very prominent, wonderful Catholic hospital in my district and talked with

administrators. And they are a self-insured program. And she said

to me, ‘‘If this rule continues to be enforced, we will have to drop

our self-insurance. All of our employees will have to go into contract with an insurance company, and it will dramatically raise

their costs.’’ So I think that is one of the unintended consequences

of this rule.

I yield back, and I thank you.

Mr. KELLY. I thank the lady.

And, all of you, thanks for being here today, because this is a difficult situation for a lot of people across the country. And I think

it was Dr. Mitchell that talked about trust and truth. And I have

a habit every time I get into these meetings anymore of going to

get some definitions of what ‘‘truth’’ and ‘‘trust’’ are. ‘‘Truth’’ is

nothing more than sincerity in action, character, and utterance.

‘‘Trust’’ has to do with assured reliance on the character, ability,

strength, or truth of someone or something.

And this hearing today is about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and a government that continues to intrude on our private

lives in ways that we may not agree with and certainly don’t agree

with in many, many ways, shapes, and forms.

In the area of the country where I am from, there is an old saying that goes something like this: Fool me once, shame on you; fool

me twice—no—shame on me. And I think we have reached that

point in the most transparent administration that we have ever

seen.

There is one thing that is very clear to me: Transparency has

nothing to do with any of this. We take bad policies and when we

can’t shove it down the public’s throat, we take the package back,

re-wrap it in a little different color paper, put a little different bow

on it, and say, ‘‘Do you like me better now?’’

So I have a very difficult time sitting here in these hearings and

getting beyond what it is we are talking about. We are talking

about the Constitution, and we are talking about a President
98

whose former job at the University of Chicago, he was a professor

of constitutional law. So I find it difficult to understand how the

Constitution only has relevance on certain days and at certain

times and only if it really appeals to something I am trying to push

that day.

So we have come to ‘‘constitutional niceties’’ and ‘‘constitutional

convenience,’’ and what we have done, we have turned our back on

freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and, again, a government

that is too overbearing.

So, in light of all that—and, Your Excellence, if we could start

with you, any of you. Because of the transparency—let me ask you,

did anybody in the White House or Secretary Sebelius or anybody

from the Department of Health and Human Services ever seek

your input in any of this language? Your Excellency?

Bishop LORI. Not on this latest rounds of rules, no.

Mr. KELLY. Okay. Previously?

Bishop LORI. We certainly had the opportunity to comment.

When the interim final rule by HHS came out in August 2011, we

had the opportunity to comment. Massive numbers of comments

were sent in. As is well known, the President met with Cardinaldesignate Dolan, and so there was certainly a meeting at that level.

But then before the final rule came out last Friday, there was no

prior consultation.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. KELLY. Yes, I will.

Chairman ISSA. But on the earlier promotion of what now is

known often as ObamaCare, you were well consulted. There was an

outreach to get support for that, wasn’t there?

Bishop LORI. When the underlying bill itself was being debated,

we certainly had the opportunity to weigh in, and we did.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. KELLY. Okay.

Any other Members of the panel?

I mean, I really am concerned, because we talk all the time about

this transparency and collecting from around the country from the

best minds available. And then it seems to me, we sit back and say,

‘‘Well, you know, we talked to them. You know what? They don’t

agree with us, so we are going to kind of dismiss that and we will

go forward.’’ And that is the thing that I think is more disturbing

than anything else. I, for one, as just a regular American citizen,

am trying to figure out—and I think I know the answer. And I said

earlier, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

I am not going to be fooled anymore.

Reverend or Rabbi, anybody that wants to weigh in on this, because if any of you had any input or are aware of any input that

was taken seriously and not just given some kind of a massage?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. I am not aware of any input other than

what the average citizen would have.

But I also have to say that those closing comments in my statement, that the administration’s accommodation was no accommodation at all, were written several days ago before I learned that on

Friday the final rule had no accommodation. That seems to me not

to reflect good-faith efforts and trust.

Mr. KELLY. Rabbi.
99

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. I would just refer, Congressman, to a series

of questionings that took place on the other side of the Hill. When

Senator Hatch asked Secretary Sebelius about not only whether

they had originally, in designing these guidelines, looked into the

concerns of religious communities but also to the constitutional and

legal issues of religious freedom, and the answer was quite remarkable.

Mr. KELLY. Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. I am not aware of anybody asking about

this, but, you know, when you consider that the President taught

constitutional law at the University of Chicago, you would kind of

think that this would have been the first thing he would have considered.

Mr. KELLY. Yeah. Well, like you, I am tired of being gamed.

I want to thank you all for being here. I want to thank you for

speaking.

And also, my bishop, Bishop Zubik in Pittsburgh, and Bishop

Trautman in Erie have been very clear about how they feel about

this to everybody that they can talk to.

I appreciate you coming forward. I appreciate your bravery. And

we continue to battle for the same things, and that is the defense

of our First Amendment. Thank you so much.

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman’s time

has expired.

We now go to the gentleman from Missouri for 5 minutes, Mr.

Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And this is obviously an issue that provokes strong reactions on

all sides. And that, unfortunately, can lead to overstatement, exaggeration, or even to say disingenuousness. It is sad to see the discourse reach such a low point, especially considering the respected

and esteemed institutions that are participating in this discussion.

And I want us to be able to work together on this and other similarly critical issues that we face. I want us to try to agree on goals

and then try to work together to achieve those goals. And I think

that is what our constituents hired us to do. In fact, I know that

is what my constituents from St. Louis hired me to do. But the

rhetoric and verbal bomb-throwing on all sides keeps us from even

talking about those goals, much less how to achieve them.

And so I am disappointed. I am disappointed in some who suggest that the Catholic Bishops’ stance represents something sinister, that it is an attempt to deny all women of any faith access

to any contraception or reproductive health care of any kind no

matter where they work. And I don’t think that is the case, and

I certainly hope that is not the case. And it is unhelpful to advance

that argument if we want to work together.

I am disappointed in those who claim that the administration

has an agenda: to increase abortions, sterilizations, and contraceptive use by Catholics. And the facts don’t back that up, not in the

slightest. And it is not only unhelpful, it undermines what I believe

to be a legitimate argument the Church can make about religious

freedom.
100

But most of all, I am disappointed in this committee. Once again,

rather than have a reasoned, equitable, and transparent examination of an important issue, we have a politicized and unbalanced

hearing. Once again, we see an unfair attempt to score political

points against the President and this administration.

And, you know, I did not support the initial narrow exemption

that was announced on January 20th. As a Catholic, I did not believe it took into account the full extent of Catholic health care and

social services nor of Catholic social teachings. And I am very

pleased that the President expanded the exemption. The new policy

provides the widest possible health-care coverage for all Americans,

and it allows Catholic institutions to continue their faithful work

in the service to education, health care, and charity.

And, Mr. Chairman, I urge all sides to continue to work toward

reaching the goal that I know most Americans share, and at least

some in this room do as well, and that goal is to provide the broadest possible access to health care to all Americans while respecting

the genuine freedoms that our Nation guarantees to everyone. And

I strongly urge all sides to exercise decency and respect for one another, even when we disagree most fervently. We should not sacrifice one set of principles in our struggle to uphold another.

And, at that point, Mr. Chairman, I have no questions, but I

would like to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from

Maryland.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Bishop Lori, I am so—I am sitting here, and I am trying to—first

of all, I am going to associate myself with the words of the gentleman, Mr. Clay.

But help me with this. If there is a woman—and, see, I am trying to—you mentioned practicality a little earlier. If there is a

woman who is, say, working for a Catholic entity and she comes

to you and she says, you know, ‘‘I want contraception; it is something that I want’’—and I have read surveys where it said 98 percent of women, Catholic women, use contraception—I am just curious, what do you say to her?

Bishop LORI. When somebody comes aboard to work for the

Church to begin with, the teaching is clear, the mission is clear,

the teaching of the Church in all of its nuance is set forth, and the

terms of the plan are clear.

Let’s be clear that contraception is available in many different

ways. Sometimes a couple in that condition, in that situation,

might access it through a spouse’s plan. But 90 percent of all

health insurance plans include it. Plus, there is Title X; plus, there

are clinics. It can hardly be said that this is unavailable. It is available very, very widely.

The issue here is forcing the Church to provide it directly or indirectly in contravention of the Church’s teaching. And that is what

we don’t want to do. It is one thing that tax dollars pay for it; it

is another thing when Church dollars pay for it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Chairman ISSA. We now go to the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, for 5 minutes.

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
101

I want to do something that we don’t have a chance to do very

often in Congress, which is actually to apply the facts to the law.

Secretary Sebelius said her mandate, ‘‘strikes the appropriate

balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access

to important preventative services.’’ Now, I can find the free exercise of religion in the Constitution. You don’t have to read very far

to find that. I can’t find the constitutional right to free preventative

services. So what she is seeking to do is to balance something that

cannot be taken away from you with something that the Constitution doesn’t even provide to you.

But I want to do this, I want to go through the law. It is a very

simple analysis.

Number one, does this mandate impose a substantial burden on

the free exercise of religion? Yes or no? Does this mandate impose

a substantial burden on the free exercise of your religious beliefs?

Bishop LORI. Yes, we believe it does.

Mr. GOWDY. Reverend Harrison.

Rev. HARRISON. That is why I am here.

Mr. GOWDY. Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOWDY. Rabbi.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. It imposes a substantial burden on the religious freedom and religious beliefs of many Americans.

Mr. GOWDY. Okay. All right. Check.

Second part of the analysis: Is there a less intrusive means of accomplishing a compelling State interest? Let’s take them backward.

What is the compelling State interest in providing free contraception? It is available to 98 percent of the people in this country.

Heck, there are some cities and States that will provide it for free;

just show up.

So the notion that there is a compelling State interest in providing what is already available—and then go to the second part,

is there a less intrusive means of providing that? I have not heard

a single one of my colleagues say that they are going to submit a

bill which pays for this themselves. I have not heard a single one

of my colleagues offer to pay for it themselves. They want you to

do it.

Yes, sir?

Bishop LORI. We would say that it is not a compelling governmental interest. If it were, there would be no such thing as grandfathered plans. If it were, that these plans that have existed until

now with exemptions would not have been allowed to do so. And

so we do not think there is a compelling government interest, because there are still, under the current law, far too many exceptions for the government to be able to make that argument.

Mr. GOWDY. You are right, Bishop. So even if this administration

were to rewrite the Constitution, as has been known to happen

from time to time, to find within the penumbra of the Fourth

Amendment this right to free—not a right to preventative services;

our friends on the other side of the aisle misapprehend the point—

a right to free preventative services, it still doesn’t pass the less intrusive aspect of this constitutional analysis.

So, with the law out of the way, then we can get to the sheer

politics of this. I couldn’t help but smile when my friend from Mis-
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souri encouraged us all to not score political points. I couldn’t help

but think, ‘‘Gosh, this is an election year. I wonder if I ought to

provide free preventative services to over half the voting population.’’ Huh, I wonder if that is what he meant by scoring political

points. If you want to do it, that is fine. Don’t do it through the

First Amendment of the Constitution.

I would say this in conclusion, then I want to give time to my

friend and colleague, Mr. Mick Mulvaney.

Bishop, would you rather close down your hospitals and your

schools than to comply with a governmental edict that violates your

faith?

Bishop LORI. We are not going to violate our consciences.

Mr. GOWDY. Reverend Harrison, you have already spoken with

respect to civil disobedience. I believe you said you would sooner

go to jail than violate your conscience.

Rev. HARRISON. Yes, I would, clearly.

Mr. GOWDY. Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. I would like to be in his cell.

Mr. GOWDY. We will try to work that out.

Rabbi.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Freedom of conscience and of religion, Congressman, is the first and most sacred of American liberties.

Mr. GOWDY. Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. This is not the kind of thing that we can

afford to play with. This is essential to our country.

Mr. GOWDY. Well, just so everybody understands what is going

to happen, these guys are either going to go to jail because they

won’t violate their religious beliefs or the hospitals and the schools

are going to close, which means government is going to get bigger

because they are going to have to fill the void that is left when you

guys quit doing it. And maybe that is what they wanted all along.

I apologize, my time is up.

Chairman ISSA. I am afraid you just lost a friend, Mr. Gowdy.

Your time has expired.

Mr. GOWDY. Apologies to my friend from South Carolina.

Chairman ISSA. As is appropriate, I now ask unanimous consent

that the statement and this paper by Martin Luther King be placed

in the record in which he says, ‘‘There comes a time when one must

take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular because

conscience tells one it is the right thing.’’

With that, we go to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly,

for 5 minutes.

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you.

You know, I criticized the policy coming out of the Department

of Health and Human Services because I thought that some of the

critics, including critics of my own denomination, had a point. And

I thought they had misstepped, and I urged the White House to

correct the problem. I believe, like millions of Americans, that they

did correct the problem.

And I believe today’s hearing is a sham. And I believe—I have

to assume each of you gentleman came here in good faith, but surely it has not escaped your attention that you are being used for a

political agenda. Maybe you are willingly being used, I don’t know.

I don’t know what is in your heart.
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Here you are, being asked to testify about your rights being

trampled on—an overstatement if there ever was one—while you

are on a panel and your participation on the panel makes you

complicit in, of course, the trampling of freedom, because we were

denied, on this side of the aisle, any witness who might have a differing point of view.

Chairman ISSA. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, sir, I will not.

And I think that is shameful. I think it actually contradicts exactly what you think you are here to testify about. And I think it

taints the value of this panel that could have been a thoughtful discussion but it is not.

This is a panel designed, with your conscious participation or

not, to try one more time to embarrass the President of the United

States and his administration by overstating an issue which is sacred to all Americans, religious freedom. But, of course, in order to

do it, we have to, in an almost Stalinist-like fashion, have signs of

Democratic icons to rub Democratic faces in it, as if those icons

would be on the same side of this dispute today. But since they are

all deceased, it would be hard to gainsay that.

And so I say to you, as a member of this committee who actually

shared the concerns you say you have last week, that I think this

is a shameful exercise, and I am very sad you have chosen to participate and be used the way you are being used, just as you were

in the previous questioning, as if people are going to jail over this.

Shame. Everybody knows that is not true. Catholic Hospitals supported the compromise. They are not afraid of closing down hospitals in America.

If we want to have a legitimate debate about, you know, where

is the right boundary, let’s have it. But overstating it and making

charges that are just outlandish and, frankly, beyond the pale

serves no purpose other than political demagoguery in an election

year. And men and women of the cloth, it seems to me, ought to

run, not walk, away from that line.

I now yield to my colleague from Connecticut, Ms. Rosa DeLauro.

Ms. DELAURO. I thank my colleague for yielding to me.

I think that one of the pieces of information that hasn’t been discussed here today at all, quite frankly, is that, in fact, there is an

exemption for the Catholic Church, other houses of worship, for the

Catholic Church and the synagogues, for mosques, there is an

exemption—

Chairman ISSA. If the gentlelady will suspend, the gentleman

cannot leave the room while yielding to another Member. Would

you please remain?

Mr. CONNOLLY. One second.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman has yielded back his time.

We now go to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Farenthold.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is

standing right there.

Mr. CONNOLLY. I am right here.

Chairman ISSA. Oh, the gentleman has returned. Is the gentleman going to remain, please?

Mr. CUMMINGS. He was standing right there.

Ms. DELAURO. Right here, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Let the lady—

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady—

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let the lady talk.

Chairman ISSA. The gentlelady may continue.

Ms. DELAURO. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. And

I also appreciate the opportunity to be here today. And I know I

am not a member of this committee, so I appreciate that. But I also

appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak in this forum.

The fact of the matter is that the churches, synagogues, mosques,

other houses of worship are exempt, as are their employees. Let us

state the facts on that. And most recently we had a Supreme Court

decision that upheld the opportunity for those houses of worship to

be able to hire whomever they want, so that the church is exempt,

their employees are exempt.

Understand that what we are talking about here today—and I

will speak about the Catholic Church as a provider and as an employer. And the fact of the matter is, as a provider, nothing

changes. The conscience clause, all of that is intact. You cannot dispense, prescribe, use a contraceptive service if that is so your

choosing.

But, in fact, the church is an employer. And as an employer, and

now particularly under the accommodation that was made that

there has to provided for people who work for that entity to be able

to get insurance coverage that includes the recommendations of the

Institute of Medicine, which is a medical independent research

body that was asked to come up with what are the essential preventive services that women would need for health care. And

amidst them, amidst them, there is contraceptive coverage.

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Ms. DELAURO. Not churches or hospitals—

Chairman ISSA. We now go to the gentleman from Texas, Mr.

Farenthold.

Ms. DELAURO. Talk about abridging freedom of speech.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I understand that this is an issue that everyone is incredibly

passionate about. It is the First Amendment to the Constitution,

the one that I think our Founding Fathers considered most important because they put it first. And I can understand why everybody

is passionate and concerned about this issue.

Quite frankly, I believe the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act is unconstitutional to begin with. The attorney general of

my home State, Texas, along with numerous others, have filed suit

in the Supreme Court, and I am optimistic that the Supreme Court

will hold the entire act to be unconstitutional.

But add to this the mandate that the Church provide and pay

for services that they are opposed to brings it in contradiction to

the First Amendment, as well. And that is a double strike. It

makes it, I guess, even more unconstitutional, or doubly unconstitutional.

But I did have a question for Mr. Lori. I wanted to follow up with

something some Members of the other side asked. I am the product

of Catholic middle school, Catholic high school, and Catholic law

school, so I guess I have had 4, 5, 6, 9 years of Catholic education.

And unless the nuns got it wrong, the Catholic Church does not
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have a problem with the use of contraceptives for medical purposes.

So I would assume from that it wouldn’t be morally objectionable

to the church to pay for those for medical purposes.

I am not trying to put you on the spot. I am just trying to make

sure I understand where the Church stands.

Bishop LORI. That would be my understanding also.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And there are numerous organizations, both

federally and private funding, that make available free or low-cost

contraceptives throughout the country. I am sure you are aware of

that?

Bishop LORI. Yes, that is also my understanding.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So we have a mandate here that really is a lot

of much ado about nothing. If it were carefully crafted, the chances

of somebody not being able to get the care or, for that matter, the

optional contraceptives that they desire is, for all practical purposes, nil?

Bishop LORI. Those services are very, very widely available, and

what we are talking about is a very narrow band. It is clearly a

minority opinion or a minority view, but we think it is one that

ought to be protected.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I think we are at a point where we are trampling on the Constitution for no real reason.

I also had the opportunity this week to meet I guess with your

friend Bishop Mulvey from Corpus Christi. He sends his regards.

And, you know, what we kind of talked about is how this really is

a moral issue. Religious freedom—being told what to do is an intrusion on these freedoms. And the issue is religious liberty.

And maybe this is more of a rhetorical question than it is an actual question, but I will open it up to the panel. Today it is contraceptives; where do we go next? I mean, what are we opening the

door to when we start trampling on these liberties?

And, again, I will call it a rhetorical question, but if any member

of the panel would like to comment, I would welcome it.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. Well, this was a question I asked before.

Where does it end?

I think that we are clearly hollowing out the idea of religious liberty by going in this direction. And you can—it is one of just

many—a death of many cuts. And if you can keep on finding reasons to reduce it, people will. And so I think that there is a real

danger here.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I think you will find—did you have something

to add, Your Excellency?

Bishop LORI. It is at the level of principle. If the Church can be

dragooned into providing these objectionable services, then the door

is open to other objectionable services down the road. So it is

breaching a principle.

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And I go back to, a lot is accomplished in this

government one step at a time or incrementally. And we need look

no further than the fact that you can practically smoke nowhere.

First, you had to be in a section of the restaurant. Then you

couldn’t be in any section of the restaurant. Then you couldn’t be

in your office building. Then you had to be outside. Then you had

to be 25 feet from the door outside.
106

And when you open the door to this, regardless of what you feel

about cigarettes or not, it is illustrative of how the government operates: one step at a time. And I urge us to be very cautious as we

start to take away what is one of our fundamental freedoms.

I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

We now go to the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Lankford.

Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. This is not something probably you anticipated a year ago, to think, ‘‘Gosh, wouldn’t it be

great sometime in 2012 if I could go be on a congressional hearing

and just get berated publicly? Wouldn’t that be just so fun?’’ So I

thank you for being here.

And for Dr. Mitchell from Southwestern, I am a Southwestern

graduate. It is an honor to be able to have you here. I did not know

that you were attending, a Southwestern leader as well. So it is an

honor that you are here as well and to be able to represent an institution that I am also an alumni of.

I have been fascinated to be able to hear the testimony of what

this hearing is about. I have heard this hearing is about trying to

prevent women from getting contraceptives and women’s health.

That is not what this hearing is about. That is a twisting off, to

try to say that this is about some barbaric group trying to limit access of women to health. That is not what this hearing is about.

I had the implication that this hearing is about the fact that government is more compassionate than the church, that they care

more about people than the church does, and that there are obvious

needs here and the church is so out of step with culture that they

don’t know the issues of medication, and so the government is more

compassionate.

I have even heard that this is about whether you will be jailed

or not. It is an interesting comment to realize that there is a fine

coming down on your organization of multimillions of dollars if you

don’t behave according to the administration’s wishes.

Now, that creates an interesting conversation we might be able

to have at another moment, in that all of you represent nonprofit

institutions; is that correct? Do you pay Federal taxes? No. None

of your institutions, because you are a nonprofit institution.

Do you realize the administration has said publicly numerous

times that the penalties involved in the President’s health-care

plan are not penalties, they are fines—I am sorry, they are not

fines, they are taxes. Well, if that is so, my recommendation to

you—of course, I am not an attorney—if these penalties are to be

considered taxes, not penalties, and you are a nonprofit organization that pays no taxes, perhaps these things do not apply to you,

then, because you pay no tax.

Now, if they want to argue in front of the Supreme Court that

these are penalties, not taxes—which apparently they are set up in

March to argue that they are taxes and that they have the power

to tax—then it will be interesting to see how the administration

splits that hair, as well.

I have heard today that this is an attack on the administration,

about religious liberties. Well, I don’t agree, though there are areas

that we could discuss about Hosanna-Tabor and the administration
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fighting all the way to the Supreme Court to try to be involved in

the hiring of ministers, which the Supreme Court, in a rare 9–0,

disputed the administration and said ministers have the ability to

be able to hire—or churches have the ability to be able to hire ministers as they choose. We could discuss how the Army is choosing

to try to go in and edit the sermons of their chaplains.

But today this hearing is about, can this administration or any

administration say, ‘‘I know your doctrine, but I have a different

doctrine, and you will change your doctrine to my doctrine or I will

fine you?’’ That is what today is about. Can any administration

step into a church and say, ‘‘I disagree with your doctrine; you will

change it to mine?’’

Now, I have a historical question for that. And, Dr. Mitchell, I

am going to pick on you because I am a Southwestern grad, as

well.

In 1800—this was referenced earlier—Thomas Jefferson wrote an

interesting letter to Danbury Baptist, actually, and made a reference that has been used over and over again about the wall of

separation between church and state. He was assuring Danbury

Baptist that the State would not go after the church in its doctrines and its teachings.

Am I correct or incorrect on that?

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. Yes, you are correct.

Mr. LANKFORD. Would you like to allude to any of that at all,

about that particular letter that has been referenced a lot?

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. Well, the intent was to protect the church

from the State.

Mr. LANKFORD. From the State. Not protecting the State from

the church.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. That is right.

Mr. LANKFORD. So, the other Dr. Mitchell, do you want to comment on that, as well?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. I would. And I should disclose that I am

also a Southwestern Seminary alumnus.

Mr. LANKFORD. Well, we are loaded here. This may be the first

time in congressional history that three Southwestern grads are in

the same room.

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. In our offices at the Ethics and Religious

Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, there is

a portrait that hangs above the fireplace of John Leland, who was

the Baptist minister who had entree to that discussion with the

Danbury Baptists and our early founders. Religious liberty is a

Baptist principle through and through, and I am happy to say we

have had, historically, a contribution to make in that area.

Mr. LANKFORD. Was that doctrine intended, again, to—or was

that letter intended to say to the folks at the Danbury Baptist Association, ‘‘We will make sure as a Federal Government we are not

intruding on your religious rights?’’

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. Yes, sir, that is absolutely right.

Mr. LANKFORD. Any other comments on that before I yield back

my time?

With that, thank you, gentlemen, very much for being here. I am

honored to be able to have your time here and to be able to be here

to express this on this key issue.
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With that, I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman yields

back.

We now go to the gentleman from Arizona, Dr. Gosar, for 5 minutes.

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

You know, first of all, I have always been one of personal accountability and personal responsibility. So when you go trampling

on the Constitution, you get the full regards of the Constitution. I

am tired of politicians and constitutional attorneys picking and

choosing the language of which they want to disdain for the Constitution to show that it upholds.

We have referenced the letter from the Danbury Baptists, and I

think it is appropriate that we go through the full context so that

it is part of the record, and so I would like to recite it. This is from

a letter of Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists on January 1, 1802.

And he says, ‘‘Gentlemen, the affectionate sentiments of esteem

approbation which you are so good as to express toward me on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded

of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more

and more pleasing.

‘‘Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to no other for his

faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government

reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign

reverence that act of the whole American people which declared

that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

‘‘Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the Nation in

behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man

all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

‘‘I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing

of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association assurances of my high respect

and esteem. Thomas Jefferson. January 1, 1802.’’

With all due respect, when the President asked for a problem, he

is just like any of us, he is a man, he is right and he is wrong. He

has stepped into this, he has made it a problem. And who better

than another President, Thomas Jefferson, to set the record

straight?

We need to start looking at the full context, not picking and

choosing the simple words that we want to utilize to support ourselves. We need to get back to the doctrine and understand the full

discourse of how we look at the separation of the First Amendment

and religious freedom. And I am tired of people picking and choosing, because when we look back at history, the constitutional scholars who say that they represent it do more damage than they do

support.
109

And, with that, I would like to yield to my good friend from

South Carolina, Mr. Mulvaney.

Mr. MULVANEY. I thank my colleague.

And very briefly I want to try and expand this conversation a little bit. We have heard a lot of discussion today about Catholic hospitals or Jewish charities, but it strikes me that we should extend

the conversation into the private sector, as well.

And I would suggest to you, and I ask Reverend Harrison, for example, if I am a devote Lutheran businessman and I have 75 people working for me, am I not as aggrieved as the church is if I am

forced to offer these particular services to my employees?

Rev. HARRISON. I think, in fact, you are, as a matter of fact.

And even as you said that, I can think of a wonderful family that

has treated its employees like gold for its entire existence. Employees love to work at this large organization that I am thinking of.

And yet these are very devote people who absolutely loathe acting

against their consciences.

Let me—at the risk of taking some of your time, Mr. Congressman, I really loathe the partisan nature of this discussion. Ninetyeight percent of what I do, what the Missouri Synod does, is completely bipartisan. We represent a large church body. The constituents are in some way evenly divided between Democrats and Republican. We do not operate in a partisan way.

I also stand at an alter regularly to administer the sacrament.

And in the prayers of the church, I pray personally for the President, his wellbeing, and the wellbeing of our Nation. I personally

get on my knees every single morning in my office and I pray for

the President of this country and this government.

Luther bids us in a Small Catechism defense, ‘‘Speak well of him

and put the best construction on everything.’’ I know this is a different game here; this is hardcore politics. I am here for one reason. I am here because there is a narrow but very significant provision in the HHS provisions that is, I believe, very dangerous to religious people with our kind of convictions. And I believe it is also

dangerous to any religious people who have unique convictions. So

that is why I am here.

Mr. MULVANEY. Reverend, ordinarily we are very protective of

our time here. I thank my colleague for yielding it to me. And I

can assure you that I have never been more pleased to yield it to

someone else. So thank you, sir, for your comments.

With that, I yield back.

Rev. HARRISON. My apologies.

Chairman ISSA. We now go to what I believe will be the last of

the members of the committee, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr.

Walsh, for 5 minutes.

Mr. WALSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And thank you all for enduring this last couple of hours.

My friend from Virginia said this hearing is a sham, and he and

I may agree on that, because for the life of me I don’t know why

you all had to be called up here in front of us. Our Founders placed

you and your concerns on this issue on a higher standing than we

all are. So there is a big part of me that wants to apologize to each

and every one of you for having to be here.
110

This is not about women. This is not about contraceptives. We

know—you have said it, we have said it up here—this is about religious freedom, this is about religious liberties. We could be talking

about anyone, a Republican or Democrat who doesn’t want to serve

in a war because of their religious preferences. We could be talking

about a Muslim hospital that doesn’t want to serve a particular

food in their hospital cafeteria because of their deep-seated religious beliefs. So let’s put that aside.

Thomas Jefferson was referenced. We all famously know that

Thomas Jefferson requested three things on his tombstone: the father of the University of Virginia, the author of the Declaration of

Independence, and the author of Virginia’s bill of establishing religious freedoms. And in that bill, he said, ‘‘To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which

he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.’’

John Garvey, who is the President of the Catholic University of

America, who I believe will speak in the next panel, put it perfectly. He said, Consider these two health policies—consider these

two insurance policies. Policy A, an employer is required to provide

its employees health insurance that covers birth control. Policy B,

an employer is required to provide its employees health insurance.

The health insurance company is required to cover birth control.

As he says, and it almost made me laugh, I can see where someone could disagree with both of those policies or agree with both

of those policies, but for the life of me I don’t understand what the

difference is between those two policies, and I don’t know how you

can agree with one and disagree with another.

I have a father in Saint Mary’s Catholic Church back in Woodstock, Illinois, who told me last week that after the President’s attempt at a compromise, he is even more disappointed. As he said,

it looks like an accounting gimmick. First, it was an insult to our

liberty. Now, it is an insult to our intellect, as well.

Did any of you—maybe I missed this earlier on our panel—support ObamaCare in its beginning, 2 or 3 years ago?

Bishop LORI. The Catholic Church is on record as supporting access to health care since 1919.

Mr. WALSH. Agreed. Did you support this legislation?

Bishop LORI. We supported the principle of universal access, but

we did not support the bill and all of its particulars.

Mr. WALSH. Reverend.

Rev. HARRISON. It is our religious policy, believing there is a

strict separation between the two kingdoms, the religious and the

governmental, that our church shouldn’t be spouting off on every

government issue. So we took no official position on—you guys do

a great job of that.

Mr. WALSH. Okay. Spouting off.

Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. No, as Baptists, we don’t take a position

as a denomination per se. But no one, either, has recommended or

commended—

Mr. WALSH. Rabbi.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Religious people on both sides of the aisle

can agree or disagree on larger questions of health care, but both
111

should be extremely distressed when the religious freedoms of anyone in America is threatened.

Mr. WALSH. Dr. Mitchell.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL. As the previous Dr. Mitchell said, the

Southern Baptists don’t take official positions on this, but—

Mr. WALSH. Okay.

Mr. CRAIG MITCHELL [continuing]. We weren’t for it.

Mr. WALSH. My time is running out. I have two quickies.

Rabbi, why do you think the President—give me a 20-second answer—is pursuing this so vigorously?

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. I really—I asked the same question. And I

just don’t understand why he is seemingly so—in this situation, the

President and the administration just do not seem sensitive to the

religious concern—

Mr. WALSH. Okay. Just as my time runs out, let me quickly rephrase the question my good friend from South Carolina asked. At

the end of the day, if it comes down to listening to your God and/

or listening to your government, where are you going to fall?

Rev. HARRISON. Thomas Jefferson, I have his Bible from the

Smithsonian, the famous Bible he cut all to pieces. And I would

have something to say against some of the bits he took out, but he

did leave in Matthew 22. ‘‘They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith

he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are

Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.’’

Mr. WALSH. Is it safe to assume that that is where all of you

would fall?

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. And I would add, Congressman, since you

mentioned the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, of which Jefferson was rightly so proud and to which Jews and all Americans

have a great debt to him for that, I don’t remember the exact text,

but after establishing religious freedom, the actual bill that he

composed concludes by saying something like, ‘‘And if any other

legislature does seek to limit this freedom, we are hereby stating

that they do so in contravention of natural right.’’

Mr. WALSH. Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentleman.

If I could ask our panel, would you remain for just 10 short additional minutes for the last two Congressmen that we had by unanimous consent?

With that, the gentlelady from Connecticut is recognized for 5

minutes.

Ms. DELAURO. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and also

the ranking member.

I just want to express my view on the new guideline. I think that

in releasing national guidelines for preventive health coverage by

28 States before them that includes contraceptive services but a

whole variety of other services as well, the administration made a

strong and long overdue stand on behalf of women’s health, and at

the same time upholding the religious liberty of churches, mosques,

synagogues, and related institutions.

Last Friday—and even though, as I said earlier, the guidelines

exempted churches and other houses of worship, as it should—I believe in that exemption—the President provided more flexibility to

charities, to hospitals, and to other kinds of religious organizations.
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Hospitals are not just providers but employers. As providers,

nothing has changed. They do not have to prescribe, dispense, provide for any contraceptive services. As an employer, there are kinds

of employer regulations on the books that faith-based institutions

are bound to respect. Suppose someone decided not to pay the minimum wage. Would we accept that?

Now, just further, one note, is that the constitutional issue, constitutional expert David Boies, who appeared on TV last week, said

there really isn’t a constitutional issue involved in this issue. The

First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits establishment of religion, meaning that you can’t have the government saying that

you have to follow certain religious beliefs, and guarantees free exercise. That means everyone is free to exercise the religion they

choose. There is nothing in the Constitution that says that an employer, regardless of whether you are a church employer or not,

isn’t subject to the same rules as every other employer.

I have a particular question that I would like to ask, and this

is about, actually, contraception as a medical treatment. As I was

preparing for the hearing today, I was contacted by people who

wanted the committee and the public to understand that contraceptives are often used to treat potentially life-threatening diseases.

Let me just give you a couple of examples.

We heard an account from a woman in Kentucky, and she said,

‘‘Birth control for me isn’t about preventing conception. I have to

take the pill because endometriosis runs in my family. When I was

5, I watched my mother suffer a massive hemorrhage because of

the disease. My doctor put me on the pill to stave off the disease.

To me, birth control means preserving my fertility and my life.’’

This woman may not be able to have children later if she does

not take this pill for medical reasons. It is medical reasons.

We heard from a number of doctors. One account from a doctor

in Chicago: ‘‘My patient is 45 years old. She has four children. She

suffered a stroke 2 years ago. To prevent future strokes, she needs

to take a blood thinner. Her condition is complicated because she

experiences heavy bleeding. An IUD is the safest option to reduce

that bleeding. Her husband works as a facilities engineer at a large

Catholic hospital. His insurance will not cover contraception for

any reason.’’ An employer’s refusal to cover this necessary medication creates a hardship for her. It is about $1,000 in the cost for

that medical device.

I am going to give you a personal example. I am a survivor of

ovarian cancer. This March will be 25 years. There are so many

studies—I am not a doctor, I am not a scientist, but there are medical studies today that show—and we can give you all the citations—that women who do take the pill have a much lower risk of

developing ovarian cancer: after 1 year of use, 10 to 12 percent

lower. After 5 years of use, 50 percent lower. Over 15,000 American

women died because of ovarian cancer just last year. I am alive because of the grace of God and because of biomedical research.

And I just have to ask each of you, are you morally opposed to

allowing women who work in your facilities, many of whom are

non-religious, non-whatever the denomination—they were not hired

for a religious purpose. Are you opposed to allowing them to take
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a pill or to get an IUD in cases where their lives depend on it and

when we know that it could lower the risk of ovarian cancer?

Chairman ISSA. The gentleman lady’s time has expired, but—

Ms. DELAURO. I have 25 seconds left, according to my clock here.

Chairman ISSA. Actually, you are 29 over.

Ms. DELAURO. Oh, I am sorry.

Chairman ISSA. No problem.

But you may answer her question.

Rev. HARRISON. I would like to respond that our health plan will,

in fact, cover contraceptives used for such health reasons.

And let me also say, Martin Luther said one time, ‘‘Doctrine is

heaven, life is Earth.’’ I was an inner-city pastor for quite a while.

Spent a lot of time in slums all over the world. And these ears of

this pastor have heard every possible situation and malady of life

you could ever imagine.

We have principles that guide us as Lutherans. We know that

those principles meet real life and the real lives of people are hurting, and we accommodate wherever we can. We are not rigid kooks.

We care about people, and that is our business.

Ms. DELAURO. And this rule accommodates women’s health services as well as religious liberty.

Chairman ISSA. I thank the gentlelady.

Ms. DELAURO. Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. Anyone else who wants to just answer her question briefly?

Bishop.

Bishop LORI. Sure. Let me just say that people who come to work

for us, whether it is the diocese or Catholic Charities or a university, they are coming to be part of a mission. These things are not

side businesses; they are part of our mission.

And, second, our Catholic moral theology, as I have indicated,

recognizes that the same drug can be used for different purposes

with different effects, and our plans reflect that. So we should be

given credit for the nuance and the understanding that we have already brought to the table. All the more reason for the government

not to move in and try to force our hand now.

Chairman ISSA. So it is basically true, to the lady’s question, all

of you, to the extent that you are involved in health care, would

provide health care for the reasons that did not go directly against

your faith, such as the Bishop said.

Ms. DELAURO. As this rule does not go against anyone’s faith. It

provides an accommodation—

Chairman ISSA. We now go to the gentleman from South Carolina for 5 minutes.

Mr. MULVANEY. And I thank the chairman and the ranking

member and the other members of the committee for the opportunity.

I am not a member of this committee, and I do value this chance

to ask very briefly, follow up on the question I was speaking on a

few minutes ago, which deals not with the impact of this bill, not

necessarily just the exemption, but the bill on men and women of

religious conviction who own and operate businesses and have employees.
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And I encourage you gentleman, each of you, to consider that and

when you leave here today to contemplate that, as well. Because

that infringement of religious freedoms existed before the current

discussion about the HHS rule and, even assuming a satisfactory

resolution of religious exemptions for religious organizations, will

exist after that resolution.

Men and women of religious conviction were put in this position

at the very initial passing of this law, and even if religious organizations are ultimately exempted in a way that you gentlemen

would find acceptable, I would put it to you that members of your

congregations will still be similarly situated, and still be put in the

same condition.

That being said, and finally, I have a request, specifically directed to Your Excellency Bishop Lori, but also to the rest of you

gentlemen as well. There were various organizations that I felt

were very accurately described today by colleagues on the other

side as having supported bits and pieces or all or part of this legislation when it was originally debated several years ago. And I

would encourage each of you to consider the possibility that using

a secular Federal Government to help advance religious principles,

regardless of how admirable they might be—I’m familiar with the

Catholic social justice teaching and doctrine, but to use the Federal

Government to accomplish those things may in both the short run,

as we are learning today, and in the long run be unwise. And to

paraphrase many politicians, many great thinkers from the beginning of this country up to recent times, I would suggest to you gentlemen, all, that the Federal Government that is big enough to give

to you all of the social justice that you pursue is also big enough

to take from you all of the religious freedoms that you have.

And with that I yield back, and I thank the chairman.

Chairman ISSA. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. MULVANEY. Happily.

Chairman ISSA. As we come to a close, I don’t want to extend the

time any further. I just want to sort of give you one opportunity,

because there was an allegation that we were conducting a sham

from this side of the dais. I will deal with that one in my own way,

but your comments on the opportunity you have had today, and

whether or not the committee has been fair to your opportunity to

have your views, and whether you would do it again if asked to

come for a similar hearing.

Basically, do you think this was a sham relative to your side of

the dais? Bishop.

Bishop LORI. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to

testify.

I’d just say that I bring to the table a commitment to religious

freedom and to the church’s social teaching that goes well beyond

the next election cycle. If there is one thing the Catholic Church

can do, it can sort of think for the long haul. We are a long-haul

church, and what we recognize is that if the principle of religious

freedom is breached now, it’s not going to be around for the long

haul. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I got up at 3:15 this morning.

Chairman ISSA. Before anyone else answers, I do have to put my

plug in. I have no bishops. I’m not a Roman Catholic. My sister
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Peggy, at Siena Heights College in Adrian, Michigan, would feel

that it was appropriate that you know what a great job that Catholic University did in at least getting me to this limited position I

now hold.

Anyone else want to comment?

Mr. C. BEN MITCHELL. Mr. Chairman, religious liberty is not a

partisan political issue, in my view. It is the foundation of liberal

democracy grounded in human dignity in the image of God and humanity. Therefore, I will happily, as the bishop said, get up at 3

a.m., if necessary, and defend the principle of religious liberty and

freedom of conscience before a Republican audience, a Democratic

audience, or an Independent audience, or anyone else. It is who I

am. It is my committed belief, and I believe it should be protected.

Chairman ISSA. Rabbi.

Rabbi SOLOVEICHIK. Chairman Issa, I thank you for having us all

here today. The notion that we are here to push a political agenda

could not be more untrue.

I would just note, one of the Representatives referred to the icons

being held up as Democratic icons. I just want to say as a religious

American, as an American, and as an American clergyman, that

someone like Martin Luther King, Jr., is not a Democratic icon or

a Republican icon; he is an American icon, and that’s because we

all as Americans care about liberty and equality as the two great

pillars of what America is all about.

You asked, would we come here again? I would certainly come

here again, but I hope that I don’t have to, because—not because

we haven’t enjoyed your hospitality, but because I hope that the

administration realizes that they have made a mistake, and that

they return us as a country to the principles of liberty that has

guided this country for hundreds of years.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

I want to thank all of you. We are going to quickly take a recess

and set up for the next panel, and many of them are now on short

fuses. So thank you all. We will be back in about 3 minutes.

[Recess.]

Chairman ISSA. We will now hear testimony from our second

panel of witnesses. And with that, I would note that Professor John

Garvey is president of Catholic University of America. And because

we have run quite late, we will be taking his testimony, then if

there are any specific questions for Mr. Garvey, we will take them

out of order, then Mr. Garvey will remain as long as he can as the

other panel go through their testimony. This is an accommodation

that I hope you all understand.

And our second witness will be introduced by the gentleman from

North Carolina.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. William Thierfelder is the president of Belmont Abbey. He is

the 20th president of my alma mater, having served in that capacity since 2004. He is a licensed psychologist; had a distinguished

career not only as an NCAA Division I athlete, but an Olympian.

He and his children live in the suburbs of Charlotte in Gastonia,

my hometown, and, most importantly, he is the husband of—to

Mary. And so I’m very proud that he is here today, and thank you

for the work that you have taken on at Belmont Abbey.
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Chairman ISSA. There is an advantage to having a detailed introduction.

With that, we recognize also Dr. Oliver, who is president of East

Texas Baptist University. I’m sure there will be other alumni

there.

Dr. Garrett is senior vice president of the academic affairs at

Oklahoma Christian University, previously mentioned.

And Dr. Laura Champion is medical director of the Calvin College health services.

And is Barry Lynn here? Barry Lynn was invited by the committee; apparently is not here. Would you please remove the name?

And with that, pursuant to the rules of the committee, we will

swear in our second panel. Would you please rise to take the oath,

and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman ISSA. Let the record indicate all witnesses answered in

the affirmative.

Please take your seats, and as previously announced, Mr. Garvey, you are up first.

STATEMENTS OF JOHN H. GARVEY, PRESIDENT, THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA; WILLIAM K. THIERFELDER,

PRESIDENT, BELMONT ABBEY COLLEGE; SAMUEL W. ‘‘DUB’’

OLIVER, PRESIDENT, EAST TEXAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY; ALLISON DABBS GARRETT, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS, OKLAHOMA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY; AND

LAURA CHAMPION, M.D., MEDICAL DIRECTOR, CALVIN COLLEGE HEALTH SERVICES

STATEMENT OF JOHN H. GARVEY

Mr. GARVEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks

to the committee for inviting me to speak here today. I am the

president of Catholic University of America.

Let me say a couple of words about the January 20th final regulation that the Department of Health and Human Services has promulgated, and then a word or two about the February 10th revision.

On January 20th, HHS announced a rule that requires most

health insurance plans to cover with no copay sterilization procedures and prescription contraceptions including pills that act after

fertilization to induce abortions. The rule includes a fairly narrow

exemption. It doesn’t cover colleges and universities like my own.

It doesn’t cover religiously affiliated hospitals and health care systems, or religious social service organizations like Catholic Charities.

Consider the effect that this rule has on the Catholic University

of America, my institution. We teach our students in our classes

that marriage is a sacrament in which spouses share in the creative work of God. We teach that it is wrong for couples to close

themselves off to the possibility of life. We teach that abortion is

a grave wrong, and we reinforce these messages in the work of student life and in campus ministry, in our student organizations, and

in the daily interactions of faculty and staff with students.
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The rule forces the university to violate its convictions in two

ways. First, it requires the university to pay for drugs and procedures that we view as morally wrong. A few minutes ago the Congressman from Illinois referred to a provision in Jefferson’s bill for

religious liberty. Let me quote again what Jefferson said. Jefferson

said that, ‘‘it was sinful and tyrannical to compel a man to pay for

the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves.’’ How much more

evil to compel financial support for putting those opinions into

practice? The regulations order Catholic University to become the

provider of contraceptives, sterilizations and abortions for its students, faculty and staff.

Second, the rule forces us to deny one part of our operation what

we affirm in another. We teach our students in our classes, in our

sacraments, and in the activities of student life that sterilization,

and contraception, and abortion are wrong. The rule requires our

staff to offer these very services to our students as part of our

health insurance program. It makes hypocrites of us in our moral

teaching.

In response to widespread criticism of the rule, the President last

week announced a scheme that was designed to allay concerns

about religious freedom while still providing the same services to

all women affected by the final rule. The proposed solution is this:

When religious institutions like Catholic University object to including mandated services in their health plans, our insurance

company will provide them.

It’s hard to see how this revision changes the picture. Greg

Manchu, an economics professor at Harvard University, makes this

observation: Ultimately, he said, all insurance costs are passed on

to the purchaser. So I cannot see how the February 10th revision

is different in any way from the final rule other than using slightly

different words to describe it.

In both cases the Federal Government orders us to buy an insurance policy. In both cases the policy must cover mandated services.

In both cases we pay the bill. The only real change is that the insurance company, rather than the university, notifies subscribers

that we cover contraceptives.

The administration suggests that there is a difference because insurance companies will discover that their costs actually go down.

Wider contraceptive use will mean fewer pregnancies and lower indirect costs like productivity losses. If there are no added costs, the

implication is, Catholic University won’t really have to pay for the

mandated services.

What if I called this the shazam theory? It resolves the intrusion

on religious liberty by making the compelled contributions magically disappear. But there are two problems with the theory. One,

I suspect that the proposed cost savings are imaginary and not

real. We do know that mandated services have a cost. Senators

Shaheen and Murray and Boxer have estimated the cost of contraceptives alone at $600 per woman per year. These costs will certainly be included in the price of our insurance policy. The insurance companies haven’t hesitated in the past to cover the cost of

things like gym memberships that actually do save money. They

haven’t done this yet with contraceptives. Maybe they haven’t yet

discovered the hidden savings in the administration’s shazam the-
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ory. But I worry that this is a case where politicians have made

a bet that they cannot with the private market, and the stakes

they are playing with are our religious freedom.

I said there were two problems, and the second one is this. From

a moral point of view, the cost savings don’t really matter even if

they are real. Suppose, just to take an extreme, an imaginary example, the administration believably could reduce overall health

care costs by covering infanticide by young mothers who found

their children a burden. And suppose that HHS devised a plan

under which the necessary drugs would be charged to Catholic University’s account. Would we have no moral objection to that plan

if the government could show that it saved us money? The point

is that we shouldn’t be forced to pay for activities and processes

that we think are immoral.

I think a more likely explanation for the rule is that HHS is acting on a political agenda about how women should live their sex

lives. The February 10th announcement discloses this agenda in

fairly plain terms. Here is what it says: ‘‘A broader exemption,’’ the

announcement states, ‘‘would lead to more employees having to pay

out of pocket for contraceptive services, thus making it less likely

that they would use contraceptives, which would undermine the

benefits described above.’’ HHS might wish to increase the rate of

abortions and sterilizations and contraceptive use by students and

employees at the Catholic University of America. It has shown a

desire to conscript the university and its insurer in the service of

that agenda. But it is our religious belief that these activities are

wrong, and we think that a decent respect for the principle of religious liberty should leave us free to act on our belief.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Garvey follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Thank you, and as promised, I will recognize myself. I’m only going to take 1 minute.

Just to review. If you—if you save money by some procedure that

you find morally wrong within the teaching of your church, you

still wouldn’t do it.

Mr. GARVEY. We certainly wouldn’t.

Chairman ISSA. And if the government determines there is

money savings by this procedure, you, in fact, shouldn’t be forced

to do it on behalf of saving the government money.

Mr. GARVEY. The Catholic Church is not alone in teaching and

believing that it is wrong to do an immoral act in order to save

money or achieve some other desirable end.

Chairman ISSA. And the previous panel said, basically, Caesar

can do it if Caesar wants to; just don’t have us do it for Caesar.

So, let me just ask the question. Since Planned Parenthood receives

huge amounts of money, contraceptions are given out at Federal

and State level at no cost to people regularly, hasn’t government

already, under the Secretary’s auspices, determined that they are

giving out contraceptions? I’m not going to talk about all of the procedures, but contraceptions. They already give it out at government

expense to people who apply for it in most, if not all, areas. So in

other words, the Secretary’s $600 saves money. She is already

doing that with government money, isn’t she?

Mr. GARVEY. The controversy that we are discussing today is

sometimes presented as a conflict, or a contest, or a dispute, or a

weighing of the rights of religious liberty on the one hand, and the

rights of reproductive freedom on the other hand.

Chairman ISSA. Yeah, but I was—

Mr. GARVEY. Let me emphasize that our objection—we are not

here objecting to the fact that—I mean, women who attend Catholic University are still free and able to purchase contraceptives and

these other services. The fight is about whether we should have to

pay for it.

Chairman ISSA. Well, exactly, but you already pay for it through

your taxes. We all pay for it through out taxes if government gives

it away. The fact is that government is already doing something

that this rule is telling you to do, even though it is objectionable

to your basic tenets of faith; is that right?

Mr. GARVEY. I think so.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

Anyone else have questions for our first witness? He is going to

remain as long as he can.

Go ahead, Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one question. President Garvey, is your objective to the payment, or the fact that an employee or students are

receiving these services at all, or both?

Mr. GARVEY. We are here today because we object to the second,

not the first. There are other ways of solving this problem, and we

might very well object to them. For example, here is—here is a solution that doesn’t interfere with our religious liberty. The government itself could provide these services to young people and to employees at no cost to either us, or the employees, or our insurer.

We would object to that as well, because we believe as a Catholic

university that it is part of our concern to attend to the moral for-
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mation of our students, but that’s not an objection about our religious liberty.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. All right.

I just wanted to enter into the record, Mr. Chairman, a list of

Catholic schools in 20 different States that currently offer some

form of health care insurance for contraceptives.

Chairman ISSA. Without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Mr. Quigley. You had a quick question.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Sure. In the previous panel, Doctor, the question

was, there is also legislation that we are discussing that would

take this exemption to all private-sector employees as well. Would

you—do you support that? I mean, do you believe that the private—if an employer of a large corporation, the owner of a large

corporation or a small one, has the same moral objections that you

do, do you think that we should be able to force them to provide

contraception?

Mr. GARVEY. First of all, Congressman, I appreciate the promotion. I’m not a real doctor. I’m a lawyer.

Mr. QUIGLEY. I’m sorry. I can’t—I can’t see the signs from here.

I apologize.

Mr. GARVEY. Would I take the same position with respect to private institutions’ or private employers’ religious objections? Yes, I

would. That would leave us in no worse position than we are before

the passage of the regulation, and I think that private individuals

and not just churches and religious institutions have rights of religious freedom.

Mr. QUIGLEY. So, the question comes, how far do you take that?

To those other people’s—we represent people of all faiths. Many

disagree with this, and they believe that contraception is perfectly

okay. At what point do you lose control over them that—you know,

besides perhaps an assistant professor’s wife that is employed?

What part of the bargain is there for all manners of university toward this end? Never mind—never mind in the private sector. How

far do you go with your beliefs influencing millions of other

women?

Mr. GARVEY. That is a—that’s a really important question, Congressman. And let me suggest that this body has provided the perfect answer to that question. When you passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, you said that rights to religious freedom

should not be indefeasible; that there are some occasions when

they have to yield. But what the government has to show in order

to defeat a claim of religious liberty is that the government has a

compelling interest in doing what it’s doing, and that they are employing the least restrictive alternative to interfere with the religious freedom. And the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that I’m

referring to applies to private employers no less than religious institutions.

Mr. QUIGLEY. But in the end someone has to make that choice.

Mr. GARVEY. Yes, they do. Congress has made that choice for us.

Mr. QUIGLEY. And I understand, but we make these choices all

the time, and some of them are difficult. I mean, some of them are

obvious. I have the example of this Louisiana justice who refused

to marry interracial couples because, as he said, I found out I can’t

be a justice of the peace and have a conscience. That was his belief,

his heartfelt religious belief, however horribly misguided.

We said today a minority even of one matters, and we can’t trample their religious beliefs, you know. Where do we draw the line

with someone like this? Where do we draw the line with others

whose faith is just as important to them, Christian Scientists and

others who don’t believe—and other groups that don’t believe in

transfusions, you know? If they have a health care clinic, or a hos-
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pital, or other faith—it just seems so out of sync for us to imagine

that that would be okay. But if you follow the same stream of

thought, there is really not that much difference from what you are

professing today; projecting your faith, which I deeply appreciate

and respect, on others, millions of women who have some right to

make those choices that don’t actually work in the church.

Mr. GARVEY. Let me just say one more time, Congressman, that

we are not trying to impose our beliefs on our employees or our students. The question that we are discussing is whether the university should have to pay for activities that it views as immoral.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you. And it is going to be a full 5 minutes

for Members later.

Do you have something briefly? Please, go ahead. The gentleman

is recognized.

Mr. MCHENRY. I, like the chairman, I actually have just a couple

of briefs questions.

Mr. Garvey, what’s the name of the institution where you serve

as president?

Mr. GARVEY. The Catholic University of America.

Mr. MCHENRY. And what church are you affiliated with?

Mr. GARVEY. The Catholic Church.

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. And when employees seek employment

from your institution, are they aware that you are affiliated with

the Catholic Church?

Mr. GARVEY. Yes, they are. As part of the—as part of the hiring

process in the first place, before somebody is hired, we have a discussion about the mission of the university. As part of the intake

of new employees in the human resources department, we give

them a statement of the university’s mission, and they need to

check off that they have—that they have received it and actually

support the mission of the university.

Mr. MCHENRY. And you adhere to the tenets of the Catholic

Church?

Mr. GARVEY. Yes.

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. So my point here, Mr. Chairman, is a very

simple one; that individuals seeking employment from the Catholic

University of America go in understanding the tenets of the

church, and, therefore, the adherence that the institution must, you

know, follow, and the tenets the institution must follow, and so if

they don’t like that, if they choose to go somewhere else regardless

of their faith, they have that free will to do that.

And so with that, I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I think the gentleman—I would gather that the

rules of the Catholic Church are not new or unknown to others,

and I think you said that very well.

With that, we will continue on with our witnesses.

Doctor.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM K. THIERFELDER

Mr. THIERFELDER. Yes. Members of the committee——

Chairman ISSA. Did you get the mic?

Mr. THIERFELDER. Thank you. Sorry about that.

Chairman Issa, Ranking Member Cummings, members of the

committee, my name is Dr. Bill Thierfelder. I am the president of
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Belmont Abbey College, and I greatly appreciate you taking the

time to listen to my really grave concerns about this health thing

and service mandate.

Maybe to better understand who we are and why this issue of

religious liberty is so important to us, let me just begin with the

first sentence of our vision statement, which says: Belmont Abbey

College finds its center in Jesus Christ. Our mission is to educate

students in the liberal arts and sciences so that in all things God

may be glorified. In this endeavor we are guided by the Catholic

intellectual tradition and the Benedictine spirit of prayer and

learning. Emphasizing Benedictine hospitality, we welcome a diverse body of students, and we provide them with an education

that will enable them to lead lives of integrity, to succeed professionally, to become responsible citizens, and to be a blessing to

themselves and others.

Our Benedictine tradition, which is guided by the rule of St.

Benedict, which is really a scripturally based guide for how to live

in community with one another, chapter 53 of that guide is on the

welcoming of guests. We welcome each guest in persona Christi, as

Christ, and we do that regardless of someone’s faith or background.

We say, come on in. We love you. That’s who we are.

If you have never seen our campus, I, first of all, would invite

you all to come. And I would love to have you over, and have a cup

of coffee, and get to know you better. But if you have been to our

campus, it’s beautiful. You will see the red brick, Gothic-structured

buildings that are there. And when those monks first arrived there

almost 136 years ago, there was nothing on that property but two

shacks with holes in the roofs. Those monks literally dug up the

red clay, formed them into bricks, dried them in the sun, and

placed those bricks there over 130 years ago. So this integration of

our faith and the mission of the college, is even more visible when

you just see the buildings, the layout of the campus itself.

When you drive up the main drive, we have a basilica, which is

our church. By the way, some of that funding came from St. Katharine Drexel. That church is actually connected to the monastery

where we have the monks that live at Belmont Abbey. Connected

to the monastery is actually the main administration building

where my office is. So to demonstrate here that our integration, the

sense of who we are as Catholic, and our mission as a college can’t

be separated. It’s essential to who we are.

And now our struggle for religious liberty really began in earnest

about 4 years ago when we were investigated for discrimination by

the EEOC because we did not provide abortion, voluntary sterilization and contraceptives in our health care plan. When the mandate

was announced, we had a heightened sensitivity to this issue because we viewed it as really another tactic, in this case maybe an

extreme tactic, to coerce us into providing services that we find

morally objectionable.

Abbot Placid Solari is the head of the monastic community. He

is also the chancellor of Belmont Abbey College. He and I meet regularly. We speak all the time about matters of the college, and so

when this came up, we obviously discussed the mandate when it

first came out in August. And really at his urging and leadership

we both agreed that the best course was to take a defensive action
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by filing a lawsuit against the Federal Government, which was no,

you know, small thing for a little place like Belmont Abbey College

to do, but we thought that was what we needed to do at that time

based on our experience.

We presented the idea to the board of trustees, who unanimously

approved the action, and with the help of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, we filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health

and Human Services. The response of Kathleen Sebelius was somewhat bewildering to us. We could not figure out what a year extension had to do with the issue that we were faced with. Basically

no amount of time would make the morally objectionable mandate

somehow acceptable to us.

Then, most recently, the President held a press conversation to

offer what I believe was a fatally flawed compromise. The reason

I say this is that the President does not have the right or the authority to take away someone’s religious freedom. And therefore,

when talking about or offering a compromise, I don’t understand

how he can give back something that he had no right to take in

the first place.

So in this particular case, we specifically do object to being coerced into providing contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs into our health care plan. But make no mistake, as

important as those are to us, the underlying principle here is about

our religious liberty. I believe you will discover that there are tens

of millions, if not more, of Americans of all backgrounds and all

faiths who are thinking just like we are, and I believe that they

will not budge an inch on this issue.

I think there can be no compromise when it comes to our right

to religious freedom and right to conscience, and so I’m here today

to ask for your help. This is an issue worth dying for, and many

have. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice in order to preserve

this right. So please ensure that every American’s right of conscience and religious freedom is fully protected.

Thank you for considering my plea, and God bless you and all

of your good work.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thierfelder follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Dr. Oliver.

STATEMENT OF SAMUEL W. ‘‘DUB’’ OLIVER

Mr. OLIVER. Good afternoon, Chairman Issa, and Ranking Member Cummings. I appreciate your invitation to share my concerns

about the serious threat to our religious liberty. My name the Dub

Oliver, and I serve as the president of East Texas Baptist University, a Christ-centered university founded in 1912.

I would like to raise four main points during my testimony today.

First, East Texas Baptist University has a religious objection to

this mandate, and this mandate violates our constitutional rights.

Baptists in America, by virtue of our history, are particularly sensitive to coercive government actions that infringe upon our religious liberty. America’s first Baptist leader Roger Williams had to

flee Massachusetts and found a colony in Providence, RI, because

his religious beliefs were not tolerated.

But it is not just about us. Baptists are alarmed whenever any

religious group’s rights are threatened. As the famous Baptist

preacher George W. Truett once said: ‘‘A Baptist would rise at midnight to plead for absolute religious liberty for his Catholic neighbor, for his Jewish neighbor, and for everybody else.’’

I would be testifying here even if this mandate only affected my

Catholic neighbors, but I must point out that this is not just a

Catholic issue. While many Christians do not share the Catholic

beliefs against contraception, there is wide agreement that abortion

is wrong. And we believe, based on the Bible, that life begins at

conception. The administration’s mandate covers emergency contraceptives such as Plan B, and Ella, which even this administration

admits interfere with the human embryo. Our faith and the most

recent science tells us that these drugs cause abortions, but under

the administration’s mandate, my university will be required to

buy insurance so that our employees can obtain these drugs for

free, as if there is no difference from these drugs and penicillin. We

believe that is wrong.

Second, we are offended that this administration says that we

aren’t religious enough to have our religious beliefs respected. Last

Friday the administration gave final approval to a rule that includes the narrowest definition of a religious organization ever to

appear in Federal law. ETBU does not qualify because we teach

and serve non-Christians. We accept students of all faiths and students of no faith. The President has now promised that he will

someday propose another regulation that will protect groups that

the government says aren’t religious enough for an exemption, but

are religious enough for some accommodations.

Why is the government creating different classes of religious

groups and assigning each group different rights? That is not the

government’s job. The First Amendment is designed precisely to

stop the government from this sort of picking and choosing.

Third, this is not about women’s health; this is about whether

the government can get away with the trampling on the rights of

religious organizations. It is ridiculous to claim that organizations

like mine don’t care about women’s health. As far as I’m aware, no

religious group objects to most of the preventative services in the

mandate. In fact, we already cover preventative services, including
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contraceptives, under our employee health plan. We simply object

to a few drugs which the government calls contraceptives because

we believe they cause abortion.

Additionally, I have heard it suggested that this mandate is necessary to increase access to contraception. The President said last

Friday that close to 99 percent of women use contraception. I don’t

know if that number is true, but surely if the President is quoting

this number, he knows there is no problem with access.

The issue is not about women’s health, it’s about religious liberty. It is about whether government will force religious people and

organizations to do something they believe is wrong. Everyone here

wants women to have access to quality health care. What we are

asking is that our religious views be respected.

To close, perhaps the most frightening aspect of this entire episode for ETBU is that we have no idea where this road will end.

Today the administration is trying to force us to provide our employees with abortion-causing drugs. What’s next? If the government can force Catholic monks to dispense birth control, what can’t

the government do? If the government can decide that ETBU is not

religious enough to have the right to religious liberty, what can’t

the government do? If this administration can just decide that religious beliefs are less important than its chosen policy goals, what

can’t it do?

These questions are alarming, and that is why people all across

the spectrum are joining together out of concern that this mandate

threatens to erode one of our most precious rights, our religious liberty, guaranteed to us by the First Amendment. I urge this committee and Congress to ensure religious liberty for those of us at

East Texas Baptist University and for all Americans.

Chairman ISSA. I thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Oliver follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Dr. Garrett.

STATEMENT OF ALLISON DABBS GARRETT

Ms. GARRETT. Chairman Issa and members of the committee, my

name is Allison Garrett, and I’m the senior vice president for academic affairs at Oklahoma Christian University. I’m here today because of my support for religious liberty. I believe in the rights of

institutions like Oklahoma Christian to decline to include in their

health care plan items or services that are contrary to their religious convictions.

Oklahoma Christian University is affiliated with the churches of

Christ. As a university affiliated with this group of Protestant

churches, we believe strongly in our right to practice our faith

without interference from the government. While we believe that

every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities, we

respectfully ask that you not force Oklahoma Christian to choose

between following our sincerely held religious beliefs or violating

Federal law.

We oppose the administration’s employer mandate requiring that

all health insurance plans cover abortion-causing drugs for four

reasons. First, covering abortion-causing drugs is objectionable to

many employers and plan participants. We have no concerns about

allowing our plan to cover contraception. Rather, our concerns deal

with the coverage of abortion-inducing drugs. The government

should not force institutions like Oklahoma Christian to offer a

health plan that covers abortifacients like Plan B and Ella. While

our views differs from those of our Catholic friends regarding what

our plans should cover, our views are exactly the same on whether

the government should be able to require individuals or institutions to violate their religious beliefs. The answer to that is no.

Second, the exemption is too narrow. As drafted, the exemption

applies only to churches, synagogues and mosques. It is clear that

it would not apply to religious institutions like Oklahoma Christian

University and hundreds of similar religious colleges, universities,

and other organizations. The exemption requires that an organization have the inculcation of religious values as its purpose. We

teach our students not just to be proficient as engineers, or historians, or writers, but to approach their disciplines from a Christian

world view. This is one of the reasons that I chose to leave a corporate career to work in Christian higher education. We incorporate our faith in everything we do at Oklahoma Christian, from

daily chapel, to prayer before intramural athletic events, to service

activities around the world, yet the exemption does not apply to us.

The exemption’s language is also too narrow because it applies

only to the group health plan offered by religious institution to its

employees. Universities typically offer a plan to students as well.

The student plan is offered as a service to students who are no

longer covered by their parents’ health insurance plans.

Third, reasonable alternatives to the employer mandate exist.

Nothing about the administration’s rule takes away women’s rights

to obtain contraceptives or abortifacients. This debate is not about

whether women have the right to obtain these drugs; rather, this

debate is about whether those who believe that contraceptives or

abortion-inducing drugs that violate their convictions must be paid
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for by them. There is a vast difference between the right to make

a purchase for oneself and requiring someone else to pay for it.

Fourth, the President’s announcement does not present a workable solution. The assurance of the administration that it would

work with religious organizations that sponsor self-funded plans in

the coming days to reach a compromise is too little assurance on

too great a matter. The President’s announcement does nothing to

alleviate the concerns of institutions sponsoring self-funded plans.

In addition, the employer must still communicate with the insurance company regarding who is covered, applicable dates of coverage, and similar matters. In other words, the employer’s involvement in arranging coverage of objectionable drugs is inescapable.

Forcing employers to cooperate in offering drugs or services that

they believe are morally wrong leaves these employers in the same

moral quagmire as the original regulations. We ask that the administration and the Congress overturn these regulations because

they infringe on our religious liberty.

Thank you.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Garrett follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. Dr. Champion.

STATEMENT OF LAURA CHAMPION

Dr. CHAMPION. Good afternoon, Chairman Issa and the other

members of this committee. Thank you for the mic. I appreciate

your invitation to share my concerns about the contraceptive mandate.

My name is Dr. Laura Champion, and I am the medical director

and a practicing physician for health services at Calvin College, a

private 4-year Christian college in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine in

1996, and I’m board certified in family medicine.

Today I want to share my concerns with you as a person who has

the responsibility to negotiate providing student insurance coverage and caring for students clinically. We are an institution

whose religious character and mission is central to everything we

are and everything we do. In order to understand our religious objection, you need to understand that we take seriously our faith

commitments, including our holistic student health services.

Since 1876, the Christian liberal arts college—this Christian liberal arts college in Michigan has built a sterling reputation for academic excellence, consistently ranked in the U.S. News and World

Report as a top liberal arts college. It is one of only four colleges

in the Nation to receive a Senator Paul Simon Award for Campus

Internationalization.

Calvin is fortunate to have a fully staffed health services department to serve the medical needs of our student body. We require

that each student have health insurance to attend our school. We

offer an affordable option for those students who enroll underinsured.

Great care is taken in crafting a student health plan to ensure

that it reflects the values and beliefs of Calvin College and the

Christian Reform Church. This student health plan covers all preventative care at 100 percent, according to the medical definition

of ‘‘preventative care.’’ We do not cover Ella or Plan B.

In health services, our health services clinicians write prescriptions that include female hormone contraception for varying reasons, including the prevention of pregnancy. However, abortioncausing drugs are not prescribed, nor are they covered in our

health plan. These agents are profoundly inconsistent with the belief system of our college and our religion. Requiring coverage of

abortion-causing drugs is a direct violation to the spiritual and behavioral standards that Calvin College expects of ourselves and our

students. It forces Calvin College to add these drugs to the formulary for our students, and it would violate our religious liberty.

To teach one set of values and beliefs and then provide abortioncausing agents for students would lack integrity. We challenge our

students to live out the values they believe. Our intent and purpose

is that our entire faculty, staff, and students are living examples

of believers trying to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. We

must ensure that our practices follow our belief.

Now, even when Americans hold vastly different views in the

sanctity of life, this mandate raises a point that should be examined by all: Does this country value religious freedom or not? Fur-
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ther, the mandate elevates contraception and abortive drugs to the

level of preventative health care. They are not. Plan B, and Ella,

should not be considered equivalent to cancer screening or vaccinations. Pregnancy is not a disease. This is a premise that I reject

both religiously and medically.

The recent White House accommodation purports that the President has the legal authority to recognize or deny religious liberty.

As Christians, however, we believe that these rights come from

God. And as U.S. citizens, we believe our Constitution affirms and

guarantees religious liberties. There is a limit to what the government can do to compel us or not to do. In the particular matters

of faith and conscience, it is in the best interest of all Americans

of every ideological stripe that this limit, this line not be crossed.

This is not about politics. This is not about contraception. This

is not about depriving women of health care. Rather, this is personal. This is about my daily life as a physician, a Christian, and

as the medical director. Will I be able to practice medicine within

my belief? Will Calvin College be able to continue its historic tradition of living out faith as it teaches? The government that is of the

people, by the people, and for the people should not force people to

violate their conscience.

Thank you, Chairman.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Champion follows:]
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Chairman ISSA. I will recognize myself. And although—Mr. Garvey, you are a Ph.D.; is that right?

Mr. GARVEY. I wish I were, no. But I’m just—I’m a lawyer. So

I have a J.D., but not a Ph.D. I didn’t write a dissertation.

Chairman ISSA. Oh, my goodness, and we were telling people to

treat you well here.

Let me go through this very quickly, and I know you have heard

I mean no disrespect on the first panel, so I will preface with that

same thing. Jesus didn’t practice here in the United States. He

practiced in the Holy Lands. And Mother Teresa, although she visited, she didn’t practice here in the United States. But as I understand correctly as to each of your institutions, if Jesus came with

his disciples to the United States and paid any stipend whatsoever

to his otherwise volunteers, he—because he administered to people

who were, I guess, not Jewish, and there was no Christianity per

se, and he didn’t require that they embrace his view of everything

in order to be healed or to be in any way administered to, he

wouldn’t qualify; he wouldn’t qualify for this exemption, would he?

Or, more importantly, Mother Teresa. She dealt with lepers. She

wouldn’t be qualified under this rule for an exemption because it

certainly wasn’t a church activity, even though it was compassion

at its highest level.

So let me reverse the question now that I have made the—gone

into ground perhaps beyond my training. If I understand correctly,

each of the institutions you attend, if you fire everyone who is not

of your faith and dismiss every student not of your faith, you would

qualify for the exemption, wouldn’t you? If you cloister yourselves

only in one faith, closing off the opportunity to provide for all, you

would qualify, wouldn’t you?

Mr. GARVEY. No. I’m really sorry to say, but the exemption is

even narrower than that.

Chairman ISSA. Oh, so basically—and so basically even if it is

only your faith, if you are only teaching your faith, even if you are

only working with people of your faith, and even if you only have

in attendance people of your faith, this exemption is narrower than

that?

Mr. GARVEY. That’s right. It is narrower than that.

There are two additional provisions. One is that our purpose has

to be catechizing or inculcating precepts of our faith, and we do

things besides that at our universities. The final and more important one is that we have to be one of those institutions, few in

number, that are exempt under tax law from filing a Form 990,

and that only applies to churches and synagogues, mosques, and

religious orders.

Chairman ISSA. So I just want to understand, and the ranking

member, I hope, wants to understand, so it’s only the narrow definition of a church, or a mosque, or a temple defined specifically as

a place of worship that’s exempt; otherwise, it’s not exempt——

Mr. GARVEY. Religious orders, priests and nuns.

Chairman ISSA. The convent would qualify.

Mr. GARVEY. And their integrated auxiliaries. It’s a—it’s fairly

narrow. You have—you have the right idea.

Chairman ISSA. So I was raised in two separate faiths. My parents agreed that we would suffer twice, and it served me well, but
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my father was an orthodox Christian, and my mother a Mormon.

So, you know, on Saturdays, we would go to the teachings of the

faith for Mormons. That wouldn’t qualify, because that wasn’t actually a church service, but they were teaching us.

At what point do we cross out of it? I just want to understand,

have they limited the definition of religion to be only inside the

sanctuary of the church itself? Is that essentially what we have?

Mr. GARVEY. Maybe the larger and more important point, as

Bishop Lori was saying in this morning’s first panel, one of the unfortunate things about the narrow definition of religion is that it

seems to confine religion to something that happens in church

when you are on your knees, and to ignore what all of our Christian and other religious institutions think are important.

But let me just stick with Christian institutions. The living out

of the beatitudes to feed the hungry, to give drinks to the thirsty,

to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, those are things that are not

considered religious activities, but they are the reason that most of

our health care and social service organizations exist. And then to

teach and spread the gospel to all nations is what our universities

do.

Chairman ISSA. Well, now you came here as experts, physician

and experts in the field, and that’s why we invited you here. But

let me ask just one sort of conjecture, or ask you to stretch a little

bit.

Ministers, priests, rabbis, clerics serve in our U.S. military for

purposes of religious outreach. If I understand correctly, we are

sort of saying, well, because it is not—their activity would not be

limited to just inside a church, but rather they counsel, they advise, they bring people solace, in fact, they go to the hospital and

visit people as they are dealing with the wounds of war, this definition is designed to be sort of ‘‘that doesn’t count.’’ That’s not religion in this definition.

Not related specifically to the medical procedures that our minority has talked about so endlessly, isn’t this definition one that

would begin to erode the very fundamental question of what is religious activity in America, and what is religious freedom?

Ms. GARRETT. There’s no question of that. The Federal Government obviously has a great deal of experience in writing exemptions for religious activity. Unfortunately, this is the very narrowest definition that we have seen. And all of our organizations

wrote to Health and Human Services when these regulations were

proposed, letting them know either individually or through organizations with which we were affiliated about our grave concerns

over this exceedingly narrow definition.

Chairman ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. Cummings, I might hope that you could get some women

onto your panel here to ask questions now that we have women

they were asking for on the first panel.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Dr. Garrett, let me ask you, what did that—you

said you all wrote—what did you say? In other words, you wanted

women—you heard Ms. DeLauro talk about her health issue, 25-

year survivor of cancer. What did you all say with regard to trying

to strike a balance that satisfies you?
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Ms. GARRETT. We, through an organization, Council for Christian

Colleges and Universities, with which Oklahoma Christian is affiliated, wrote both to Health and Human Services and then to the

White House regarding our concerns about the exceedingly narrow

definition, and also about the fact that these proposed regulations

cover not only contraceptives, but also abortion-inducing drugs,

and, of course, we wrote about our grave concerns over that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And if someone wanted to have a—needed contraceptives, how do you—how do you deal with that then, I mean,

if they wanted insurance with contraceptives in it; in other words,

that the contraceptives were covered?

Ms. GARRETT. Well, at our institution we offer contraceptive coverage.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so—so you had no problem with that?

Ms. GARRETT. Not with contraceptives. Our issue with respect to

what is covered is with the abortion-inducing drugs like Plan B and

Ella.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Doctor, you look like you wanted to say something. Did you? You were squirming a little bit.

Mr. THIERFELDER. Well, I——

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m trying to understand exactly what the concern here is with the administration’s policy. I understand that you

do not want to pay for a service that you have moral objections to

but you are not being asked to pay for.

Studies show time and time again that expanding access to contraception is either cost neutral or saves money. According to National Business Group on Health, a nonprofit organization representing large employers on health policy issues, the cost of adding contraceptive coverage to a health plan is more than made up

for in the expected cost savings. Likewise, when the Federal Government added prescription contraceptives to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, it found that this caused no increase

in the government’s premium costs. Actuaries that have studied

this issue have concluded that providing contraception is cost neutral.

Additionally, the administration’s accommodation allows employees to go directly to the outside insurance company and avoid any

interaction with the religious school or hospital itself. Under the

accommodation, none of the institutions you represent would be required to provide coverage precisely because of the administration’s

respect for your religious beliefs. Why is the accommodation not acceptable?

Mr. THIERFELDER. Because I don’t see it as being any different

than the original mandate. In other words, we still have a contract

with the health care plan, health insurer. The plan we have right

now is that we can carve those out and say we don’t provide those

services; however, with this new plan, we would be forced to have

an insurance provider that we would have to provide those services

to our employees. You are saying we don’t have to pay for it, but

somebody is going to pay for it, and being that it is our insurance

plan and our provider, we would be forced to pay them our premiums. They are going to then, supposedly for free, provide these

services to our employees, and—but I don’t see the difference between the two. In both cases our insurance provider would be cov-
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ering it whether the mandate was the original one or we have this

new exemption. RPTS COCHRAN DCMN HERZFELD [1:35 p.m.]

Mr. CUMMINGS. And if you did not see it in the premium, you

still would feel you are paying for it; is that it?

Mr. THIERFELDER. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Dr. Oliver.

Mr. OLIVER. I would say additionally, Mr. Cummings, that many

of us, like my institution, have self-funded plans so we are the direct provider. In that case there is no insurance company that can

absorb that cost. It is directly paid by us. And as I mentioned in

my testimony, we provide preventative health services for women,

including contraceptives. We are opposed to abortifacients, including Plan B and Ella, which are required by this mandate.

And I would further say in regard to the accommodation, with

all due respect to the administration, they said that there was an

accommodation, but the rule is exactly as it was published on August 1, 2011. Nothing is changed. There is just a promise that

something will change in the future.

Ms. GARRETT. I would like to add one other wrinkle to this, and

that is for all these employers, they will be required to be involved

in some manner, because they must provide a list of who is covered

as well as the applicable dates of coverage to the insurance company. So the involvement of the employers in assuring that women

have access to the contraceptive and abortifacient coverage is inescapable.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Dr. Champion.

Dr. CHAMPION. I understand that when you are asking if we are

no longer required to pay for it, if it takes it out of our clear conscience. And because I am specifically charged with the duty of designing and signing my name to the student health care plan at

Calvin College, when you force me—when a mandate forces me to

add in Ella and Plan B as part of our package, especially as a preventative package which would be 100 percent coverage, so we are

responsible for managing that cost, those—that my signature is

completely in discord with my belief system. So even if the insurance company can promise that they are not going to increase our

premium by adding this expensive medication to the plan, you are

still asking me to breach my religious liberty.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Mr. MCHENRY [presiding]. I thank the ranking member, and I

recognize myself for 5 minutes.

Dr. Thierfelder, thank you for being here today. I certainly appreciate your leadership of my favorite institution, my alma mater,

Belmont Abbey, and I appreciate your leadership in these tough

times for the institution and what you have taken the institution

through, as well as the monks and Abbot Placid as well. So just

a few basic questions just so we have this on the record.

You are affiliated with a Benedictine institution.

Mr. THIERFELDER. A Benedictine monastery, Belmont Abbey, yes.

Mr. MCHENRY. And as such, who is the decisionmaker about the

tenets of the faith?

Mr. THIERFELDER. Well, the Abbot Placid as chancellor ensures

that we are solid in terms of our mission. If you look at our articles
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of incorporation, the actual members of Belmont Abbey College,

Inc., are the professed monks of Belmont Abbey.

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. So truly when you describe the campus

with the monastery at the heart of it, that is the incorporated nature of it as well?

Mr. THIERFELDER. Absolutely. It is central to who we are. In

other words, the college is their apostolate. They came here. They

are living out their vocation through this apostolate called Belmont

Abbey College.

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. And since your founding, you have educated and helped and assisted non-Catholics?

Mr. THIERFELDER. I haven’t been here the whole time, but, yes,

that is what the monks have always done extraordinarily well.

They have always reached out. We are in Gaston County, and for

those who don’t know Gaston County, North Carolina, there is a

high rate of unemployment, there is a great deal of illiteracy and

so forth. We provide, I think, an invaluable service to our community. And our adult degree program is 70 percent women. And if

you looked at our total enrollment of the College of Belmont Abbey

College, you may think because we are a Catholic College, we must

be all Catholics there. Maybe about 40 percent of all of our students are Catholic if you include the adult degree program.

Mr. MCHENRY. But you are a Catholic institution?

Mr. THIERFELDER. Absolutely. And that is the whole point, and

that is why this is so devastating to us because our mission to

reach out. And as I said in my remarks, we welcome everybody as

Christ. It is like, come on in, we love you. And so for us then to

have to turn around and say somehow we can’t welcome you in or

you can’t be a part of our community is just averse to who we are.

Mr. MCHENRY. So, in essence, you are there as a result of the

monks and the mission of the monks.

Mr. THIERFELDER. This was a call. I was not in higher education.

I was in the private sector. I was in business. I was in sports medicine, sports law, and sports medicine and so forth. I came here, and

so did my wife and my family, because we really believe we were

called to be at this college, and that is why we are here is because

of that commitment. And I came because there was a Benedictine

monastery that had a college.

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. So basically what happens if this rule is put through? You are faced with a choice of either paying a $2,000

fine per employee——

Mr. THIERFELDER. Well, roughly right now for us the cost of this

would maybe be about $300,000 a year that we would have to pay.

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. And so you would either have to pay the

fine or act counter to your faith.

Mr. THIERFELDER. Which we can’t do. I mean, we just will not

violate our religious beliefs. So we will have to find a way, depending on what happens, to get through this. But one of them will not

be in any way sacrificing our moral convictions.

Mr. MCHENRY. So pay the $300,000 fine or simply close down the

college?

Mr. THIERFELDER. Well, you hope it would never come to that extreme. My hope is that there would be intermediate steps. The unfortunate part would be if it came down to somehow limiting health
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insurance coverage or not being able to provide it in the same kind

of way, I mean, that would be a terrible, terrible thing to do. I hope

we would never come to that.

I am confident that we won’t come to that, because I think hearings like this are made to maybe make these things better known

and have a discussion. And obviously there may not be a lot of discussion in here today, but I am sure people will be following this,

as I followed it, and my hope is that people will see the truth in

this and realize that we need to do something about this.

Mr. MCHENRY. Okay. So just for the record, how political are the

monks on campus, and how political has Belmont Abbey been in its

130-year tradition?

Mr. THIERFELDER. Not political at all. I mean, if you know Benedictine monks, they are very quiet, humble men that live and pray

together; that that is not what their—their interests and their life

is not about politics.

Mr. MCHENRY. So you have just been called to action based on

the actions of this administration and with the EEOC and now

with the HHS mandate?

Mr. THIERFELDER. This is really—as I said, I respect what the

ranking member, Congressman Cummings, had said. This

shouldn’t be adversarial. We are not trying to get anybody. We are

not trying to enforce our beliefs on anybody. However, our beliefs

are really important to us, and so all we are asking is that we are

not coerced into violating our religious liberty.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you, Dr. Thierfelder.

Dr. Champion, you’re the only medical doctor on this panel. So

the President said if you like the health care plan you have, you

can keep it. What do you say to that?

Dr. CHAMPION. Are you referring to the video we saw in the earlier panel?

Mr. MCHENRY. Yes.

Dr. CHAMPION. Right. If I was sitting in that audience, I would

have been applauding the President for his vision. But when we

mandate our Christian colleges and institutions to include abortivecausing drugs into their plan, and they have to answer to a higher

calling and choose to no longer carry that student health plan, then

inevitably we are limiting health care to students by closing down

those very campuswide health services that were previously providing excellent care to their students, and now the student no

longer can pick her favorite doctor, which goes against both promises he made on that video.

Mr. MCHENRY. Thank you.

My time has expired. Mr. Amash is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. AMASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for testifying today, but

I would especially like to welcome Dr. Champion, who is here from

Grand Rapids, Michigan, in my district, and from Calvin College,

which is my wife’s alma mater.

Dr. CHAMPION. You married well.

Mr. AMASH. Most of my friends went to Calvin College as well.

Dr. Champion, can you give us an example about how you make

decisions about the student health care plans at Calvin College and

how the mandate will affect your current plan?
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Dr. CHAMPION. Yes. So when I came to Calvin College this summer, I analyzed the student plan that was there. I learned that we

charge $15 for every visit. We have phenomenal state-of-the-art

physicians doing evidence-based care, yet Calvin chooses to subsidize their care by limiting the cost, even though we have a student plan that we do bill at 100 percent when they come in for preventative care. This is because we really emphasize the value of

being able to instill and educate and train.

When I analyzed the current plan, it showed that if she needed

to come in, for instance, for a sexually transmitted disease evaluation, we had to charge her $10 for a gyn exam, $5 for a wet mount,

and pretty soon the conversation for an underinsured student who

didn’t choose our plan would end up needing to be taken about the

money relationship to the cost of care. So I redirected that fee in

the next design plan to incorporate all of that in and redirect the

visit toward the clinician’s experience-guided evidence and not a

discussion about cost. So by changing the plan in those very specific ways, I am able to be a good steward of the limited plan we

can offer them.

When I learned that we have to add abortative agents and expand the coverage to include surgical sterilization, I am aware that

it substantially raises the premium because it does raise the risk,

even if a 20- or 21-year-old student never requests a tubal ligation

or vasectomy, because we have to add it into our plan.

So there are financial reasons for me to be a good steward of the

plan, but more importantly there are severe contradictions to my

personal religious beliefs by adding Ella and Plan B into the plan.

Mr. AMASH. And you are the only medical doctor on the panel,

so could you elaborate on why you are opposed to having birth control and abortifacients listed as preventative services?

Dr. CHAMPION. Right. Well, thank you for asking that, because

this is really important to me.

Preventative care defined by physicians has to do with anticipating future care by analyzing their past history. So you are asked

your social history, your medical history, what age you are. We use

your age to determine what your risk is. So a 50-year-old’s risk for

heart disease or colon cancer will help us help them determine

which preventative care screening they need.

When it comes to pregnancy, since it is not a disease, we are now

treating a concern for the patient, which we actually move into a

visit called diagnostic care. So the diagnosis is contraception counseling. We often will do it at our physical as a courtesy to her because she is so healthy, we don’t want to make her come back. But

it is actually not a preventative care service.

Outside of that, Plan B and Ella are not preventative at all, because they are actually a result of behavior where she is purposely

taking the medication to limit her risk for sustaining a pregnancy

that may have started a day or 5 before taking the pill.

Furthermore, when you talk about preventative care in a young

woman, the U.S. Federal Government did give us new recommendations in December 2010. They did it under the CDC, and

they asked physicians to step outside of whatever their Christian

or other values are and to start speaking to patients about preventative care when it comes to STDs. And they have required or
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strongly recommended physicians to now ask patients to limit the

number of lifetime partners and delay the onset of intimacy.

Those guidelines from the Federal Government are well within

preventative care measures, and I am happy to abide by them because they do follow my principles, but they are also scientifically

based and show that you can minimize STDs by giving this recommendation preventatively.

Mr. AMASH. Does the President’s so-called compromise make the

mandate any less restrictive on your ability to freely exercise religious and conscientious beliefs?

Dr. CHAMPION. When the President spoke on Friday, I had a

glimmer of hope that there was going to be an accommodation that

perhaps broadened his definition. But he really doesn’t have the

right to decide the definition of when it is against my conscience.

But what turned out to be in the written statement was no different than what he had presented us on August 1st of last year.

Mr. AMASH. Thanks so much.

Mr. LANKFORD [presiding]. Thank you.

With that, I yield to Mr. Murphy 5 minutes.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I know that the chairman of the full committee

is not here right now to answer this question, but I appreciate the

witnesses’ patience today. It has been a long day for both the committee, the staff and the witnesses. But we have been going round

and round on this question of what the scope of this hearing is

today and whether or not it is appropriate to have women who

have been affected by their inability to get birth control, have been

affected by their inability to get a full range of reproductive rights

to have their voices here today. And I think the minority, Democrats on this committee, have tried every means possible to try to

get that voice represented here today, and obviously we were astonished to find not a single female on the first panel.

So, Mr. Chairman, I know you are not ultimately making the decisions, that you are sitting in right now for Mr. Issa, but there

might be another way around this. We are having a hearing today

that effectively limits the ability of women to present their case on

why they deserve to have access to the full range of reproductive

health care if we can’t have somebody like Sandra Fluke testify

today about her medical condition and why access to contraception

is so critical to her health, if we are now approaching the last minutes of this hearing without the ability to hear the other side of

this debate.

There are two sides. I admit that there is a very important question about religious freedom, but is also a very important question

about women’s health care, and we have been told repeatedly today

by Chairman Issa and others that this is not the time, this is not

the day to debate that second question of the appropriateness of

the rule granting women access to the contraception no matter

where they work.

Maybe there is one last way out of this, which is to schedule a

second hearing, to have a second hearing that would allow us to

focus on the question of whether or not we are jeopardizing women’s health care by not having a strong rule in place to give them
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access to preventative health care services and reproductive health

care services regardless of where they work.

So I will pose the question to you, Mr. Chairman. Do you think

that the majority would entertain the notion of convening a second

hearing? I understand we probably might not even get a witness

at that hearing. Maybe we would get one, maybe we would get two

witnesses. But do you think that the majority would entertain the

idea of convening a second hearing to focus on this question of the

appropriate level of coverage——

Mr. MCHENRY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURPHY. Certainly I would yield.

Mr. MCHENRY. I would be happy to engage in this. But the title

of today’s hearing is ‘‘Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and

State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?’’

That was the question posed today about this hearing, not a

question about your access or anyone’s access to contraceptions.

That is a completely different subject. When the chairman—I am

sure the chairman would be happy to have the conversation with

you about future hearings and getting your input on that.

But I don’t think there is any movement afoot in Congress to ban

contraception. That is not what this is about. It is about forcing religious institutions with deeply held moral convictions to do something that is counter to their faith.

And with that, since I have taken so much time, I would ask

unanimous consent for 30 additional seconds for the gentleman.

Mr. LANKFORD. Without objection.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much, Mr. McHenry.

I think once you have waded into this debate and selectively chosen to only talk about one side of it, which is the ability of a religion to decide whether or not they provide a basic range of health

care benefits to their employees at a Catholic hospital or at a religious school, I think you have to talk about the second piece of the

debate.

I don’t think you can choose as a committee, I don’t think we

should choose, to only discuss one side of the debate. We thought

that that conversation should have happened today. We thought

that at least one witness should have told the perspective of a

woman struggling to get access to reproductive health care.

But having failed in that effort, I think that we should have a

second hearing. I know that we will have the deck stacked against

us again, and I appreciate the gentleman for offering the fact that

a discussion could certainly take place in the future. I think it

would be incredibly important to this debate and to this committee

to hear from women, to hear from women that are struggling with

this problem on a daily basis. And if that can’t happen today, then,

Mr. Chairman, I would submit it should happen at a hearing in the

future, hopefully within the next several weeks.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MCHENRY. Mr. Chairman, a point of clarification. There are

two individuals that are female on the panel here now, and I just

want to make sure the record reflects such.

Mr. MURPHY. I think, Mr. McHenry, that is duly noted. But we

have had nine witnesses. Two of the nine have been female. I don’t
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think that accurately represents the debate that is happening in

the public when you are talking about an issue relevant to women’s

health care. To have two of nine witnesses be females, I think, is

offensive to the dialog that is happening in the public, and I think

that we can remedy that if we come back and do this a second time

on the issue specific to the health care concerns of the millions of

women, the 99 percent of women, in this country who have used

or do use contraception.

Mr. LANKFORD. With that, the gentleman’s time has expired.

I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize, as I recognize myself for

the next 5 minutes of questioning time, to be able to comment on

that as well, Mr. Murphy.

The topic today is on religious freedom. The issue that came up

with this that the President stepped into the middle of was an

issue of religious faith. This is not an issue of limiting, though I

am quite aware that the media and that my friends on the Democrat side of the aisle are trying to make this into an issue to make

conservatives look like they are barbarians at the gate trying to

take away women’s reproductive health. That is not the issue. That

has been widely accepted. There are contraceptives available for

free all over the country in many locations. Contraceptives are covered in most of the health plans in America.

The confusing thing to the administration and to some individuals, and not saying Mr. Murphy is this way, is that people that

have deep religious faith, their faith extends beyond the walls of

the church. And to define you can have your religion as long as it

is within the church building completely violates the principle of

James 1:27, that true religion is this; that we watch out for the orphans and widows in their distress, and that we keep ourselves

from being polluted by the world. That is a basic tenet of Christian

faith.

Mr. MURPHY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LANKFORD. Let me finish, and I will try to yield you some

time.

To be able to say you can practice your faith in this building

here, but if you extend out to taking care of the orphans and the

widows in their distress, we are going to reach in as a government

and define for you how you practice your religion. As I mentioned

earlier in my earlier comments, the essence of this is can this administration or any future administration step into a church or

church-based institution and say, I know your doctrine; I have a

different doctrine; you will give in to my doctrine, or I will fine

you? That is what occurred.

Now, I understand the topic deals with something very controversial, but the essence of this conversation is can the Federal

Government step into a religious institution and redefine their doctrine for them. The real issue is who defines the doctrine and religious teachings and religious practice of the church.

I ask for unanimous consent for 30 seconds to give you an opportunity, and then I will finish up my questions.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Just to your first point, which is that contraception is widely

available, and thus we don’t need to have that perspective here and

we don’t need to have a second hearing, well, I don’t think a bunch
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of guys, a bunch of men, on this committee should be making the

decision as to whether contraception is available. And frankly, if

you had allowed for Sandra Fluke to testify here today, she would

have told you it was not available to her, that it came at considerable financial burden to purchase it on her own.

So, again, I think we are getting to the root of this problem is

that to have a woman’s perspective, to have a health care consumer’s perspective would be a lot more useful than for a bunch

of males——

Mr. LANKFORD. With that, I reclaim reclaim my time. And let me

just mention this one thing to you as well on that. It has been interesting to hear the conversation about there should have been

more women on the panel, and the folks that mostly said that are

now gone when women are on the panel. There was a conversation

there should have been some physicians on the panel. Now that

there is a physician on the panel, most of the folks that raised that

issue are now gone and not participating in the conversation. So I

understand that.

The issue gets to the core still: Can the Federal Government

reach into a church or religious institution and define for them

their doctrine? There is nothing in currently how this is being practiced from not continuing to press forward. Let me give you a good

example of that.

‘‘The Secretary shall make these decisions’’ opens it up that within a year or two to say, currently we are forcing all these different

providers to provide abortifacients, contraceptions and sterilizations for free. Under the guise of full range of reproductive rights,

there is nothing to stop the Secretary from stepping in 2 years from

now and saying, now all institutions will cover abortions, the procedure, for free.

There is nothing in this that restrains that, because it is not the

Federal Government paying for it. So you’d say, well, the Hyde

Amendment would prevent it. No, this is stepping in and saying

those insurance companies will provide it for free. So we will step

in between the contract between a religious institution and the insurance company that they have contracted with and say, we will

redefine the contract for you, because I know you are religious, and

you don’t know enough to know this is right, but we are going to

tell you this is the right thing to do, and here is your new faith.

Your new faith is you cover these things because it is the right

thing to do. Your new faith will be that you will cover abortions

in some future day because that is the right thing to do to give the

full range of reproductive health.

You could say that is some strange conspiracy, but quite frankly,

we just watched the Catholic bishops lose a contract for taking care

of human trafficking after they had tremendously high scores for

one reason: They would not encourage abortions. Nothing covered

abortions for them. They would not say to the people they were

taking care of, there is a place to go get an abortion. And because

they won’t do that, they lost the contract.

This is a religious issue, and it is one of these things that I understand when you are with your own party, you look at that administration and want to help protect him and deflect the issues.

Long term this has serious consequences regardless of who is the
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President at some future day; what is the role of the church in

that.

With that I would be very honored to thank you for coming and

sharing of your own time and your own backgrounds and submitting your statements and doing that. My time has expired.

Mr. Davis is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I also

want to thank the witnesses for being here and being a part of this

discussion.

Since Ms. Fluke was not given the opportunity to testify, I am

going to read what her testimony would have been. She is a thirdyear student at Georgetown Law School that we requested. Here

is what she would have said had she been here.

‘‘A year ago, my friend from law school had to have her ovary

surgically removed as a result of Georgetown’s refusal to cover contraceptives. My friend choose Georgetown Law because of its commitment to public service, its location and a generous scholarship

the school had awarded her. She wasn’t aware that Georgetown’s

student health insurance doesn’t cover birth control, but she is gay,

so it wasn’t a big concern.

‘‘During law school, my friend was diagnosed with a syndrome

that causes painful cysts to grow on one’s ovaries. The treatment

for the syndrome is birth control, which can successfully hinder the

growth of cysts. When she was first diagnosed, it seem routine. The

doctor wrote a prescription for birth control. Knowing of Georgetown’s policy not to cover birth control for anything but medical

conditions, the doctor wrote ‘for non contraceptive purposes’ on the

prescription, and off my friend went to the pharmacy. But she was

turned down because Georgetown’s insurance carrier assumed my

friend wanted the medication to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

‘‘She worked with her doctor’s office to navigate the university’s

process to get coverage, but no matter what she did, she was denied coverage of her much-needed medication. My friend’s prescription for birth control cost over $100 a month at her local pharmacy.

She paid out of pocket for several months, but she was soon unable

to afford the high cost of the medication. She had to stop taking

it.

‘‘In my friend’s final year at Georgetown, she began having sharp

pains in her abdomen. It was so painful, she woke up thinking she

had been shot. When all the tests were completed, she learned that

she had a plum-sized complex cyst growing on her ovary. The doctors had to remove her entire ovary because the cyst was just too

complex. It had grown from the size of a plum to roughly that of

a tennis ball. Had she been able to take birth control, the cyst

would likely not have grown so rapidly or become so complex. Birth

control could have made all the difference from preventing the loss

of my friend’s ovary.

‘‘A year passed, but the complications from the removal of my

friend’s ovary are far from over. While we are here this morning,

she is at a doctor’s appointment set to determine if the removal of

her ovary has forced her body into early menopause. She is having

weight gain, night sweats, hot flashes and other symptoms of

menopause. And my friend is only 32. If she is in early menopause,
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no fertility specialist in the world will be able to help her have children of her own.’’

This is a heart-wrenching story, and I am sorry we could not

hear directly what this witness would have said. I think this is

part of the complexity of the issue, and I would like to ask unanimous consent that the statement be entered into the record.

Chairman ISSA [presiding]. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And I yield back.

Chairman ISSA. I want to thank all our witnesses today. You

have been very generous. All of you were here for the first panel

and the second panel, and I appreciate your contribution to our better understanding of religious freedom, first from the clergy standpoint and now from the people so close to the administering of

other services on behalf of religious organizations.

Thank you. We stand adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 2:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]
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