Criticizing the Obama administration’s role in advancing federally funded abortions, the head of a pro-life organization labeled the president an “unjust aggressor” in a war against religious freedom.
The Obama administration fails to recognize “the difference between freedom of worship and freedom of religion,” said Human Life International president Father Shenan Boquet in an interview Monday with The Daily Caller. “Current policies are attempting to push us away from the freedom of religion.”
Boquet’s organization believes that the Department of Health and Human Services “started a battle between church and state” with a press release Friday that confirmed Obamacare’s individual mandate will require employer insurance plans to cover contraceptives and abortive services as “preventive” medicine.
Fr. Boquet told TheDC that Obama is an “unjust aggressor who imposes legislation that goes against religious teaching.” The federal government, he said, has told religious institutions that they have one year to comply with the new law and then, in his words, “make it happen.”
HHS’s decision to uphold the required coverage of abortive services is the beginning of a “slippery slope,” Boquet warned, that could erode religious freedoms.
Prior to the passage of Obama’s health care industry overhaul, he issued an executive order banning federal funding for abortions. That order swayed pro-life representatives, most notably former Democratic Representative Bart Stupak from Michigan, to vote Obamacare into law.
Obama’s apparent decision to violate his own executive order, has alienated pro-life representatives and religious officials.
“He has obviously, in his administrative decisions, clearly shown what he holds and believes,” said Fr. Boquet.