Following a decision by the Department of Health and Human Services to mandate health insurance coverage of contraception and abortion-inducing medications, researchers for Human Life International told The Daily Caller that they have uncovered evidence of bias in the recommendation process.
That decision sparked complaints from Roman Catholic leaders who called its provisions a violation of their freedom to practice the religion of their choice. The Catholic Church’s rules forbid abortion and the use of contraception.
HLI reported that 11 of the 16 members of the Institute of Medicine committee responsible for the recommendation had made donations — totaling more than $115,000 — to pro-abortion political candidates. None of them contributed to anti-abortion candidates.
“The ideologically homogenous makeup of the committee encouraged an environment in which science became skewed and authentic health needs of women neglected,” Human Life International America national director Arland Nichols told the Daily Caller.
Nichols said “ideological commitments … apparently blinded the committee.”
The Institute of Medicine panel’s conclusion, he claimed, was a “cover for HHS’s decision to require ‘free’ provision of contraception, surgical sterilization, and abortion inducing drugs. With this recommendation HHS was able to argue that the mandate was, to quote Kathleen Sebelius, ‘based on science and existing literature.”
Committee member Dr. Anthony Lo Sasso told HLI that his colleagues only considered scientific studies that helped their case in an effort to “bring about what they wanted.”
Nichols believes that “this is a huge scandal that will backfire on HHS once enough people find out how embarrassingly inadequate the science upon which the recommendation was based actually is.”
