Helen Alvaré reveals the unsound medical data grounding the HHS mandate and argues that the new accommodation still violates religious freedom.

Bad Science and Failed Freedom Protections 

in the HHS Mandate

by Helen Alvaré 

The latest proposed amendment to the HHS mandate still draws on empirically unsound data and violates religious freedom.

The controversy over the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate is bound to increase, thanks to its latest proposed fix announced last Friday. The rules proposed to be amended are those issued by HHS last year, requiring employers--including religious institutions and individuals and corporations that embrace religious principles--to provide, without co-pay, contraceptives, sterilization, and emergency contraceptives that can destroy a human embryo.

The original mandate came when HHS fully adopted the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report "Clinical Preventive Services for Women: Closing the Gaps." This report claimed that American women were suffering a crisis of "unintended pregnancy," a crisis that could be resolved most effectively by requiring employers to provide women, free of charge, the "full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for women with reproductive capacity." [1]

With last Friday's rules, the government is claiming that after a year of a mostly losing record of religious freedom lawsuits, it has struck the perfect balance between two urgent goals: getting contraception into the hands of as many American women and girls as possible, and protecting Americans' religious freedom.

The truth of the matter is quite different.

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