Many religious organizations and also businesses operated by people of faith regard the HHS contraceptives mandate to be a direct attack on their freedom to operate their organizations in a way that reflects their deep convictions about life and morality. The administration has provided an exemption for “religious employers” but it is so narrow that it covers only churches, leaving the vast majority of religious nonprofits out. Several ideas for an “accommodation” for those religious nonprofits have been proposed, but nothing is final, nor does it seem possible to do what the government seeks to do: guarantee that women employed by dissenting religious organizations will get free access to contraceptives, including abortifacients, because of their status as employees-while also guaranteeing the employer that its health plan excludes those contraceptives and abortifacients. And neither the accommodation nor the exemption provide any protection whatsoever for religious businesses. So the deep religious freedom concerns about the mandate continue.

But what to do about it? The US Supreme Court, ruling on a different issue, refused to declare the health reform law unconstitutional. Last November’s election outcome put an end to talk of a congressional repeal of the law. An effort last year by Senator Blunt (R-MO) to push conscience protections into the law went nowhere. Forty-eight lawsuits, with over 140 different plaintiffs–just consider those numbers!–have been launched against the mandate but without any resolution yet. The courts won’t give relief to religious nonprofit organizations because they are temporarily shielded from the mandate and perhaps the final version of the promised accommodation will adequately deal with the conscience issues (at least in the eyes of the judges). Some judges have issued preliminary injunctions to stop the mandate temporarily in lawsuits filed by religion-owned businesses (despite the administration’s claim that businesses can have no religious freedom claims), but no final determinations vindicating the companies have been made.

In the meantime, an employer that offers health insurance that does not include “all FDA-approved contraceptive services” is subject to hefty penalties: Hobby Lobby says it is subject to $1.3 million per day in penalties; Catholic Health Services of Long Island says it faces up to $400 million per year in penalties. That’s a huge expense for trying to operate an organization consistent with its founding religious principles. It is a huge diversion of money away from serving customers and patients.

A possible legislative remedy is currently being considered by some members of Congress–but very likely it will go nowhere, unless there is a great public outcry forcing action.

The idea is to put into a must-pass government funding bill language that protects conscience–language that extends existing federal conscience protections to the HHS contraceptives mandate (the language would also strengthen existing protections for people and organizations that refuse to be involved with abortion, by enabling them to go to court if their rights are violated). See the February 15 letter from Archbishop Lori, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, for the idea and its rationale.

How would this work? Republicans in the House could put the language into a crucial appropriations bill and secure its adoption because of their majority. Although Democrats rule the Senate, how could they stop an essential governmnt-funding measure just over this? And the same for the President: vetoing the bill would mean shutting down the federal government, so he would have to permit by legislation the conscience and religious freedom protections he has stopped by regulations.

Except that none of this will happen if House Republicans do not take the first step. And there is no sign that they intend to put protective language into any must-pass bills.

Efforts to stimulate the citizen pressure that might get the protective language into a must-pass bill include:

* A Catholic postcard campaign.

* A Catholic email campaign.

* An email campaign by A Call 2 Conscience, a coalition of pro-life and religious-liberty organizations.