the HHS definition of religious employer contravenes the First Amendment by putting the Federal Government in the position of determining what parts of a bona fide religious organization are religious and what parts are secular.

I am also concerned about the process HHS used to issue the rule.

It is ironic that the proponents of the healthcare law talked about the need to expand access to services but the administration issues rules that could force providers to stop seeing patients because to do so could violate the core tenets…

While the rule does include a religious exemption, many entities feel that it is inadequate and violates their conscience rights.

We cannot turn the clock back. We shouldn't let the Republicans confuse the issue.

the Federal Department of Health and Human Services forcing every single person in this country to pay for services that they may morally oppose.

The Subcommittees, under the leadership of Senators Casey and Boxer, are to be commended, as is the U.S. Department of State, for their consistent focus on women's rights.

We have an extraordinary opportunity--we and the world--to take this historic moment and nudge it, push it, do whatever we can to have it move in the right direction of a flowering of democracy.

Can you assess what the Arab Spring means to women in a broad sense?

That and I think, too, it teaches us the moral character of actions is determined by objective criteria not merely by the sincerity of intentions or the goodness of motives.

Do you honestly think that thousands of individuals and families in my district who could lose their health insurance altogether are really better off as a result of this rule?

What is the best thing we can do here in the United States?

If you like your religion, can you keep it?

This mandate stands in stark contrast to the stated purpose of healthcare reform expanding access to healthcare.

opening statement

There is the risk to the freedoms and liberties of the people in the country and the danger to the rest of the world if these countries turn into some facsimile of Iran.

I think that breaking the sense of isolation, especially in places like Libya, that many of these women have suffered from over many years is perhaps one of the most important contributions we can make.

Conscience is at the core of Catholic teaching, you said, but slavery was not left to personal decisions and conscience, thank goodness.