Joe Carter included this in his “First Links” this morning, but I wanted to call readers’ attention again to the fine essay at Public Discourse today by Helen Alvaré, Gerard V. Bradley, and O. Carter Snead, ” Conscience, Coercion, and Healthcare .” It concerns the unprecedented mandate of the Obama administration, that all private health insurers must cover contraceptives, including those that are abortifacients, and this without any meaningful exemption honoring the freedom of religious conscience of countless faithful people and the institutions in which they work. The authors are members (and Alvaré is the chair) of the Task Force on Conscience Protection at the Witherspoon Institute, where I work.
Thomas Farr, the chair of our other Task Force, on International Religious Freedom, was the author of Friday’s Public Discourse essay, ” Preventing Another Attack: International Religious Freedom ,” which rightly places this concern at the center of American foreign policy. This is not a place, alas, where the Obama administration locates it, as Tom notes.
Both essays are must-reads, in my humble opinion.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
