After much debate and controversy concerning the new mandate requiring employers to provide insurance plans that include free contraceptives for employees, Obama has announced alterations to the original legislation in an attempt to compromise.

Catholics cried foul on Jan. 20 after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that many women’s preventive health services, including contraception, will be mandatory in all new health insurance plans, regardless of the religious beliefs of the providers.

These contraceptives will be completely free of charge, including co-pays or deductibles.

While some religious employers were not originally exempt from the legislation, the White House issued a press release on Feb. 10 that states the mandate will give employers an opportunity to opt out of providing new insurance coverage, but insurance companies will be required to provide them instead.

According to the press release, employers who object to the mandate for religious reasons “will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer their employees to organizations that provide contraception” or “subsidize the cost of contraception.”

This new legislation has sparked controversy throughout religious groups across the nation that do not support contraception use, namely the Catholic church. Religious leaders have spoken out against the new legislation across the country, including St. Louis’s Archbishop Robert Carlson.

Carlson issued a letter to congregations across St. Louis prior to the most recent alteration, including St. Francis Xavier College Church, condemning the new legislation as a “direct attack on our religious freedom” and calling Catholics to actively work to “stand up and protect [the Church’s] sacred rights and duties.”

Carlson encourages Catholics to “commit [themselves] to prayer and fasting” in addition to contacting members of Congress, in hopes of repealing this legislation.

Senior and “Students for Life” member, Thomas Piolata, intends to do just that.

“Part of being Catholic is ?delity to the teachings of Mother Church. The church teaches that contraception and abortion are hurtful to the human person and obstruct progress toward justice and love,” Piolata said.

While some, including President Obama, consider the altered legislation to be a compromise between religious rights and right to access health care, Piolata disagrees.

“… the law still attacks the nature of liberty and our society: it forces companies, e.g., insurance companies, to provide a de?nitive and speci?c product, e.g., contraceptives. The argument is that people have a ?right? to health care including contraception. However, the problem with this rights-rhetoric consists in the fact that it undermines the nature of the human person and religious freedom,” Piolata said.

However, not all SLU students are in agreement with the content of the Archbishop?s letter, or that this is an attack on religious freedom or the Catholic Church at all. Freshman Michael Deisting says that the Archbishop?s letter “failed to recognize the other side of the argument” and said that his claims that this attacks religious freedoms are misleading.

“The Catholic church is still allowed to teach what it wants to teach, preach exactly what it wants to preach. The federal government is saying that women as U.S. citizens should have access to contraceptives without a question, and it?s their choice to use it,” Deisting said. “It’s always the patient’s choice, nobody is ever forced to receive it,” he said.

Freshman Brandon Sampson also agrees with Deisting’s statement.

“… the Archbishop places the importance of Catholic Church polices over the rights of women in America. The ?Catholic population? the Archbishop appeals to is split on approval of President Obama?s latest legislation, and, more broadly, on the use of contraception,” Sampson said. “Archbishop Carlson employs strong rhetoric, using patriotic symbols of immigrants and industry. It draws away from the real issue of [this] ethical and moral decision in the 21st century. The rights of women and the underprivileged must be recognized,” Sampson said.

Regardless of attempted compromise, Students for Life said they “[stand] with the Catholic Church in opposition to the mandate because we see dignity in every life, beginning at conception.  Preventing a possible life through contraception or sterilization denies him or her this dignity.”

Jessica Stukel, senior and president of Students for Life at SLU, states that “Even those exempt from the mandate will still be forced to violate their conscience.  If an employee at an exempt institution wants coverage for contraception or sterilization, the cost will be covered by the premiums of the employer and it’s employees, including those to object to it.”

President Obama defended the mandate in his Feb. 10 press release, stating that “women who work at these institutions will have access to free contraceptive services, just like other women, and they’ll no longer have to pay hundreds of dollars a year that could go towards paying the rent or buying groceries.”

All insurance-providing institutions will be given a maximum of one year to comply, giving them until August of 2013 to provide the new coverage.