Chaminade takes on Obama contraceptive issue

A prominent Catholic high school on Long Island has joined the battle to defeat a plan by President Barack Obama to have insurers provide contraceptive services to employees of religiously affiliated institutions.

Chaminade High School, an all-boys school in Mineola with a rich history dating to 1930, sent a letter to its extensive alumni list encouraging graduates to help oppose the plan.

"I am writing you regarding a very serious matter -- the HHS mandate and the ramifications this will have on all Americans, not just the Catholic community," Brother Thomas Cleary, head of Chaminade, wrote in a Feb. 17 letter to the school's alumni network. He called Obama's proposed regulation "an unprecedented violation of individual freedoms and conscience."

The mandate would go into effect in August 2013 and would require insurance companies contracted by religiously affiliated institutions, such as Catholic universities, hospitals and charities, to include coverage for contraceptive services for employees. The insurance companies and not the church-affiliated institutions would pay for the services.

Churches themselves and local parishes whose work is strictly religious would be exempted. They are also exempted from a decade-old New York State law requiring coverage for contraceptive services. Many church-affiliated institutions in New York, such as hospitals and charities, get around the New York law by "self-insuring" -- which gives them an exemption.

That exemption would not be included in the Obama plan under the most recent details released Feb. 10.

Catholic bishops and Republican conservatives have attacked the plan as a violation of religious freedom. Women's reproductive-rights organizations such as Planned Parenthood have praised it as a breakthrough.

Cleary urged alumni to contact their congressional representatives to fight the plan.