BOSTON — The debate over the line between religious freedom and federal health care mandates has made its way into Massachusetts’ closely watched U.S. Senate race, with Republican Sen. Scott P. Brown accusing his chief Democratic rival of wanting to “dictate to religious people about what they should believe.”
Consumer advocate and Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren has responded by criticizing Mr. Brown for signing on to a Republican-backed bill that would allow employers and health care plans to deny coverage for any service they say violates their moral or religious beliefs.
“This is a completely new attack that threatens everyone’s health care,” Ms. Warren said Wednesday. “This bill would allow any employer or insurance company to refuse to cover anyone for anything.”
Mr. Brown, however, said Ms. Warren is trying to stifle religious liberties by supporting a proposal from President Obama that would allow workers at religious affiliated institutions to get free contraception directly from insurers.
“Now, it is Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren who has assumed the mantle of oppressor,” Mr. Brown said in a statement. “She and her allies on the left are dictating to Catholics and other people of faith that they must do as they are told when it comes to health care or face the consequences.”
Mr. Brown has intensified his criticism of Ms. Warren by invoking the memory of former Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Catholic who held the same Senate seat for nearly a half-century before his death from brain cancer in 2009.
In a letter to Pope Benedict XVI that year, a dying Mr. Kennedy wrote of his support for “a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field.” Mr. Kennedy made the statement in the context of the debate over Mr. Obama’s national health care bill.
“Like Ted Kennedy, I support a religious conscience exemption in health care,” said Mr. Brown, who won the 2010 special election to fill Mr. Kennedy’s seat.
The invocation of the Kennedy name is designed to resonate in a state with a high number of Catholic voters, some of whom may disagree with their church on the contraception issue but could be sensitive to the question of religious freedom.
Neither Mr. Brown nor Ms. Warren is Catholic.
The fight stems from an effort by Mr. Obama to require church-affiliated employers to pay for birth control for their workers.
That effort met with stiff resistance from Catholic leaders who said it would force them to violate the teachings of the church, which opposes contraception.
Mr. Obama has offered what he says is a compromise that would allow workers at religious institutions to get free contraception directly from health insurers. The offer has failed to satisfy church leaders.
The top U.S. Catholic bishop has vowed to fight the compromise in Congress and through the courts.
There are two proposals in the U.S. Senate designed to respond to the concerns of Catholic and other religious leaders by creating wider religious and moral exemptions.
One, proposed by Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, and Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat, would allow any employers to deny birth control coverage if it runs counter to their religious or moral beliefs.
Another bill by Sen. Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican, would go further by allowing health plans to deny coverage for any service that violates their beliefs.
The White House has called the legislation “dangerous and wrong.”
Mr. Brown has signed on as a co-sponsor of the Blunt bill. He said he backs the bill because it protects religious liberties.
But Ms. Warren has called the bill “an irresponsible assault on the health care of every family in Massachusetts and around our country,” particularly women.
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