Media Research Center to Eliminate Evil Birth Control Services from Company Health Plan

Brent Bozell, the founder and president of the right-leaning Media Research Center, has decided to cancel the contraception coverage currently included in the company's employee health insurance plan after reportedly being horrified to discover those benefits were included in the wake of the debate surrounding President Obama's recent healthcare mandate.

In a staff-wide e-mail acquired by the Web site The Jane Dough, Bozell allegedly wrote that the company is working with BlueCross, its insurance provider, so as not to comply with the disgusting mandate.

[We] are working to change our insurance policy so as not to have to comply with this administration's disgusting mandate to provide contraceptive, sterilization and abortifacient services, wrote Bozell, who said he would have never approved the insurance policy in question if he had known that coverage was included.

Bozell then encouraged employees to refrain from using their birth control coverage until he is able to sort through the necessary paperwork to institute the policy changes with BlueCross, although he acknowledged he cannot force them to comply with his request. However, he added that not complying with it is to commit a mortal sin.

Do not avail yourselves to these ... services, not through the MRC. They are evil, and I am unequivocal about this, Bozell wrote.

The birth control mandate, a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, requires all employers to provide contraception coverage as part of their health insurance coverage. Although churches and church-sponsored organizations were exempt from the rule, religiously-affiliated organizations -- such as hospitals, universities and charities -- initially were not.

After an uproar from conservative Republicans and Catholic Church leaders who claimed the mandate violated those organizations' religious liberty, the Obama administration consented to a compromise. Now, employees who work for religious institutions that object to contraception coverage can obtain it, still free of charge, directly from their insurer.

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