Saunders: Will Biden leave Little Sisters free to choose?

Then they ran into Obama administration regulations that required most employers to include in their employee health care plans free birth control.

The Little Sisters objected because they believe “deliberately avoiding reproduction through medical means is immoral.”

You would think the federal government would have better things to do than pick on nuns caring for old people.

Indeed, Congress passed no legislation with this mandate, and Barack Obama never signed such a law. His Affordable Care Act, however, mandated that essential benefits be included in most employer-provided health care plans, and then nameless bureaucrats did the rest.

In 2012, Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services declared that contraception was essential preventive care and hence was exempt from co-payments.

Thus began a series of legal battles in which the Little Sisters of the Poor generally prevailed against the federal machine because they did not back down.

In July, the Little Sisters of the Poor won one of many cases against the group by a 7-2 Supreme Court margin. Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer, who were appointed by Democratic presidents, concurred with the majority.

Biden’s response? It befitted the response of a Democratic presidential nominee.

The former vice president released a statement in which he said: “Health care is a right that should not be dependent on race, gender, income or ZIP code. Yet as a result of today’s decision, countless women are at risk of losing access to affordable, preventive care.”

Tolerance

Note: Women who work for the charity would not lose access to health care. They’d still be able to go to a clinic or see a doctor for contraception. They’d just have to pay for it. Both employees and employers would be free to choose.

Biden also nominated as his Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who sued the caregiving nuns to force them to obey the Obamacare mandate.

At Thursday’s daily press briefing, I asked press secretary Jen Psaki if Biden still planned to go after the religious and moral objection exemptions given his stated goal of bringing the country together.

Her answer: “I haven’t discussed that particular issue with him. I’m happy to circle back with you, but I don’t — there’s not a change in his position from what he said earlier this summer.”

I don’t agree with the Little Sisters of the Poor, but a government that would work to bring these compassionate nuns to heel is a government that cares more about conformity than people.

Where’s the tolerance? There is no tolerance for conservative Christians.

And if Biden pursues this track, he will further divide America.