President Barack Obama announced today that “religious organizations” such as charities and hospitals will not be forced by the federal government to directly pay insurance premiums that cover sterilization, contraception and abortifacients but that their insurance providers must nonetheless provide those services free of charge to women insured by those organizations.

Obama did not announce any change at all to the administrations’ sterilization-contraceptive-abortifacient mandate insofar as it applies to individuals and private-sector business owners who will still be forced by the government to buy and/or provide health insurance plans that cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortifacients even if those things directly violate the teachings of their religion and their conscience.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had directly and specifically asked that the administration to rescind the regulation in its entirety so that all individuals, employers and insurers, including Catholics, who have a religious or moral objection to sterilization, contraception and abortifacients would not be forced by the federal government to act against their faith and their consciences.