The Huffington Post caught up on Thursday with former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour outside of New York's famed Loews Regency Hotel. In addition to discussing the presidential race, Barbour weighed in on the current debate about contraception coverage and the Catholic Church.
According to Barbour, "there's no question" that the Obama administration is trying to infringe on religious freedoms through its birth control coverage policy. After clarifying that "women should have a right to access contraception," he explained, "the issue is not the woman's right" but rather "the Catholic Church's right to follow its own doctrines and beliefs and not be forced by the federal government to pay for things that are in conflict with the Catholic Church's beliefs."
The GOP power broker, who flirted with a presidential bid earlier this cycle, accused the White House of using women's health care rights as "a ruse" to try and "obfuscate" and "change the issue from religious freedom and the fact that we have a limited government that cannot just say to the Catholic Church, you have to give insurance to your employees that violates your doctrines because the federal government tells you you have to."
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Sam Stein contributed to this report and Hunter Stuart produced the video.