TOMORROW, Aug. 1, looms as the drop-dead date for one of Obamacare’s most controversial mandates. The Catholic Church on Guam has publicly voiced its outrage against the impending mandate that automatically funds contraceptive and sterilization services through healthcare premiums. Nationwide, church leaders have lamented that Obamacare compels Catholics to participate in anti-life activities.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, represents the most significant overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.

Obamacare is aimed primarily at decreasing the number of uninsured Americans and reducing the overall costs of health care. It provides a number of incentives, including subsidies, tax credits and fees, to employers and uninsured individuals in order to increase insurance coverage. Obamacare requires insurance companies to cover all applicants and offer the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or gender.

On Aug.1 this year, Obamacare mandates that all new plans must cover certain preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies without charging a deductible, co-pay or coinsurance. Women's Preventive Services – including well-woman visits, support for breastfeeding equipment, contraception and domestic violence screening – will be covered without cost sharing.

Guam Catholic priest Father Frances Walsh explained how Obamacare may impose state agendas on Catholics that are inconsistent with God-given, First Amendment protected rights to freedom of religion and conscience.

“Contraception separates sex from procreation and in doing that, it distorts the whole meaning of human sexuality. The other issue is sterilization. Sterilization is another form of contraception.”

Obamacare considers contraceptives, sterilizations, abortifacients and abortion as "preventative services" under its definition of "health care." The underlying presumption is that pregnancy is a disease. When people pay into Obamacare, whether as taxpayers or through their insurance, their dollars will be used to finance these procedures, some of which must be provided for free to all women. The people have no choice – the individual mandate means everyone pays.

All across national religious media, the contraceptive mandate has triggered a call to arms. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the use of federal funds to pay for abortions and abortion insurance.

Earlier this year, Catholics in their Sunday pews were read letters from their bishops decrying Obamacare’s mandate to require religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges and charities to offer insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and the "morning-after" pill – all of which the Catholic Church officially opposes. Churches themselves were given a religious exemption from the new rule, which is part of Obama's healthcare reform, but the bishops said forcing other Catholic institutions to comply violates "the fundamental right to religious liberty" guaranteed in the Constitution.

The fact is that a majority of American Catholics don't agree with their church on birth control – 95 percent use contraceptives, and 89 percent say it's their choice, not the Church's. Obamacare would ensure that any woman, Catholic or not, who chooses to use birth control can obtain this freely and reasonably. Obamacare does seem to value birth control as a woman’s right, not merely a privilege.

For many, Obamacare’s rules are perfectly reasonable in a secular sort of way. Because Catholic schools and hospitals hire and serve people of many different faiths, and because Catholic charitable institutions tend to receive secular taxpayer federal money, the Catholic Church simply has to make a choice to stop taking secular money or follow the federal rules.

Thus, Obamacare has successfully forced America and Guam to discuss politics, abortion and religion all at the same dinner table. Certainly, the issues make for uncomfortable and often violently passionate soul-searching. But in the end, this national American dialogue is necessary and long overdue.

The conversation needs to be spoken out loud in homes, in businesses, in churches, and in America’s courtrooms so that all citizens can be given their right to be heard. Don’t let the paternalistic doctor in the medical clinic make this national decision. Don’t let the nurses in the Labor and Delivery ward make these choices. Don’t let the faculty in the ivory tower medical school make these choices. At least don’t let healthcare folks continue to make this type of life-or-death decision alone anymore. All Americans, including us here on Guam, must continue to participate in the national healthcare debate that is Obamacare.