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POLITICS

46% Favor Allowing Religious Exemption for Contraceptive Mandate, 41% Oppose

Voters are narrowly supportive of allowing businesses and religious organizations to opt out of government-mandated free birth control for their women employees if religious beliefs are at stake.

As part of the new national health care law, the Obama administration has mandated that all companies must have health insurance coverage that provides no-cost contraceptives for women.  A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters feel that if providing such coverage violates the deeply held beliefs of a church, religious organization or business owner, they should be allowed to opt out of providing coverage for contraceptives.

But nearly as many voters (41%) disagree and oppose anyone being allowed to opt out for religious reasons. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on December 2-3, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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