The battle over the Obama administration’s contraceptive/abortion mandate is about religious freedom, not the availability of birth control, two House of Representatives members and spokeswomen for 10 organizations said in explaining their opposition — and that of millions of other women — to the controversial requirement. retail stores,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. “Pregnancy is not a disease for which ending an unborn life is the cure,” Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, said during a Capitol Hill news conference Thursday (March 1).