John Carroll Teacher Speaks At Religious Freedom Rally

The steps facing Main Street were the site of the second Rally for Religious Freedom in Bel Air Friday.

As part of a nationwide rally, dozens of people gathered around the courthouse fountain with signs protesting the part of that requires employers, including religious institutions, to provide access to contraceptives to employees through their health care plans.

Friday was the this year.

Among the speakers at Friday's rally was Rachel Harkins, a teacher at the in Bel Air.

Harkins said the law impacts her and her employer directly as she is a Catholic woman working for a religious institution.

“These procedures are not necessary, they are life choices," Harkins said, adding she chooses "self control not birth control."

“I refuse to choose something that violates my conscience and my rights as an American," Harkins said.

More than 150 towns and cities nationwide participated in the rally, according to a release from "Stand Up for Religous Freedom."

In January, the Obama administration for implementing the law that requires religious employers to offer health plans covering contraceptives without co-pays or deductibles.

But the Department of Health and Human Services stated that the new rule "Ensures that women with health insurance coverage will have access to the full range" of all "FDA-approved forms of contraception."

Nonprofit and religious employers have until Aug. 1, 2013 to comply with the new law.

The rally is designed to protest the government's definition of religious institutions, and the requirement that all businesses "provide contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs through their health plans," despite moral positions, the release states.