The Obama administration’s mandate on birth control drew fire Monday from 43 conservative leaders, who released a barrage of statements attacking the president’s new plan as unconstitutional and an abridgement of personal freedoms.

“The Obama administration’s mandate that Catholics provide contraceptive, sterilization and abortifacient services is the greatest assault on religious freedom in the history of the Republic,” said L. Brent Bozell III, the chairman of conservative group For America.

“To allow this ‘rule,’ as this administration so arrogantly calls it, to stand is to surrender our most basic freedom, the freedom of conscience. We cannot,” he continued.

The original contraception mandate required religious institutions like Catholic universities and hospitals to cover birth control in their employee health care plans, while churches would be exempt.

On Friday, President Barack Obama announced that religiously affiliated institutions would not be required to include contraception in their health care plans, and instead insurers will be forced to offer free birth control coverage to women employed by these institutions.

Most of the conservatives’ statements were framed in terms of the constitution and the notion that the Health and Human Services department has violated the First Amendment.

“This Obamacare rule still tramples on Americans’ First Amendment right to freedom of religion. It’s a fig leaf, not a compromise. Whether they are affiliated with a church or not, employers will still be forced to pay an insurance company for coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

“[R]eligious freedom or an ideology of reproductive health care? The principle was decided some time ago and recorded as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. President Obama does not have the power to now re-decide this constitutional principle through regulation,” wrote Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony List.

Some conservative leaders used the issue to draw attention to the wider problems they identified with the left.

“Barack Obama is an imperial president exercising unconstitutional power. The nation is in the midst of a constitutional crisis,” wrote talk show host Mark Levin.

“This form of religious bullying – are you taking note, Anderson Cooper? – is central to the institutional left’s crusade against Judeo-Christianity in American public and private life,” added conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart.

Others, like Washington Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott, looked ahead to what needed to be done.

“Nothing more effectively illustrates why Obamacare must be repealed, root and branch, as soon as possible,” he said in his statement.