Our alma mater, Biola University, has now joined the growing number of Evangelical and Catholic colleges and universities suing the federal government over the Obama health care law's requirement that all health care providers provide medical insurance plans that include access to abortion and abortion-causing drugs.
Biola President Barry Corey explained why our school is fighting the Obama anti-conscience mandate in these eloquent words:
"It is simply a natural outgrowth of our calling to be stewards of the mission Biola's founders have trusted to us, to hold fast to biblical convictions even in the midst of shifting cultural sands. It is unjust that the federal government has mandated that institutions of faith like Biola, which has held biblically centered convictions for over a century, violate their consciences in this manner. It is an infringement on our freedom to be the university God has called us to be."
Biola's suit, undertaken jointly with Indiana's Grace College and Seminary, is being filed by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). As East Coast Biolans, we are proud of and grateful for the stand of our school.
We represent two different generations of Biolans (Rob, '79 and Julia,'09), but Biola represents something timeless: The eternal truth of the Word of God. For standing up for that truth, we're thankful for President Corey's leadership and the continued strong stance of our school.
Contact: Rob Schwarzwalder and Julia Kiewit
Source: FRC Blog
As we close out this historic month of August, 2012, I can't help but comment on a very sad day that marked the start of a new moment in American history. The infamous "contraceptive mandate" began its implementation stage on August 1, 2012, and on this day the landscape of the separation of Church and State as we have known it in the United States was drastically altered. On that day groups were forced to violate religious dictates and consciences on such matters as insurance coverage of contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.
Those who have been following this debate will well remember that one year ago, the department of Health and Human Services used its regulatory power to mandate that the full range of Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptives be included in all health insurance plans, minus a very small group of religious employers, namely places of worship.
A massive public outcry ensued this decision, resulting in the Obama Administration announcing a purported "accommodation" last February (one that is yet to be worked through in any level of detail) as well as a one year "safe haven" for certain religious employers while they worked through the logistics of violating their consciences.
Organizations that do not fulfill the safe haven criteria include businesses, and groups that must not have provided any kind of contraception coverage before the February 10th regulation was issued. A number of lawsuits have been filed in response, including many asking for immediate injunctions against the mandate set to begin on Wednesday.
So who are the first casualties of the healthcare law? One such group is Weingartz Supply based out of Ann Arbor,Michigan. The organization provides supplies for lawn-mowing and snow removal. Until now the business, owned by a Catholic has not included contraception coverage, but now will be required to do so. Representing Weingartz and a Catholic business organization, Legatus, the Thomas More Law Center in Michigan filed a suit asking for an injunction from the mandate, but a hearing has not yet been set despite a May filing.
Similarly, a family-owned heating and cooling business in Colorado, Hercules, sought and received a temporary injunction the Friday before the mandate was to be implemented. But the injunction is specific to their family business, other groups are not covered.
Other casualties of the healthcare law include insurers and participants in the individual market who must to comply with the HHS Mandate as well as schools that have already removed health insurance coverage because of the HHS Mandate. To date this includes Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio as well as Ave Maria University in Florida. Note the irony, given that the goal of the healthcare law was to have more people covered, not less.
By far the vast majority of religious groups impacted by this mandate will feel the pinch once the safe harbor period (and the election) is over.
As we reflect upon this defining moment in history where HHS has in essence used regulatory power to redefine Church and State relations, I can still find comfort in the balance of power existing in our U.S. democratic system. The constitutionality of this regulation will ultimately be decided by the courts, where approximately 50 suits related to the HHS mandate currently wait to be heard.
Contact: Jeanne Monahan
Source: FRC Blog
A new poll from CNN shows that a majority of the U.S. is pro-life.
The CNN poll shows that 62 percent want abortions illegal in all cases or legal in only certain circumstances. Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America (CWA) suggests that the survey results reflect a better educated public.
"Quite frankly I think it shows that Americans are looking at the current situation when it comes to abortion and realizing that the vast majority of abortions are for a woman's convenience or for birth-control," she notes.
The public is beginning to see that more and more abortion patients are women who have had multiple abortions and are in their 20s and 30s, rather than the former image of a frightened teenager facing an unplanned pregnancy.
"So, I think people are looking at that and saying is this the kind of culture we want, where people on a whim just get rid of a pregnancy? And they're saying no, this is not the kind of country we want," Crouse offers.
With better technology, especially with sonograms, the CWA spokesperson says women realize they are carrying a real human being, not a clump of cells.
She goes on to attribute the better educated public to the 40 years of hard work on the part of grassroots pro-lifers.
Contact: Charlie Butts
Source: OneNewsNow
"The mainstream news media is once again demonstrating its eagerness to use any excuse to portray a Republican presidential ticket as out of the mainstream on abortion, while ignoring the truly extreme positions taken by the pro-abortion candidate -- this year, President Obama," said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).
The mainstream news media is again busy ginning up stories exploring the outer parameters of the abortion-related policy positions of pro-life Republican candidates, even where this involves remote, theoretical scenarios -- while demonstrating a near-total disinterest in putting the spotlight on the outer parameters of the "abortion rights" positions embraced by President Obama, even on matters under current legislative consideration.
The current media focus is on the position of the Romney-Ryan ticket on prohibiting abortion in cases of rape or incest. Governor Romney has been quite clear that he supports rape and incest exceptions to a law providing general protection for unborn children. This is the same position taken by pro-life President George W. Bush, who did much to advance federal policies to move towards a society in which all were "welcomed in life and protected in law."
According to a 2005 study published by the Guttmacher Institute, "Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions," one percent of the women who were surveyed while seeking abortions reported having an abortion because they were victims of rape. Legislation to prohibit early abortion in cases of rape and incest is not under consideration in Congress. Indeed, since 1993, Congress provided federal funding for abortion in cases of rape and incest. Starting that year, those exceptions were added to the Hyde Amendment (the law which generally prohibits federal Medicaid funding for abortion), in addition to the original life-of-mother exception. When the rape/incest exceptions were added to the law, the Clinton Administration estimated that it would result in federal funding of abortion "nationally to about 1,000 women," despite the huge size of the federal Medicaid program (over 33 million persons covered in 1995, and over 50 million today). (Letter from President Clinton to Gov. Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania, February 22, 1994). Subsequent reports issued by HHS showed that the actual number of federally funded abortions nationwide, even with the rape-incest exceptions, ranged between 112 and 458 nationwide between FY 1994 and FY 2007.
Much has been made of Congressman Paul Ryan's cosponsorship of the "Sanctity of Human Life Act" (H.R. 212). This resolution-like bill affirms the general principle that every individual member of the species homo sapiens should be recognized as a human being. It does not contain any prohibition of anything, or any penalty for anything. The details of implementing such a principle, including the type and definition of exceptions to any enacted law protecting unborn children, would have to be contained in language enacted by elected legislators -- generally reflecting, presumably, the majority views of their constituents.
When covering such legislation, many reporters show themselves willing to embrace even extravagant extrapolations as factual, or to adopt tendentious, advocacy phraseology as their own. For example, Stephanie Condon, identified as "a political reporter for CBSNews.com," wrote in a "news" story on August 15, concerning Ryan and the "Sanctity of Human Life Act"[italics added for emphasis]: "Supporters of reproductive rights have loudly pointed out that this type of legislation would not only outlaw abortion but potentially some forms of contraception or even in vitro fertilization. Personhood initiatives are so extreme that even card-carrying conservatives like former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour have expressed concerns that they go too far . . ."
Despite the remoteness of these matters from any legislation currently under consideration in Congress or likely to be considered by the next Congress, the mainstream news media finds them worthy of sustained attention. Yet there is little interest by these journalists in performing a symmetrical exploration of the outer parameters of President Obama's policy positions on abortion -- even with respect to bills that are under active consideration in Congress.
For example, recently NRLC brought it to the attention of Congress that currently, in the District of Columbia -- a federal jurisdiction -- abortion is legal for any reason, until the moment of birth. (This is because the "District Council," utilizing delegated congressional authority, repealed the entire abortion law.) On July 31, 2012, by a solid majority of 66 votes (220-154), the U.S. House of Representatives voted for a bill (H.R. 3803) to overturn this policy, and replace it with a ban on abortion after 20 weeks fetal age (the beginning of the sixth month), except to save the life of the mother. At the same time, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) filed the same measure as an amendment to cybersecurity legislation (S. 3414) -- a White House priority -- that was pending in the Senate when the August recess began.
Source: National Right to Life
In the past week, two troubling comments regarding abortion caught my
attention—one of which justifiably caught the attention of the entire
country. Once again much heat but little light was generated in the
ensuing brouhaha.
The first troubling comment was a particularly inept and painful
statement from U.S. Representative Todd Akin, which included the phrase
“legitimate rape.” Akin’s unfortunate comment could have provided an
opportunity to explore with greater clarity and depth a philosophical
and moral question of supreme importance, but instead what followed was
superficial, dishonest, and exploitative noise. Our feckless talking
heads and political leaders chose to use Akin’s comment for political
jujitsu rather than enlightened discourse.
Some random thoughts on the Akin debacle:
•There exists no such thing as “legitimate rape.” “Legitimate rape” is an oxymoron.
•Akin’s disastrous sentence construction, which implies that some rapes
are legitimate, communicated an idea that he does not believe and did
not mean to say. The correct phraseology would be something like
“legitimate claimsof rape,” meaning that some claims are false, which of
course is true. Some women claim to have been raped when actually they
have not been raped.
•This clumsily expressed fact—that some women falsely claim to have
been raped—could have provided an opportunity to discuss the pragmatic,
intellectual, and moral problems with the position of those who oppose
abortion except in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.
•The pragmatic problem of permitting abortions (or federal funding of
abortions) for pregnancies resulting from rape is that such exceptions
put the government in the thorny position of determining whether claims
of rape are legitimate, that is to say, true. Rebecca Kiessling, who
was conceived in rape and is now a pro-life attorney, explains:
Rape exceptions in the law actually put the government in the position
of having to ascertain when the child was conceived, who the father is,
whether the child was conceived during the alleged rape or during
intercourse with her husband or boyfriend, and if the child was
conceived during the time frame of the alleged rape, then the government
would need to determine whether the sexual intercourse was consensual
or not….So rape exceptions serve to perpetuate the injustice against
rape victims that their accounts are to be viewed with skepticism…
•But more important are the inextricably linked intellectual and moral
problems with rape and incest exceptions. If the product of conception
between two humans is a human, and if human life—including inchoate
human life—is deserving of protection, then the manner of a baby’s
conception is irrelevant to a determination of whether that inchoate
life has the right to continued existence.
•Certainly the manner of conception has meaning to the victim of rape
or incest. And society should have compassion for these victims,
offering as much help as possible. But the ends of alleviating suffering
do not justify the means of exterminating the innocent life growing
inside rape victims. The mother’s right to control her reproductive
processes and parts does not supersede the right of a baby simply to
exist. Just as a rape victim had no control over the criminal act that
resulted in a pregnancy, neither had the baby so conceived. The
suffering of rape victims does not justify the further and more
horrifying victimization of preborn babies.
•It is intellectually inconsistent and morally bankrupt to argue that
life begins at conception, that all human life has intrinsic value and
rights, but that society has the right to exterminate the life of
another if its temporary dependency status is painful to another.
The second troubling comment came from Kay Bailey Hutchison, retiring
Republican senator from Texas who said this on a Sunday morning news
program:
Mothers and daughters can disagree on abortion, and we shouldn’t put a
party around an issue that is so personal and also, religious-based. I
think we need to say, “Here are our principles, and we welcome you as a
Republican. We can disagree on any number of issues, but if you want to
be a Republican, we welcome you.”
Several thoughts:
•How many times have you heard Democrats beseech the Democratic Party
to abandon their position on abortion in order to accommodate pro-life
Democrats?
•The arguments in support of the pro-life position are not exclusively religious.
•When using the “personal” nature of abortion as a defense, Hutchinson
needs to remember that there are two persons involved. Who speaks for
those who can’t?
•Hutchison’s statement is quintessential political double-speak: While
asserting in one sentence that opposition to abortion should not be a
party position, she asserts in the next sentence that “here are our
principles.” Is Hutchison saying that opposition to abortion should or
should not be one of the Republican principles?
It seems that Republicans like Kay Bailey Hutchison are again calling
for the infamous “Big Tent” that allows for the destruction of marriage
and the unborn—you know, those trivial issues that can’t hold a candle
next to fiscal issues. Apparently, the Republican tent is supposed to
become big enough to accommodate a herd of donkeys.
Contact: Laurie Higgins
Source: Illinois Family Institute
A slight revision of the federal contraception mandate offers some
additional protection for certain religious employers but is not
sufficient to ease religious freedom concerns, said a lawyer who is
working to challenge the mandate in court.
Hannah Smith, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty,
told CNA on Aug. 27 that the Obama administration is governing by
“sloppy executive fiat” and is failing to address the underlying problem
with the controversial mandate.
She explained that for the third time in seven months, the federal
government has rewritten the guidelines for the “safe harbor” that
offers a one-year reprieve from the mandate to some non-profit religious
organizations that object to its demands.
“They’re making it up as they go along,” she said. “They haven’t really thought through these issues carefully.”
The Becket Fund is representing Wheaton College, a Christian liberal
arts college in Illinois, in a lawsuit challenging the mandate. The
controversial rule requires employers to offer health insurance that
covers contraception, sterilization and early abortion drugs, even if
doing so violates their consciences.
Wheaton College argued that the mandate violated its religious freedom
and filed for a preliminary injunction preventing its enforcement.
As a result, the federal government changed the safe harbor
requirements, allowing Wheaton College to qualify for the temporary
delay in the mandate.
Smith observed that the safe harbor, as it had previously been written,
did not apply to Wheaton. The Christian college does not object to all
forms of contraception, but only to products that cause early abortions,
she said.
Initially, the safe harbor did not apply to employers that offered
coverage of some contraceptives, she explained, but that regulation has
now been changed to include those that accept certain elements of the
coverage while objecting to others.
In addition, she said, Wheaton College was originally disqualified from
the exemption because it had offered coverage of the products it
objected to after Feb. 10, which was the deadline by which employers
must discontinue the coverage in order to qualify for the reprieve.
Smith explained that coverage of early abortion drugs Ella and Plan B
had been “inadvertently and unknowingly included in the plans,” and when
administrators discovered it, they immediately began working with the
college’s insurance company to remove the coverage. This process was not
completed until March.
The federal government has now decided that because the college had
“made efforts” to remove the coverage before Feb. 10, it can qualify for
the safe harbor, she said.
But although the new regulation offers some protection to Wheaton College, it is “not a complete victory,” Smith cautioned.
She explained that the safe harbor is merely a 12-month “delay tactic”
that will postpone “the inevitable conflict that will arise” between
government and religious organizations that object to the mandate.
In addition, she said, Wheaton College is not entirely protected over
the next year, because employees can still file private lawsuits trying
to force the college to adhere to the mandate.
After the new regulations for the safe harbor were announced, Wheaton’s
lawsuit was dismissed as premature in a court decision that pointed to
the administration’s promised “accommodation” for religious freedom, she
noted.
But the accommodation proposals put forward by the administration “are
not satisfactory to religious institutions” and do not adequately
address concerns of religious freedom, Smith stated.
She said that the Becket Fund will be carefully assessing options and
following possible developments with the administration’s proposed
accommodation to determine what further legal action may be necessary.
Source: CNA/EWTN News
The Democratic platform committee has rejected an effort to acknowledge the diversity within its party over the abortion issue, and the party is poorer for it, according to Democrats for Life of America.
Meanwhile, the Republican platform committee has again approved language advocating for the legal protection of unborn babies. The section endorsed by the committee Aug. 21 said: "Faithful to the 'self-evident' truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed."
The Democratic draft platform released Aug. 9 did not include a recognition that Democrats hold divergent views on abortion, thereby rejecting an effort by Democrats for Life of America (DFLA) to include language that was in the 1996 platform. DFLA said the exclusion of language welcoming both pro-life and pro-choice voters greatly weakens the platform.
"For the good of the Democratic Party, we will continue to advocate that the platform language should reflect the true diversity of views within the Democratic Party," DFLA Executive Director Kristen Day said. "Our message is simple: If you are pro-life and a Democrat, you can make a difference, thus the case for recognition. Inclusion can make a critical difference in this fall's election."
The Democratic Party has increasingly become identified with abortion rights in recent decades, though DLFA said nearly one-third of Democrats identify themselves as pro-lifers. In 1978, Democrats held a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives with 292 seats, including 125 (43 percent) pro-life party members, according to DFLA. Now, only 17 (9 percent) of the 184 Democrats in the House are pro-life, DFLA said.
DLFA cited the following results from Gallup polling in 2011 to demonstrate the diversity in the party:
-- 84 percent of Democrats support informed consent for a woman seeking an abortion.
-- 61 percent back parental consent for a minor before an abortion.
-- 60 percent endorse a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion.
-- 59 percent support the ban on partial-birth abortion.
-- 49 percent back requiring an ultrasound test before an abortion.
Contact: Tom Strode
Source: Baptist Press
Jubilee Campaign's Law of Life Project and Thomas More Society File Suit on Behalf of "Best Place to Work for Women" Suing Obamacare to Stop Forced Group Insurance Coverage for Abortifacients, Sterilization, and Contraception
Triune Health Group, recently named by Crain's Chicago Business as the Best Place to Work for Women in the Chicago metro area, filed suit yesterday in U.S. District Court against the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services ("HHS"), the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Illinois Department of Insurance for a "declaratory judgment" and injunction to prevent and stop an infringement of their civil rights. Christopher Yep, founder, president and CEO of the family-run business, along with Mary Anne Yep, co-founder, Vice President and Chief Personnel Officer, and the company as a whole, are suing the federal and state governments for violating their fundamental rights to religious liberty and free speech by requiring them to provide group insurance coverage of abortions, sterilization, and birth control for their employees.
The Yeps, devoted Catholics, embrace a belief which is embedded in Triune's mission statement that each individual be "treated with the human dignity and respect that God intended." The Obamacare mandate, administered by HHS and the other federal agencies named in the lawsuit, as well as the Illinois insurance mandate, administered by Illinois' Department of Insurance, require the company to provide abortion-related and contraceptive coverage for its employees and their families, which imposes a gravely oppressive burden on the Yeps' deeply held religious beliefs.
"The federal and state governments are coercing our clients to violate their conscientious convictions, which is completely at odds with the resounding declarations of our Founding Fathers and our modern Supreme Court jurisprudence," said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, the national public interest law firm representing Triune and the Yeps, together with the Jubilee Campaign's Law of Life Project. "As a federal court ruled just last month in Colorado, no government official may impose such an insupportable burden on American citizens' deeply held religious beliefs without a compelling reason. But there is no compelling reason here, when so many other options are available for providing these services, which are fully compatible with Triune’s corporate mission statement and the Yeps' religious beliefs," said Brejcha.
Sam Casey, managing director and general counsel for the Jubilee Campaign's Law of Life Project, also had high praise for the Yeps' courage in standing up for their fundamental rights, applauding the Yeps for "taking a stand to defend their right to run their business in a way that does not conflict with their faith and religious conscience."
The Obama Administration has defended forcing private employers to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception, with an argument that people of faith forfeit their religious liberties once they opt to engage in business. But last month, Colorado-based Hercules Industries and the Catholic family that owns and runs it won a federal injunction to suspend the Obama Administration's mandate against that company. The newly filed Triune case also asserts the primacy of religious liberties and free speech on behalf of a private company and its owners, who view business as a form of religious stewardship and an integral part of their lives as faithful Roman Catholics.
Triune Health Group has won public plaudits, not only as "the best" employer for women but also as an outstanding employer for everybody, having also placed very high on Crain's 2012 "Best Place to Work" list.
The new lawsuit by Triune and the Yeps also names as defendants the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Illinois Department of Insurance Director Andrew Boron.
Contact: David B. Waxman
Source: Jubilee Campaign Law of Life Project
In a unanimous decision, a federal court on Tuesday lifted an injunction that protected Planned Parenthood from a Texas law that bars state funds from organizations that perform or promote abortion.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who backed the law, said Aug. 21 the decision is “a win for Texas women, our rule of law and our state’s priority to protect life.”
Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Steven H. Aden also praised the decision in an Aug. 22 statement, saying it shows “abortionists and their political allies are bluffing when they say that states cannot stop taxpayer funding from being used to subsidize abortions, whether directly or indirectly.”
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans lifted a federal district court’s temporary injunction that preserved state funding before an October trial in which Planned Parenthood intends to challenge the law, the Associated Press reported.
The court decision said the district court “gave insufficient attention to Texas’s authority to subsidize speech of its choosing within its programs.”
The funds concern the Texas Women’s Health Program, which provides services to many women not qualified through Medicaid. The program previously funded Planned Parenthood’s provision of family planning and health services to poor women. About 65,000 women of the 130,000 enrolled in the program secured services through the abortion provider, though state funds were not used for abortion.
Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, said the legal case is “about the women who rely on Planned Parenthood for cancer screenings, birth control and well-woman exams.
However, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot said Aug. 21 that the decision “rightfully recognized that the taxpayer-funded Women's Health Program is not required to subsidize organizations that advocate for elective abortion.”
He said his office is “encouraged” by the decision and will continue to defend the Women’s Health Program in court.
State-level efforts to defund abortion providers have increased in recent years. However, they have faced significant legal and regulatory obstacles as well as interference and threats from pro-abortion rights officials in the federal government.
In December 2011 the Obama administration threatened to deny federal funding to the Texas women’s health program if the law stood.
A similar defunding effort in New Hampshire that threatened $1.8 million in funding for Planned Parenthood caused the Department of Health and Human Services to say it would give a federal grant to the abortion provider.
In July 2012 a federal official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Chicago reaffirmed that an Indiana law barring Medicaid funds to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood is unacceptable on the grounds that it denies women the freedom to choose their health care providers, according to the Associated Press.
Source: CNA/EWTN News
