Obama administration approves Plan B morning after pill for young girls

The Family Research Council reports on a very disappointing story.

Excerpt:

If there’s one thing the Obama administration has mastered, it’s walking out on their responsibilities in court. Yesterday, the Justice Department sent its Plan B appeal to the same dust heap as its DOMA defense, telling reporters that it would give up its legal campaign after a couple of recent setbacks. The administration’s policy, which for two years had been the only thing standing between little girls and a powerful birth control drug, is now a thing of the past, as Health and Human Services (HHS) officially bows out of the battle so many parents willed it to keep fighting. The sudden surrender by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius means that the controversial and potent morning-after pill will be available to anyone — of any age — without a prescription.

Before Monday, the administration took a lot of heat for pitting itself against the President’s closest allies — radical feminists and abortion groups who object to even the slightest restrictions on “contraception.” In a letter to U.S. District Judge Edward Korman, who authored the scathing ruling against Sebelius’s policy, the government’s attorneys promised to step aside and allow unlimited sales. As soon as the manufacturers submit a new drug application, the FDA promises to fast-track the pills to drugstore shelves.

Initially, the DOJ had asked Korman to suspend his ruling until an appeals court could weigh in — which it did last week. And although the judges’ decision was an obstacle, there were plenty of legal options to overcome it. Instead, the President dropped the case — along with the facade of concern.

Judge Korman, like President Obama, has two children. Yet neither man seems overly concerned that the drug they’re both endorsing has never been tested on pre-teen and adolescent girls. Judge Korman called HHS’s policy “scientifically unjustified,” when in fact, the only thing that’s scientifically unjustified is the effect of these high doses of hormones on young girls. The FDA hasn’t conducted a single study on Plan B’s risks to girls under 17 — but as far as liberals are concerned, nothing should hinder access to anything related to sex, including personal safety.

There was one reaction to this story that I wanted to quote here:

Janice Crouse, also of CWFA, responded: “Once again, those who yell the loudest about caring about the nation’s children and youth applaud a decision to place our kids in a special interest experiment. Plan B, popularly called the ‘morning-after pill’ is a much-higher-dosage version of the regular birth control pill (which used to require a doctor’s prescription and continued doctor’s supervision). It is irresponsible to advocate over-the-counter use of these high-potency drugs, which would make them available to anyone – including those predators who exploit young girls. Mark my words, it will not be long before we see girls and women forced to purchase Plan B for their abuser to keep them and others enslaved. This is a pimp, predator, and pedophile’s dream – unlimited access to Plan B.”

She added: “This is a political decision, made by those who stand to profit financially from an action that puts ideology ahead of the nation’s girls and young women. Where is the scientific data and solid reasoning behind a decision that endangers minors?”

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America also weighed in on the decision.

She told LifeNews: “President Obama is waging a War on Girls by allowing young children to get Plan B without a physician or parent’s care or knowledge. The morning after pill is a megadose of the birth-control pill, which has been categorized by the World Health Organization as a Group I carcinogen. That’s the highest possible ranking – cigarettes are also in Group I. So why are drugstores required to put cigarettes behind the counter and ask for a photo id to stop minors from purchasing them, but President Obama is now ordering the morning after pill be sold over the counter, next to candy bars and packs of gum?  This is not reproductive justice, this is child abuse.”

Just to be clear, according to the drug manufacturer, Plan B does cause abortions in some situations by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg.

Filed under: News, Abortion, Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Abortion, HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services, Plan B

Obama rejects conscience protections for military chaplains

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

President Obama issued a statement Wednesday rejecting several provisions of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including a conscience protection for military chaplains that he called “ill-advised”.

“Section 533 is an unnecessary and ill-advised provision, as the military already appropriately protects the freedom of conscience of chaplains and service members,” he said in his signing statement.

Obama made clear that his administration would remain unmoved by the NDAA’s conscience provision, stating that the Department of Defense would continue to implement the repeal of the military’s ban on homosexual service members.

“My Administration remains fully committed to continuing the successful implementation of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and to protecting the rights of gay and lesbian service members; Section 533 will not alter that.”

The president said that the Secretary of Defense would ensure that no “discriminatory” actions result from Section 533’s conscience protections.

This is not the first time that Obama has trampled on freedom of conscience and religious liberty.

Here’s an article from Life Site News from back in 2011.

Excerpt:

The Obama Administration has rescinded a federal regulation from 2008 that protected the conscience rights of health care providers opposed to providing abortifacient contraception, such as the Plan-B “morning-after” pill.

The Health and Human Services Department under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, issued the new “final rule,” which leaves health-care workers of federally funded entities a narrower conscience exemption that only protects them from having to participate in abortions or sterilizations.

The new regulation replaces the earlier one enacted in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, which broadened the interpretation of existing federal conscience statutes related to abortion to include health professionals opposed to emergency contraception, such as Ella or Plan-B, drugs which pro-life advocates say also act as abortifacients.

Sebelius alleged in the promulgation of the new final rule that the Bush-era conscience regulations “instead led to greater confusion”, citing comments received by HHS. She said her department was changing the rule because it was “unclear and potentially over-broad in scope.”

The HHS Secretary said in her statement that her department did share the concern of those in favor of rescinding the rule that it had the “potential to negatively impact patient access to contraception and certain other medical services” esp. for certain sub-populations, such as “low income patients, minorities, the uninsured, patients in rural areas, Medicaid beneficiaries, or other medically under-served populations.”

The ruling is a victory for Planned Parenthood and other “family planning” groups that have insisted that drugs like Plan-B (taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse) and Ella (taken within five-days of intercourse) should be defined as “contraception.” Pro-life groups countered that pro-life health providers should be protected from discrimination under federal statutes, because these drugs could prevent a conceived human embryo from implanting in the mother’s womb, thereby aborting it.

[...]“Today’s erosion of conscience protections for medical professionals is a blow both to medicine and the right to practice one’s deeply-held convictions,” said Dr. J. Scott Ries, on behalf of the 16,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA).

Ries said the new HHS final rule disregarded the findings of the previous HHS 2008 final rule which stated that allowing health professionals to practice according to their convictions would negatively impact patient services or create “new barriers.”

“Losing conscientious healthcare professionals and faith-based institutions to discrimination and job loss especially imperils the poor and patients in medically underserved areas,” said Ries. “We are already facing critical shortages of primary care physicians, and the Obama administration’s decision now threatens to make the situation far worse for patients across the country who depend on faith-based health care.”

If religious liberty is a concern, then you can’t be a liberal. They don’t support religious liberty.

Filed under: News, Abortion, Atheism, Barack Obama, Chaplain, Conscience, Conscience Protection, Democrat, Democrat Party, Doctor, Fascism, Freedom of Religion, Gay Marriage, Health and Human Services, Health-care, HHS, Humanism, Kathleen Sebelius, Military, Military Chaplain, Morality, Nurse, Pro-Life, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty, Secular Humanism, Secularism

Missouri Republicans override governor’s veto to protect conscience rights and religious liberty

From Life Site News.

Excerpt:

Missouri Republicans override governor’s veto to protect conscience rights and religious liberty

Individuals, employees and employers in the state of Missouri, by the passage of this law, will not be required to participate in, provide, pay for, or provide referrals for any health plans or services or services that cover those services, nor will it be lawful for such persons to be discriminated against or penalized by any government agency.

The bill was vetoed by Governor Nixon on July 12, which surprised some in light of his record of allowing previous pro-life bills to pass without his signature by allowing the 45-day veto period to elapse.  It was in this way that Missouri’s late term abortion ban became law just last year.

In yesterday’s special veto session, the Senate voted 26-6 and the House 109-45 in defense of the bill, which was written in response to the federal HHS mandate issued by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that took effect in August.  The narrow religious exemptions in the mandate left individuals and non-religiously-affiliated employers outside its purview and subject to complying with its controversial requirements.  Individual conscientious objectors, whether employer or employee in the state of Missouri, are now protected from the mandate unless possible federal court decisions rule otherwise.

Missouri governor Jay Nixon is, of course, a Democrat, and therefore opposes doctors and nurses having conscience rights. He also wants to force Christian businesses to subsidize abortion-causing drugs. He lost this time because the Republicans were there in force to stop his secular leftist fascism.

Filed under: News, Abortion, Barack Obama, Conscience, Conscience Protection, Conscience Rights, Fascism, Governor, HHS, HHS Mandate, Jay Nixon, Kathleen Sebelius, Leftism, Mandate, Missouri, Pro-Life, Religious Liberty, Secularism, Socialism, Veto

Department of Justice threatens to seize business from Catholics

CNS News editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey writes about it on Townhall.

Excerpt:

The Newland family owns and operates Hercules Industries, a Colorado-based corporation that manufactures heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment. Through their hard work and dedication, and through their willingness to reinvest their own money in building their family business, they have managed to create jobs for 265 people while exerting a positive influence on the communities they serve.

[...]The Newlands sued to protect their free exercise of religion in this regard because Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a regulation, under the Obamacare law, that requires virtually all health care plans to cover — without cost-sharing — sterilizations, artificial contraception and abortifacients.

Under Obamacare, businesses that employ more than 50 people must provide their employees with insurance or pay a penalty, and the required insurance must include the mandated cost-sharing-free coverage for sterilizations, artificial contraception and abortifacients.

At Hercules Industries, the Newlands provide a generous self-insured health-care plan to their employees. It does not cover sterilization, artificial contraception or abortifacients.

[...]In response to the Newlands’ complaint that ordering them to violate the teachings of the Catholic Church in the way they run their business is a violation of their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, the Obama administration told the federal court that a private business has no protection under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause — especially if the business is incorporated.

[...]This is just as if the Justice Department were to tell a family owned newspaper that it must publish editorials calling for a confiscatory estate tax, basing its coercion of the newspaper on the supposition (which lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom argue DOJ is by analogy making) that as a for-profit secular and incorporated employer, the paper has no First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

I’m a Protestant, and even I could not comply with any regulation that forces me to subsidize behavior that I consider immoral – namely, dispensing drugs that cause unborn human children to die. I would like to go through my life without murdering any innocent people, thank you very much, and it’s not the government’s place to force me to murder people. And that’s one good reason right there to oppose Obamacare, although there are others.

Filed under: News, Abortifacient, Abortion, Conscience, Contraception, Health and Human Services, HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, Obamacare, Secularism, Sterilization

Republicans introduce bill to block tax on pro-life religious institutions

First, let’s look at this article from Life News, which discusses the tax that Obamacare imposes on pro-life religious institutions.

Excerpt:

The new Obama mandate that requires religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees could result in fines as much as $2,000 per employee or $100 each day if they refuse to comply.

Recently, Republicans in Congress asked the Congressional Research Service to examine the new mandate and the consequences for employers that do not want to follow it because it would violate their consciences and CRS issued a document finding noncompliant employers could face federal fines of $100 per day per employee.

“If a group health plan or health insurance issuer failed to provide contraceptive services pursuant to guidelines authorized by ACA, it seems possible … that a plan participant could be able to bring a claim for that benefit,” the memo states.

The report indicates the IRS is empowered to levy a tax penalty on noncompliant religious employers of $100 per day for each employee in their health plan.

Commerce Committee Republicans, according to Politico, are not happy with the findings.

“Implementing a federal mandate that violates the conscience of an individual or organization, regardless of their religious affiliation or organizational purpose, is in direct violation with the First Amendment,” the committee said in a release announcing the report. “Imposing a fine on these individuals pours salt in the wound.”

They said, according to Politico, that a charity or hospital with 100 employees “chooses to exercise its religious rights instead of complying with the Obamacare mandate, it could be subject to a $3.65 million annual fine.

The Republicans have introduced a bill to block the tax on pro-lifers who object to being forced to dispense drugs that cause abortions.

Excerpt:

“Sebelius’s taxman is coming. Sebelius’s taxman is coming.”

That was the rallying cry of Jim Sensenbrenner on Tuesday in the House of Representatives, where along with his chief co-sponsor Diane Black, he announced the Religious Freedom Tax Repeal Act, meant to be “a follow-on” to the recently concluded Fortnight for Freedom called for by the U.S. Catholic bishops, focusing on prayer and education about religious liberty.

The Freedom Tax Repeal Act seeks to “shock people into how confiscatory the taxes imposed would be for those who choose not to violate their consciences are,” Representative Sensenbrenner tells me.

“What has not been discussed” in most of the debate over the Department of Health and Human Services contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drug mandate, Sensenbrenner says, “is the tax that is imposed upon those that fail to comply with that mandate, either through religious objections or moral grounds. Those taxes are severe; they are confiscatory.”

“It is $100 per employee per day,” Sensenbrenner says, spelling out the taxing implications out. “So, a religious institution that, say, has a church and an elementary school beside it that has 50 employees total, which include the administrative and maintenance personnel, end up being taxed $36,500 per employee per year. Or the 50-employee institution would have to pay a tax of $1,825,000 per year, every year.

A lot of people who claim to be pro-life seem to think that Obamacare is a great idea, but one wonders whether they know anything about the law at all – or whether they are really as pro-life as they claim to be.

Filed under: News, Abortion, Barack Obama, Conscience, Fascism, HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, Pro-Life, Secularism, Socialism