Key Pro-Life Anti-Discrimination Provision

Saturday, Nov. 20, 2004 -- The House of Representatives today (Saturday Nov. 20) takes up an omnibus spending bill that contains an important provision strongly supported by National Right to Life, known as the "Hyde-Weldon anti-discrimination amendment" or "Hyde-Weldon conscience amendment."

The House is expected to pass the bill Saturday afternoon. The Senate will then begin debate on the bill. A number of pro-abortion senators, including Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Me.), are objecting to inclusion of the Hyde-Weldon provision in the omnibus bill. The bill can be debated in the Senate, but it will not be subject to further amendment.

The Hyde-Weldon is named for Congressman Henry Hyde (R-Il.) and Congressman Dave Weldon (R-Fl.). The provision provides that state and local governments that receive federal health and human services funds may not discriminate against health care providers because they do not provide abortions, pay for abortions, provide coverage of abortions, or refer for abortions. This protection will cover doctors and other health care professionals, hospitals, HMOs, and health insurance plans, among others.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life, said, "National Right to Life commends the congressional Republican leadership for this important new law, which will prevent state and local government officials from compelling health care providers to participate in killing unborn children."

The amendment was approved last summer by the House Appropriations Committee and the full House, with support from the White House. On Nov. 17 the White House sent a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young encouraging retention of the amendment in the omnibus funding bill. The letter said that the Administration "strongly supports language added by the House to ensure that health care providers are not discriminated against because they do not provide, pay for, or cover abortions."

In a press release issued late Friday (Nov. 19), NARAL called the provision "a major new restriction" and added, "This measure is the third major piece of the anti-choice agenda the Bush crowd has gotten through in 12 months." This is an apparent reference to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (Laci and Conner's Law), signed by President Bush on November 5, 2003, and April 1, 2004, respectively.

To read a letter sent by National Right to Life to U.S. House members explaining the need for the Hyde-Weldon anti-discrimination amendment, click here. To see other documents on this issue, click here and here.

Journalists who wish to interview a National Right to Life spokesperson on this issue may call 202-626-8820 (leave your phone number and e-mail address, please), or send email to legfederal@aol.com.

From the article:
To read a letter sent by National Right to Life to U.S. House members explaining the need for the Hyde-Weldon anti-discrimination amendment, click here [and you can click here...].

http://www.nrlc.org/Federal/ANDA/HydeWeldon.html
National Right to Life urges U.S. House of Representatives to protect conscience rights of health-care providers
September 1, 2004
Dear Member of Congress:
When the House takes up the Labor-HHS appropriations bill (as yet unnumbered), perhaps next week, there may be an attempt to strike the Hyde-Weldon conscience protection provision (Section 509d). The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) urges you to support retention of this provision, which was approved by the Appropriations Committee on July 14. The provision would prevent any level of government from discriminating against a health care provider merely because the provider declines to "provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions."
The Hyde-Weldon provision embodies the same non-discrimination policy as the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA), a bill that the House passed on September 25, 2002 (107th Congress) by a vote of 229 to 189 (roll call no. 412). Unfortunately, that bill was not acted on by the Senate.
Current federal law ("Coats-Snowe Amendment," 42 U.S.C. §§238n) protects the conscience rights of health care providers who do not wish to offer or undergo abortion training. The Hyde-Weldon provision would provide consistent federal protection from government discrimination for other health care providers such as doctors, hospitals, and insurers who decline to participate in abortions.
The text of the committee-approved language appears below.
The committee-approved language is an urgently needed response to a national effort on the part of certain groups to employ the coercive powers of state and local government agencies and courts to force health-care providers, including religiously affiliated hospitals, to perform or fund abortions. For example, in Alaska the state supreme court ruled that a community hospital must perform late abortions against the wishes of the hospital's board of directors. Catholic hospitals and HMOs have been pressured by authorities in New Jersey and New York for refusal to provide abortions or abortion-related services. In Connecticut, a certificate of need was denied to a proposed outpatient surgical center because it declined to perform abortions, after abortion activists intervened in the proceedings. A hospital merger in New Hampshire was undone when pro-abortion activists intervened with the state attorney general. The city council of St. Petersburg, Florida, forced a private hospital to leave a non-profit consortium because the consortium followed a pro-life policy.
The Hyde-Weldon provision:
-- affirms that government entities that receive government funds cannot engage in invidious discrimination. This is consistent with numerous other federal laws basing the receipt of funds on the guarantee of civil rights. Such laws do not result in actual defunding of state or local governments; rather, they result in these governments conforming to the federal non-discrimination standard.
-- does not "gag" clinics that receive federal funding under Title X of the Public Health Service Act. The Hyde-Weldon provision does not prohibit any health care provider from voluntarily offering any abortion-related service; it merely ensures that no government agency will discriminate against providers who decline to offer the specific abortion-related services mentioned in the provision. Under the federal Title X statute, as construed by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2001, Title X clinics are required to provide clients, upon request, with "neutral, factual" information about abortion, but they are not required to provide direct referrals for abortion, and they may not make appointments, arrange transportation, or otherwise facilitate abortions.
-- is fully consistent with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (42 USC 1395dd), which requires critical-care facilities to provide stabilizing care to protect "the health of the individual (or, with respect to a pregnant woman, the health of the woman or her unborn child)."
-- is consistent with Medicaid case law that require states to co-fund abortions performed on Medicaid-eligible women in the few circumstances for which federal reimbursement is available (currently life of the mother, rape, and incest). Such abortions can be and are performed by willing abortion providers, without states forcing specific health-care providers to provide abortions in violation of their religious beliefs or ethical standards.
If a motion is offered to strike the Hyde-Weldon language, NRLC urges you to oppose that motion. NRLC will include the roll call on any such motion in our scorecard of key pro-life votes for the 108th Congress.
Thank you for your consideration of NRLC's position on this important issue.
Sincerely,
Douglas Johnson
NRLC Legislative Director
Patricia Coll
Congressional Liaison
Text of the Hyde-Weldon conscience protection provision:
At the end of section 509, add the following:
(d) (1) None of the funds made available in this Act may be made available to a Federal agency or program, or to a State or local government, if such agency, program, or government subjects any institutional or individual health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions. (2) In this subsection, the term "health care entity" includes an individual physician or other health care professional, a hospital, a provider-sponsored organization, a health maintenance organization, a health insurance plan, or any other kind of health care facility, organization, or plan.

How bizarre is it that all these years, a doctor or nurse, etc, could have their job in jeopardy because their conscience for religious or just plain ethics could not take part in the barbarism of abortion - murder?

Is not THAT a case of the state intruding and overriding a persons religious beliefs - i.e., the state not "separating" itself from religion?

Just don't put a creche on the town hall lawn!

I wonder if we mailed these pro-senators actual photos of a late term abortion, with description - how comfortable they would be looking in the mirror in the morning. They would not be able to get the photos our of their minds. It would only have to flip a couple to get things swinging the other way.

Indeed, every single representative DC ought to be sent such photos...if they have the guts to vote for these practices, they'd better have the gut to see what they are protecting.

And, starting now, there needs to be a campaign to educate the general public - provide Internet access to these terrible photos that the libs don't want seen because they know that it would spell the fast doom to, to start with, partial birth abortion.( And these photos need to be accessible to all - even teens - ...who will be making these decisions tomorrow. Only the most unhumane could support these practices once truly aware.)

Many people are naive and do not know just what "partial birth abortion" really is. If they actually saw photos and description - that would be an end to it.

No, it would not be pleasant - the photos. But neither is being murdered at the moment of birth.

Right now, we have a Mighty Helping Hand that helped keep "W" at the helm, I believe in large part, to our championing of his little ones. If we want to continue to have His protection from the madding hordes, we must use this opportunity swiftly and decisively to stop this murder of the innocents.

And think on this: who, by the millions, are in the majority being aborted? And for each one aborted, tens of millions of future generations of this group...until we dwindle into s tiny minority. Think this is not part and parcel of a long-range plan?

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