Posted on 11/21/2014 9:53:10 AM PST by wagglebee
The Supreme Court may have sided with Hobby Lobby in its case against the Obama administration over the pro-abortion HHS mandate, but one leading pro-life group says the Obama administration’s religious discrimination continues.
Defending the First Amendment conscience rights of Americans, Americans United for Life filed two amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) briefs today in the Fifth and Eighth Circuits challenging the Obama Administration’s anti-life edicts in Obamacare.
“Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s clear directives favoring freedom of conscience in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Obama Administration has doubled down on its coercive, anti-life policies, refusing to respect the beliefs of those who do not wish to provide coverage of life-ending drugs and devices,” said Americans United for Life President Charmaine Yoest.
Including these two cases, AUL has filed 23 briefs in challenges to Obamacare’s HHS Mandate that requires employers to offer life-ending drugs and devices in health insurance policies. In our briefs, AUL defends the constitutional rights of all Americans when it comes to healthcare purchases.
Yoest tells LifeNews that the Obama administration didn’t back down int he face of the Hobby Lobby decision. Instead, Obama officials doubled down by releasing new guidelines for how employers who object to the abortion mandate because of their religious views can supposedly opt out. The problem is that the new guidelines just repeat the previous ones and offer no accommodation for employers who don’t want to pay for abortion-causing drugs.
As AUL tells LifeNews, in a recent and meaningless “accommodation,” the Obama Administration announced that those with religious beliefs opposed to life-ending drugs and devices must hand over to the federal government the name and contact information “for any of the plan’s third party administrators and health insurance issuers.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made clear its intention to use the information to force the religious employer’s insurance provider to include the objected-to items and services.
“Rather than respecting the beliefs of Americans concerned about the impact of deadly drugs on women and their unborn children, the Obama Administration uses its power to forcibly violate the conscience rights of pro-life Americans,” said Dr. Yoest. “The accounting gimmicks touted as a fix change nothing.”
As noted in the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, if a non-profit religious employer does not “yield to this demand” by the Obama Administration to facilitate coverage for life-ending drugs and devices “the economic consequences will be severe.”
Importantly, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby decision held that the Green and Hahn families “sincerely believe that providing the insurance coverage demanded by the HHS regulations lies on the forbidden side of the line, and it is not for us to say that their religious beliefs are mistaken or insubstantial.”
“Here, as in Hobby Lobby, it is not for the Obama Administration to determine what ‘lies on the forbidden side of the line’ for these employers who deserve to enjoy their constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of conscience,” said Yoest.
One brief (available here) was filed in the Fifth Circuit in the consolidated cases of East Baptist University v. Burwell, University of Dallas v. Burwell, Catholic Diocese of Beaumont v. Burwell, and Catholic Charities, Diocese of Fort Worth v. Burwell. The second brief (available here) was filed in the Eighth Circuit in Archdiocese of St. Louis v. Burwell. In each of the cases, a lower court had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and the Obama Administration appealed.
In the briefs, AUL demonstrates that the life of a new human being begins at fertilization (conception), that so-called “emergency contraception” has a post-fertilization effect that can prevent a new human being from implanting in the uterus and thus ending his or her young life, and that forcing employers to provide coverage for life-ending drugs or devices violates their freedom of conscience.
The briefs were filed on behalf of Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists, Christian Medical Association, Catholic Medical Association, The National Catholic Bioethics Center, Alabama Physicians for Life, National Association of Pro Life Nurses, and National Association of Catholic Nurses.
“Real healthcare respects life,” noted Dr. Yoest. “Whether the issue is punishing Americans for their beliefs, pushing life-ending drugs that have been deceptively labeled as contraception, or creating new income streams for the abortion industry, the anti-life implications of Obamacare are far reaching.”
Abortion is woven into Obamacare at multiple levels, making repeal of the law a pro-life necessity. The abortion-related provisions of Obamacare include:
of course.
If the left wins in court it is “settled law”, if the left loses in court they ignore it.
Same as always.
IRS Admits to Court it Hasn’t Searched for Missing Lerner Emails ... 11.05.14
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted to the court that it failed to search any of the IRS standard computer systems for the “missing” emails of Lois Lerner and other IRS officials. The admission appears in an IRS legal brief opposing the Judicial Watch request that a federal court judge allow discovery into how “lost and/or destroyed” IRS records relating to the targeting of conservative groups may be retrieved. The IRS is fighting Judicial Watch’s efforts to force testimony and document production about the IRS’ loss of records in Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation about the IRS targeting of Tea Party and other opponents of President Obama(Judicial Watch v. IRS (No. 1:13-cv-1559)). The lawsuit is before U.S. District Court Judge Emmett G. Sullivan.
There are NO Rules For Radicals.
I sure find the pictures of our demonstrations a lot easier on the eyes than the pictures of the other side’s demonstrations.
Obama is like the honey badger.
Honey badger don’t give a Shi’ite!
Of O’s many bad qualities, his spitefulness is one of the ugliest.
Is the admin doing this to FORCE the companies to spend a lot of money trying to defend themselves ..??
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Obama is paraphrasing Stalin:
“How many divisions does the pope (Supreme Court) have?”
He’s a dictator.
just tell bammy and holder they’re choosing not to follow the law....just like them.
The same as he will do if SCOTUS rules against his amnesty. Or against paying subsidies in the Federal exchange.
He’s also extremely immature and self-centered. He seems never to have advanced beyond the mental and emotional maturity of a ten year old sociopath.
I wonder if Dana Perino thinks her boy, the Kenyan emperor, is within the law by doing this. Probably so.
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