Hippocratic physicians face "medical martyrdom"

Excerpted from The Coming of Medical Martyrdom, commentary by Wesley J. Smith, First Things, February 20, 2015 - Despite abortion’s ubiquitous legality and the accelerating push to normalize assisted suicide, space remains for dissenting doctors to practice their art in the traditional Hippocratic manner.

But that space is diminishing. Today, “patient rights” are paramount; the competent customer is always right and, hence, held to be entitled to virtually any legal procedure from “service providers” for which payment can be made—be it abortion, assisted suicide or, someday perhaps, embryonic stem cell therapies and products made from cloned and aborted human fetuses.

Hippocratic-believing professionals ... are increasingly being pressured to practice medicine without regard to their personal faith or conscience beliefs. This moral intolerance is slowly being imbedded into law. Such laws are a prescription for medical martyrdom, by which I mean doctors being forced to choose between adhering to their faith or moral code and remaining in their profession.

Canada is heading in [this] direction regarding euthanasia. Quebec legalized doctor-administered death last year and allows no conscience exemptions along the lines of Victoria’s abortion law. Meanwhile, the Canadian Supreme Court just made access to euthanasia a Charter right for those with a diagnosable medical condition that causes “irremediable suffering,” including “psychological” pain.

Recognizing that some doctors will have moral qualms about “terminating life,” the Court gave Parliament twelve months to pass enabling legislation, stating that “the rights of patients and physicians will need to be reconciled” by law or left “in the hands of physicians’ colleges.” That doesn’t bode well for medical conscience rights.

If these trends continue, twenty years from now, those who feel called to a career in health care will face an agonizing dilemma: either participate in acts of killing or stay out of medicine. Those who stay true to their consciences will be forced into the painful sacrifice of embracing martyrdom for their faith.

Commentary

Executive Director of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada Larry Worthen, MA (Th.), LLB: “Comments by Wesley Smith regarding conscience rights for healthcare professionals in Canada should sound an alarm for our friends in the United States about the dangers of complacency. Advocates for a rationalistic and exclusively secular approach to healthcare are gaining ground and are shamelessly flexing their muscles behind the scenes with the provincial colleges that regulate the practice of healthcare in Canada.

“Buoyed by a recent unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which struck down sections of the Criminal Code dealing with assisted suicide and euthanasia, they are setting about the work of forcing physicians to refer for, and in some cases provide, procedures that go against the conscience of the physician. This has already resulted in physicians questioning whether they should move from their jurisdiction or dramatically alter their practice.

“However, all is not lost. In the recent case, the Supreme Court cited a previous decision that acknowledged that a physician could not be forced to participate in a procedure that went against the physician's conscience. CMDS Canada is currently using this argument in lobbying efforts with the two provincial colleges that have proposed policies that encroach on the freedom of conscience.

“If those lobbying efforts fail, then we will be forced to commence legal action to vindicate our rights to freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We ask our friends in the United States for your prayer support in this challenging time.”

Action

Use our easy, pre-written forms at our Freedom2Care legislative action website to contact your senators and protect freedom of faith and conscience in healthcare - S 50.

Resources
Freedom2Care - Visit CMDA's one-stop source for news, commentary and resources on freedom of faith, conscience and speech.
View Canada CMDS's video interviews with doctors on this issue (navigate to right-hand column on home page).

CMDA member challenges discrimination with conscience lawsuit

Editor's note: The following story features CMDA member Sara Hellwege, a key leader in CMDA's Atlanta ministry. Please pray for and stand with Sara as she courageously fights for protections that will benefit you and other life-affirming, conscientious healthcare professionals.

Excerpted from "A War on Women’s Health," commentary by Ian Tuttle, National Review, July 24, 2014 - Because it’s usually hidden beneath excuses, justifications, and pretexts, employer discrimination can be difficult to uncover. Not for Sara Hellwege [Hell-VAY-guh]. The aspiring nurse-midwife’s potential employer, a federally funded health center in Tampa, Fla., made its reason for not hiring her unmistakably clear: "Due to the fact ... you are a member of [a pro-life Ob-Gyn group], we would be unable to move forward in the interviewing process."

Hellwege, with the aid of Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that focuses on religious-freedom violations, has filed suit against the Tampa Family Health Centers, Inc. (TFHC), for violating both federal and state law. Hellwege and Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel with ADF and one of Hellwege’s attorneys, contend that TFHC violated 42 U.S. Code § 300a–7d, which states:

No individual shall be required to perform or assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity funded in whole or in part under a program administered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services if his performance or assistance in the performance of such part of such program or activity would be contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions.

By all indications, Hellwege’s legal case is about as straightforward as they come. But the legal issues are irrelevant in the feminist blogosphere, where Hellwege has been savagely attacked.

But there is no conspiracy here — the law, at both federal and state levels, is clear, which perhaps explains its curious absence from the discussion at Salon and Wonkette — nor is there an effort to "refuse to provide women’s health care." Hellwege studied a field of care — midwifery — that is strictly for women, and she voluntarily sought out a position where she could serve poor women who often receive subpar care.

"The Left’s mantra of access is hollow," says Bowman, "because they want to deprive women of access to good, qualified nurses — like Sara." Bowman hopes that TFHC will admit wrongdoing and give Hellwege the chance to interview. If not, she and ADF are prepared to pursue their case using all available legal means.

"Many women want a pro-life midwife or nurse or doctor," he adds. "If the federal government can discriminate, women will have no options. There needs to be diversity among health providers, including religious and moral diversity that allows patients to have access to professionals who share their values."

Commentary

CMDA CEO David Stevens, MD, MA (Ethics): “The focus of this lawsuit is not defending a particular position on hormonal contraceptives, but rather defending a healthcare professional’s right to make conscientious decisions, even if that view is a minority position. Religious freedom does not mean simply protecting our own particular views on moral matters but protecting the right of each individual to make moral decisions based on conscience and ethical standards. Thus, we must defend a Muslim woman’s right to wear the hijab and the Jewish man’s right to wear the yarmulke as vigorously as we defend our own right to not be involved in abortions or other objectionable practices in healthcare.

“The position Sara applied for was to provide ‘all outpatient primary care’ so it went far beyond just providing contraception. Disqualifying Sara based on just this one aspect of her job is just like disqualifying an OB/Gyn candidate for declining to do abortions.

“Pray for Sara. She has been under vicious attacks in publications like Jezebel, Slate, Wonkette, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Styleite, Opposing Views and The Raw Story. She is standing up with the aid of the Alliance Defending Freedom to defend both your conscience freedoms and my conscience freedoms. I applaud her courage. The outcome of her case involving enforcing the Church Amendment could affect us all.”

Action

1. Urge your U.S. senators to support (or thank your senator for already co-sponsoring) the Health Care Conscience Rights Act - S. 1204 , to protect religious liberty and preserve patient access by providing conscience protections for health care professionals. (Note: You will be provided with editable text based on your senator's sponsorship or non-sponsorship of this bill.)
2. Urge your U.S. Representative to support (or thank your Rep. for already co-sponsoring) the Health Care Conscience Rights Act - H.R. 940.
   
3. Send a message to Sara

Resources
CMDA's Freedom2Care website: Freedom of faith, conscience and speech
CMDA's Freedom2Care commentaries in national newspapers
CMDA Freedom of Faith and Conscience resources
Fla. health center denies nursing job to pro-life woman - Alliance Defending Freedom

Will doctors be forced to kill?

Excerpted from "Will doctors be forced to kill?" commentary by Wesley J. Smith, First Things, July 25, 2014 - The wailing and gnashing of teeth in some quarters over the modest Hobby Lobby decision has me worried. Apparently, many on the political port side of the country believe that once a favored public policy has been enacted, it immediately becomes a "right" that can never be altered or denied. More, once such a "right" is established for the individual, others should have the duty to ensure access—even at the cost of violating their own religious consciences.

If such thinking prevails, medical professionals could be forced to participate in the taking of human life, for example in abortion, assisted suicide, and (given the research trends in regenerative medicine) providing treatments derived from the intentional destruction of human embryos or fetuses.

That certainly seems to be the direction in which the ACLU wishes to take the country. Recently, the ACLU of Washington State began trolling for potential clients to sue medical professionals or facilities that refused to participate in certain legal procedures or transactions based on religious objection:

"Have you or members of your family been denied reproductive health care or end-of-life services by a religiously based medical facility? The ACLU believes that everyone in Washington has the right to receive health care that is not restricted by the religious beliefs of others."

The solicitation listed specific procedures—some of which involve the taking of human life—that presumably a patient should have a right to receive. They include:

• Abortion
• Information about Washington’s Death with Dignity Act [the law permitting doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill];
• Referral to support organizations or cooperating providers to assist a patient in using Washington’s Death with Dignity Act;
• Medical providers permitted to participate in Washington’s Death with Dignity Act;
• Palliative care/nursing support for patients who choose to stop eating and drinking to allow natural death (e.g., participation in suicide by starvation, not a natural death)
• Pharmacy dispensary (e.g., forced dispensing of drugs used in assisted suicide, RU 486 abortions, etc.)

Moreover, the American medical establishment already opposes conscience exemptions for abortion and the dispensing of contraception. For example, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published an ethics-committee opinion denying its members the right of conscience against abortion.

Such denial of medical conscience is not yet embedded in American law. But if the anti-religious liberties lobby gets its way, it will be. Indeed, in coming years, medical professionals who believe in the Hippocratic Oath’s prohibition against killing could well be driven out of medicine.

Commentary

Jonathan Imbody, CMA VP for Govt. Relations: – The US Senate recently highlighted this battle over conscience and autonomy by voting on a bill (the Women’s Health Protection Act, S. 1696) that would, in the words of the National Right to Life Committee, "invalidate nearly all existing state limitations on abortion ... [including] laws allowing medical professionals to opt out of providing abortions, laws limiting the performance of abortions to licensed physicians, bans on elective abortion after 20 weeks, meaningful limits on abortion after viability, and bans on the use of abortion as a method of sex selection." Thankfully, the Senate bill failed, on a largely party-line cloture vote.

The bill reflects the escalating conflict between two camps in American society that hold irreconcilable worldviews: those who follow objective moral and ethical standards outside themselves (such as the Bible and the Hippocratic oath) and those whose only ethic is autonomy, which boils down to "whatever I want." The scary part is that many authorities in the medical community, which used to lead the way in promoting and following objective ethical standards, have all but abandoned the Hippocratic oath and increasingly promote autonomy as the ethic that trumps all else.

As appealing as autonomy may sound and even though it has its place in some cases, it is not the kind of standard that protects others well at all, like the Bible and the Hippocratic oath do. That's because one person's autonomy in one direction inevitably runs smack into another person's autonomy headed in the opposite direction. What happens then? Whoever is strongest wins.

If a patient gains the power in the name of autonomy to demand and receive whatever he or she wants, the healthcare professional becomes a mere "provider" and loses the essence of professionalism--professing to follow an objective standard. Similarly, if a mother insists on fulfilling her autonomy through an abortion, the baby loses her life.

Autonomy brooks no competition. So autonomy is less a reliable ethic and more a prescription for conflict, an enemy of tolerance and diversity.

In the First Amendment's establishment clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), America's founders carefully balanced conscience freedoms with community interests, minority rights with majority rule, individual liberty with governmental function. We must shore up that understanding of freedom every chance we get--in the culture, in Congress and in the courts--or we will lose the ability to live out our faith in our professions and in the public square.

Action

1. Urge your U.S. senators to support (or thank your senator for already co-sponsoring) the Health Care Conscience Rights Act - S. 1204 , to protect religious liberty and preserve patient access by providing conscience protections for health care professionals. (Note: You will be provided with editable text based on your senator's sponsorship or non-sponsorship of this bill.)
2. Urge your U.S. Representative to support (or thank your Rep. for already co-sponsoring) the Health Care Conscience Rights Act - H.R. 940.

Resources
CMDA's Freedom2Care website: Freedom of faith, conscience and speech
CMDA's Freedom2Care commentaries in national newspapers
CMDA Freedom of Faith and Conscience resources
"U.S. Senate Democrats launch push for “the most radical pro-abortion bill ever" - National Right to Life

Religious freedom law is essential

Excerpted from "A Perpetual Haven: Why the Religious Freedom Restoration Act Matters," commentary by Kim Colby, Public Discourse, June 30th, 2014 - Religious liberty is America’s most distinctive contribution to humankind. The genius of American religious liberty is that we protect every American’s religious beliefs and practices, no matter how unpopular or unfashionable they may be. By protecting all religious beliefs and practices regardless of their popularity or political power, religious liberty makes it possible for citizens who hold very different worldviews to live peaceably together. Robust religious liberty avoids a political community riven along religious lines.

But religious liberty is fragile, too easily taken for granted, and too often neglected. A leading religious liberty scholar, Professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia, recently warned: "For the first time in nearly 300 years, important forces in American society are questioning the free exercise of religion in principle—suggesting that free exercise of religion may be a bad idea, or at least, a right to be minimized."

Congress’s passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) was a singular achievement. For two decades, RFRA has stood as the preeminent federal protection of all Americans’ religious liberty. RFRA ensures a level playing field for Americans of all faiths. It puts "minority" faiths on an equal footing with any "majority" faith.

Yet RFRA has recently become a prime target for those who would deny robust protection to religious liberty. Congress may soon come under pressure to amend RFRA and diminish its protection, if the Supreme Court upholds RFRA’s protection of Americans whose religious consciences will not allow them to comply with the HHS mandate. Congress must withstand such pressure in order to protect religious liberty in America.

RFRA creates a level playing field for Americans of all faiths, putting "minority" faiths on an equal footing with "majority" faiths. Essentially, RFRA makes religious liberty the default position in any conflict between religious conscience and federal regulation.

The oft-heard argument that America must limit religious freedom because it has become more religiously diverse has it precisely backwards. Robust religious liberty is the reason for America’s dramatic diversity and remains essential to maintaining that diversity. RFRA ensures religious diversity by protecting all religions, including the hundreds of numerically disadvantaged faiths, by increasing the likelihood that those faiths will obtain sensible exemptions from well-intentioned laws that unknowingly restrict their religious practices.

In the long term, RFRA maximizes social stability in a religiously diverse society and minimizes the likelihood of political divisions along religious lines. The reason is simple. As Laycock puts it, "religious liberty reduces social conflict; there is much less reason to fight about religion if everyone is guaranteed the right to practice his religion." In other words, RFRA implements the Golden Rule in the context of religious liberty: in protecting others’ religious liberty, we protect our own religious liberty.

Commentary

The author of this piece, colleague Kim Colby of the Christian Legal Society, is one of a cadre of smart and savvy attorneys forming a bulwark of religious freedom through landmark litigation. CMDA has participated with Christian Legal Society, Alliance Defending Freedom, Americans United for Life and others in over 40 court cases. We meet regularly in Washington, DC to discuss legal strategy, messaging and culture-changing strategies to preserve the religious freedoms ensconced in the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Protection Act and three federal laws protecting conscience in healthcare.

Such freedoms are never free, and we remember that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." So I hope you will take a moment now to use the quick and easy form at our Freedom2Care legislative action website to tell your legislators to protect your conscience freedoms:

Protect conscience rights - HR.940
End discrimination in health care - S.1204

Action

1. Urge your U.S. senators to support (or thank your senator for already co-sponsoring) the Health Care Conscience Rights Act - S. 1204 , to protect religious liberty and preserve patient access by providing conscience protections for health care professionals. (Note: You will be provided with editable text based on your senator's sponsorship or non-sponsorship of this bill.)
2. Urge your U.S. Representative to support (or thank your Rep. for already co-sponsoring) the Health Care Conscience Rights Act - H.R. 940.

Resources
CMDA's Freedom2Care website: Freedom of faith, conscience and speech
CMDA's Freedom2Care commentaries in national newspapers
CMDA Freedom of Faith and Conscience resources

SCOTUS hears case on free speech re: abortion in Obamacare

Excerpted from "Campaign speech case is regulatory overkill," commentary by George F. Will, Washington Post, April 18, 2014 - Former U.S. representative Steve Driehaus, a Cincinnati Democrat who considers himself antiabortion, says he lost his 2010 reelection bid because the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony List violated Ohio’s law with ads saying that when he voted for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), he voted for taxpayer funding of abortion. When he learned that the SBA List planned to erect billboards proclaiming “Shame on Steve Driehaus! Driehaus voted FOR taxpayer-funded abortion,” he filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission, the truth arbiter and speech regulator. So the billboard company refused the SBA List’s business.

Driehaus says the ACA does not specifically appropriate money for abortions. The SBA List counters that the ACA can subsidize abortion-inclusive insurance coverage.

Driehaus says insurance companies must collect a “separate payment” from enrollees and segregate this money from federal funds. The SBA List says money is fungible, so this accounting sleight of hand changes nothing.

Driehaus says an executive order issued after passage of the ACA, which was promised to get him and a few other pro-life Democrats to vote for the act, prohibits ACA funds from being used for abortions. The SBA List says the executive order proved that the ACA itself allowed taxpayer-funded abortions.

Ohio’s law, which obviously is designed to encourage self-censorship, certainly chilled the SBA List’s political speech. The SBA List’s brief to the Supreme Court notes that “a law requiring citizens to pay $1 before they could publicly comment on electoral issues or candidates for office would be immediately justiciable (and promptly invalidated).” Yet Ohio’s law makes it easy for literally millions of Ohioans to subject participants in the political process to much more expensive costs — not to mention the threat of incarceration.

This case, which comes from Cincinnati, where the regional IRS office was especially active in suppressing the political speech of conservative groups, involves the intersection of two ominous developments. One is the inevitable, and inevitably abrasive, government intrusions into sensitive moral issues that come with government’s comprehensive and minute regulation of health care with taxes, mandates and other coercions. The Supreme Court will soon rule on one such controversy, the ACA requirement that employer-provided health-care plans must cover the cost of abortifacients. The other development is government’s growing attempts to regulate political speech, as illustrated by the Obama administration’s unapologetic politicization of the IRS to target conservative groups.

These developments are not coincidental. Government’s increasing reach and pretensions necessarily become increasingly indiscriminate.

Commentary

CMA VP for Govt. Relations Jonathan Imbody: – “Government actions hostile to religious freedom have triggered a raft of cases that now are reaching the Supreme Court. They're worth tracking because (a) they involve our faith-based and pro-life colleagues and (b) the principles impact virtually every believer, and especially those who own or work for businesses--including medical and dental practices. These cases include, but are not limited to:

1. the recently heard religious freedom cases of faith-motivated for-profit employers forced to violate their conscience convictions by participating in providing HHS-mandated contraceptives that the FDA notes can end the life of a human embryo;
2. the free speech case analyzed above, of a pro-life organization censored for political speech that sought to educate voters on abortion-related provisions in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare);
3. the upcoming religious freedom cases (of a total of nearly 100 cases in all) of non-profit organizations also opposed to participating in the HHS contraceptives mandate.

“With the number of Americans who hold no religious affiliation increasing (read my analysis of that trend here), the faith community is losing natural supporters of religious freedom. That means we have to step up our efforts to protect ourselves in law and also to educate our countrymen.


“Some basic points to emphasize about religious freedom:

1. Faith-based groups help the poor and needy. (Polling shows that even the non-religious still appreciate the charitable services of the faith community.)
2. Religious liberty protects against discrimination and promotes tolerance and diversity. (Why should religious views be censored in the public arena? Religious tolerance is a hallmark of our democratic republic designed to aid the coexistence of disparate groups and viewpoints.)
3. A threat to one group’s First Amendment freedoms is a threat to all. As Protestant Pastor Martin Niemoller lamented after serving in a concentration camp during the Nazi holocaust, ‘First they came for the Jews. I was silent. I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists. I was silent. I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists. I was silent. I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me. There was no one left to speak for me.’”

Resources

CMA SCOTUS brief in Hobby Lobby religious freedom case

CMA’s Freedom2Care website on freedom of faith, conscience and speech

CMA commentaries

Action

Use our easy pre-written customizable message to support H.R. 940 - Healthcare Conscience Rights Act (House bill) and S. 1204 - Health Care Conscience Rights Act (Senate bill)

CMA religious freedom commentary on Fox News

(Excerpted from "Families fighting Obamacare's assertion of 'pill-level power,'" published by Fox News, March 25, 2014)

By Jonathan Imbody, CMA VP for Govt. Relations

The mandate under Obamacare that prescribes the provision of 20 specific contraceptives exposes the audacity of pill-level government decision-making. While many Americans, including those with religious convictions, approve of and use certain contraceptives, the government-mandated, no-exceptions list includes four especially controversial items (Plan B, ella and two intrauterine devices--IUDs) that the FDA notes can end the life of a developing human being.

Why would the government intervene to force the provision of free contraceptives for every woman from the Hamptons to Beverly Hills? Everyone who has easily bought and used contraceptives at the neighborhood drug store can readily see that the administration has no compelling interest to do so beyond raw politics and ideology.

President Obama unwittingly confirmed the lack of a compelling need for government intervention when he asserted in a White House address, "Nearly 99 percent of all women have relied on contraception at some point in their lives--99 percent." Why would the federal government intervene to mandate the provision of what even the President admits is a ubiquitous product? The existing ready access to contraceptives, combined with literally millions of exemptions handed out by the administration to virtually everyone but religious objectors, effectively rules out any government claim to a compelling reason for the mandate.

The Supreme Court in a few days will examine whether the administration violated federal law that requires a "compelling" government justification for trampling Americans' conscience freedoms. The Court will hear two cases of family-owned businesses whose only crime appears to be not sharing the administration's ideology. Two families that own and operate companies--the Conestoga Wood Specialties and the Hobby Lobby--maintain a science- and faith-based objection to providing just the four of the mandated contraceptives that can end a human life.

As a result, these two family-owned businesses face government fines totaling millions of dollars as the cost of exercising what they thought were every American's unalienable First Amendment freedoms. They could also, of course, simply drop their employees' healthcare insurance altogether. But that option likewise incurs draconian Obamacare fines, and the families want to continue providing excellent health coverage to employees as they were able to before Obamacare.

These families now fight in court for the freedoms that other Americans have fought for on the battlefield.

Read rest of commentary.

Resources

CMDA Right of Conscience Resources

Action

Use our easy pre-written customizable message to support H.R. 940 - Healthcare Conscience Rights Act (House bill) and S. 1204 - Health Care Conscience Rights Act (Senate bill)

Supreme Court hears religious freedom, contraceptives cases

Excerpted from "Supreme Court divided as it hears argument on contraceptive coverage," Washington Post, March 26, 2014 - A divided Supreme Court seemed sympathetic Tuesday to the views of business owners who say their religious objections protect them from a requirement in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act that health insurance plans cover all types of contraceptives. The conservative wing of the court seemed to agree that the challengers in the two cases — closely held corporations owned by families whose religious beliefs the government does not question — could be covered by a federal law that provides great protection for the exercise of religion.

So for the contraceptive requirement to apply to the companies, the government would have to show that it has a compelling interest in enforcing the requirement, that this does not impose a substantial burden on religious exercise, and that there is no less-intrusive way to provide coverage to female workers.

Justice Anthony Kennedy may have signaled a deeper concern when he raised the worry that the government’s reasoning would mean there was little that employers could object to funding. Kennedy told Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. that under Verrilli’s view, a corporation “could be forced in principle to pay for abortions.” The court will render a decision in the cases — Hobby Lobby Stores vs. Sebelius and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius — during its current term, which ends in late June.

Commentary

CMA VP for Government Relations Jonathan Imbody – “These cases hold profound significance for our free exercise of religion, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and as advanced in a federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Christian Medical Association filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief, available here.

“The cases hinge on several key principles:

• Americans do not sacrifice their First Amendment freedom to exercise religious convictions once they launch a business (including a medical or dental practice). Consider, for example, that the New York Times corporation does not lose its First Amendment free speech rights simply as a result of incorporation; nor do incorporated churches lose their free exercise rights.
• The government may only abridge the free exercise of religion when it can prove a ‘compelling interest.’ The fact that the administration has exempted millions of secular employers (though refusing to exempt many religious employers) undermines any government claim that the mandate is compelling. The lack of studies showing that pills such as ella and Plan B actually reduce unplanned pregnancies also undermines a claim of compelling interest.
• Even when the government can prove a compelling interest to transgress religious liberty, it may only do so by the ‘least restrictive’ means available The least restrictive means of providing contraceptives would be for the government to directly provide them to women who cannot afford them, as it does around the world--not to force conscientious objectors to participate in the distribution.

“Many of my attorney colleagues who attended Tuesday's oral arguments at the Supreme Court felt guardedly encouraged. I attended a briefing at the U.S. Capitol in which similar optimism was voiced, based on the justices' line of questioning.

“If we win this decision, Christians gain a measure of protection against the increasing assaults on our religious freedom. If we lose, we can expect more fines, discrimination, job losses and even jailing as a result of growing animus toward the faith community and the increasingly counter-cultural values for which we stand. Even with a court victory, we still face the huge and more important task of winning an audience with our colleagues and our culture, to present the principles and claims of the kingdom and our King.


Resources

CMDA Right of Conscience Resources

Action

Use our easy pre-written customizable message to support H.R. 940 - Healthcare Conscience Rights Act (House bill) and S. 1204 - Health Care Conscience Rights Act (Senate bill)

CMA commentary in LA Times responds to religious freedom editorial

LA Times editorial
(Excerpted from, "Critics want to overturn the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but that's going too far," by The Los Angeles Times editorial board, February 4, 2014, Copyright 2014, Los Angeles Times.)

Two decades ago, Congress overwhelmingly approved and President Clinton enthusiastically signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But now that the 1993 law is being used to challenge the Obama administration's requirement that employer health plans include contraceptive services, some supporters of the law are having second thoughts, and several organizations want the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. That would be a mistake.

Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the government may "substantially burden a person's exercise of religion" only if necessary to further a "compelling government interest" and only if the law in question is the "least restrictive means" of achieving that interest.

Next month the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases in which owners of for-profit businesses argue that the law allows them to disregard the contraceptive mandate because of their religious objections. We hope and expect that the court will reject their claim. The law refers to burdens on "a person's exercise of religion," not a corporation's, and the burden must be substantial. Providing insurance coverage for a woman who uses it to obtain contraceptives no more implicates an employer in her decision than does the payment of her salary, which can also be spent on birth control. Finally, ensuring that women have access to preventive healthcare is clearly a compelling interest.

CMA response - published in LA Times

By Jonathan Imbody, CMA VP for Govt. Relations (Published Feb. 4, 2014 in The Los Angeles Times) – The Times rightly defends but wrongly interprets a federal law that forbids the government from imposing ‘substantial burdens’ on the exercise of religious convictions and requires federal officials to pursue the ‘least restrictive means’ of achieving any ‘compelling interest.’

The Times neglects 1st Amendment principles in defending the administration's attempts to force employers with conscientious objections to bow to the government's edict to provide controversial contraceptives and sterilization surgeries.

The government easily could avoid restricting religious freedom by directly supplying poor women with contraceptives, just as it does worldwide.

Just as the 1st Amendment protects the free speech of citizens and corporations such as The Times, it also protects the free exercise of religion by citizens and employers. When the administration attempts to force even elderly nuns to violate their religious convictions, clearly the government has trampled on sacred 1st Amendment ground.

Resources
CMDA Right of Conscience Resources

Action
Use our easy pre-written customizable message to support H.R. 940 - Healthcare Conscience Rights Act (House bill) and S. 1204 - Health Care Conscience Rights Act (Senate bill)

Religious freedom policies needed to protect conscience

Excerpted from "Why religious freedom matters" CNN commentary by Robert P. George and Katrina Lantos Swett, January 16, 2014 - Editor’s note: Robert P. George and Katrina Lantos Swett serve as chairman and vice chairwoman, respectively, of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Supporting religious freedom or belief abroad is not just a legal or moral duty, but a practical necessity that is crucial to the security of the United States – and the world – as it builds a foundation for progress and stability. Research confirms that religious freedom in countries that honor and protect this right is generally associated with vibrant political democracy, rising economic and social well-being, and diminished tension and violence. In contrast, nations that trample on religious freedom are more likely to be mired in poverty and insecurity, war and terror, and violent, radical extremism.

Given the compelling case for supporting religious freedom abroad, why is it still so often given short shrift?

Simply stated, powerful concerns and emotions and differing world views are in play. For example, some people erroneously believe that democratic governance requires the exclusion or marginalization of any public dialogue, debate or policy that includes religion. Others view religion and related issues as exclusively personal and thus belonging solely in private life.

Still others worry that, when connected to an issue, religion generates needless and/or unresolvable tensions and controversies and thus is best left alone, perhaps recalling some of history's worst excesses in religion's name. Some are uncomfortable specifically with "organized religion" and may prefer to frame issues in terms of general spirituality. And some who have an exclusively secular approach and a non-theistic perspective may think that promoting religious freedom infringes on their right not to believe.

What all of these concerns share is the view that religion and religious freedom should be off the radar and divorced from foreign policy.

The answer to such concerns is that advocating for freedom of religion overseas is not about supporting a privileged position for religion, but the right to follow one's conscience. It is about insisting that advocating for religious freedom abroad be viewed in the same way as advocating for other essential rights guaranteed under international law. And, contrary to popular myth, this view encompasses not just the freedom to practice peacefully any religion and all that is associated with it, but the freedom not to believe – the right to reject any and all religion, publicly and privately.

While religious freedom cannot be separated from religion, it is actually less about religion per se than affirming a bedrock, internationally-recognized human right, one that has proven time and again to be a foundational freedom for other freedoms.

Resources

CMDA Right of Conscience Resources

Conscience, liberty and duty

Excerpted from "What ‘Conscience’ Really Means," National Review Online interview, July 12, 2013 - "Respect for the dignity of the human being requires more than formally sound institutions; it also requires a cultural ethos in which people act from conviction to treat one another as human beings should be treated: with respect, civility, justice, compassion," Robert P. George writes in his new book, Conscience and Its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: Can conscience have enemies if we don’t even agree on what conscience is?

ROBERT P. GEORGE: Sure. But one’s identification of the enemies of conscience will depend on one’s view of what conscience is. Today, many on the Left and even some on the Right imagine that “conscience” is a matter of sorting through one’s feelings to see whether one would feel badly about doing something — badly enough, that is, that one would prefer the option of not doing it. Where one strongly desires to do something, and especially where one sees some advantage to oneself in doing it, “conscience,” understood in this way, tends to be reliably permissive. If one wants to do something badly enough, “conscience” can pretty much be counted on to produce a “permission slip” — especially if one can manage to conceptualize the conduct in question as purely “self-regarding.”

The distinction between liberty and license — a distinction critical to the thought of the founders of our nation and the architects of our Constitution — loses its intelligibility, and those who defend traditional notions of morality, virtue and the common good come to be perceived and derided as reactionaries, and even “bigots” and “haters.”

Authentic conscience is not a writer of permission slips to act on feelings or desires. It is one’s last best judgment — an unsentimentally self-critical judgment — informed by critical reason and reflective faith of one’s strict duties, one’s feelings or desires to the contrary notwithstanding. Authentic conscience governs — passes judgment on — feelings and desires; it is not reducible to them, and it is not in the business of licensing us to act on them.

Today, the enemies of conscience trample on those sacred rights in a wide variety of ways — everything from the odious Department of Health and Human Services abortion-drug and contraception mandates to the abuse of anti-discrimination laws to drive religiously affiliated adoption services out of business or to harass caterers, florists and others who cannot, in conscience, provide their services for ceremonies they judge to be immoral. Another way that they assault conscience is by stigmatizing as a bigot anyone who dissents from their views on morally divisive issues.

Commentary

CMDA Senior Vice President Gene Rudd, MD: "Notice George’s comment, 'If one wants to do something badly enough, "conscience" can pretty much be counted on to produce a "permission slip."' Of course he is speaking of the dangers of a poorly formed conscience.

"C.S. Lewis addresses this well in The Abolition of Man. Lewis rejects the view that all judgments are subjective. He explains how moral truth and values are supported objectively. He goes on to show how moral values (conscience) must be taught to each generation lest society slip into anarchy. Lewis illustrates using the body. The head provides reasoning. The stomach represents our passions (the carnal man). But something is needed between them for proper stature – the chest. The chest represents the moral values instilled in us by a rightly structured family, church and society. 'Men without chests' are dangerous.

"George is right, 'Authentic conscience is not a writer of permission slips to act on feelings or desires.' An authentic, God-honoring conscience must be formed within each of us. While we can still learn this as adults, it best occurs at the formative time of our lives, in the home. Are we training our families to have such a conscience? We cannot depend on society, or even the church, to do that for us."