Defending the Federal Conscience Clause Law on Abortion

The ACLJ is gearing up for an important court battle challenging a new law that protects health care professionals from being forced to participate in abortions.  This federal conscience cause measure was signed into law by President Bush and the latest legal challenge comes from California Attorney General Bill Lockyer who filed a federal lawsuit this week.

The conscience clause measure was actually an amendment added to a federal appropriations bill for the Departments of Health, Education and Labor for Fiscal Year 2005 sponsored by Congressmen Dave Weldon and Henry Hyde.  The measure is designed to protect physicians, clinics, hospitals, health insurers and any other health care entity from being forced to provide, pay for or refer for abortions. The Weldon-Hyde amendment simply gives health care entities freedom from government coercion in providing controversial elective abortion services.

The ACLJ will be representing Congressman Weldon and others in filing a brief in support of the law.

Congressman Weldon issued this statement responding to the claims by Lockyers suit seeking to overturn a law that protects health care entities from being coerced by governments to perform elective abortions:

"I have read many legal complaints in my day and this one from Mr. Lockyer is as convoluted as they come. Mr. Lockyer has apparently become Californias chief abortion advocate by cobbling together emergency medical care laws and the State constitution to create a new and unique abortion right. Using emergency medical care to justify the coercion of health care providers to perform abortions is a red herring and is a contrived circumstance designed to advance his political agenda."

"Its a recycling of the same old scare tactics. The lawsuit wants us to buy into the preposterous notion that Pro-Life health care providers would rather let both baby and mother die than save the life of the mother if given the choice. Now thats getting pretty preposterous. Long before Roe v. Wade, the standard of care was protect the life of the mother in life threatening situations."
 
"What I am trying to protect health care provides from is cited in the complaint itself. Mr. Lockyer states that the Plaintiffs have no dispute with providing health care professionals the option, under most circumstances, to not perform abortions... Under which circumstances does Mr. Lockyer believe it is necessary to coerce health care providers against their conscience?  The irony of this complaint is he is seeking relief from coercion by the federal government to protect his ability to coerce health care providers into performing abortions."

Forty-seven states protect health care providers from forced involvement in abortion, only eight of which except cases for life of the mother or emergencies. Many of these laws have been in effect for over 25 years and no one has shown them to have an adverse effect on women's health. Yet, in Lockyers suit, he alleges that California would be unable to provide abortions, particularly in emergency care situations.
 
There is another legal challenge that's been filed against the conscience cause law.  In that case, we represent Congressmen Weldon and Hyde and on their behalf filed a brief in support of the law in federal court in Washington, D.C.

It is encouraging to see Congressman Weldon and his office seize the initiative on this. Yesterday, Drew Ryun, our new Director of Government Affairs, had lunch with one of Weldons senior staffers who made it very clear that not only was Weldon eager to fight this lawsuit brought by Lockyer, he was going to fight it aggressively. "Were going to get out in front on this one," the staffer told Drew. "Were putting the Congressman on radio, were press releasing it-were not going to take this sitting down." We are glad to stand together with Congressman Weldon and have already begun the process of preparing a brief in support of the law in the California case.

On Jay Sekulow Live! this week, Jay discussed the fact that he believes were going to continue to see this sort of aggressiveness on the social issues from the 109th Congress. Drew Ryun has indicated that the Republican Study Committee, the caucus of conservative Congressmen and women, now has 90 members.  This is good news and the ACLJ is confident that we will see real results from this Congress, a direct correlation to the incredible turnout among the social conservatives in November.

We will keep you posted on these important developments.