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Restore conscience rights and religious freedom

Over the past several years, people of conscience and faith have witnessed:

• the gutting of the only federal regulation protecting the exercise of conscience in health care;
• the denial of federal grant funds for aiding human trafficking victims to a ministry that refused to participate in abortion;
• the administration's failed attempt to get the Supreme Court to restrict faith-based organizations' hiring rights; and
• a coercive contraceptive mandate that imposes the administration's ideology on the pro-life community.

Life-honoring health care professionals also have experienced firings, discrimination and coercion. To remedy this loss requires passing conscience-protecting legislation. Here's what you can do:

1. Join the petition--for Patients or for Healthcare Professionals--to put government leaders on notice.
2. Visit our Legislative Action Alert center and contact your legislators.
3. Submit your personal story of discrimination.

Read about contraception coercion

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In the news...

May 15, 2012

Read these latest Freedom2Care blogs on conscience rights

Wall Street Journal commentary: The Religious Battle of Vanderbilt

The legislation follows Vanderbilt's decision to stop recognizing campus religious organizations that require their leaders to accept certain religious beliefs on which they are founded. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Vanderbilt Catholic, Navigators and other groups-ministering to about 1,500 students-would effectively be moved off campus in the name of "nondiscrimination." Read full commentary...

Public Discourse commentary by Richard Doerflinger: Is Conscience Partisan?

During his final illness Sen. Ted Kennedy wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XVI, stating, "I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field, and I'll continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone." Read full commentary...

New York Times commentary by Mark Rienzi: Good for religion, good for America

Our nation has often benefited from religious individuals and institutions who were free to bring their religious perspective into the public square, whether by arguing for fair labor laws, advocating better treatment for immigrants, or providing food, shelter and health care to those in need. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and our civil rights movement often made expressly religious calls for the equal treatment of African-Americans. Read full commentary...

Heritage Foundation: Public Comments Overwhelmingly Oppose HHS Anti-Conscience Mandate

The federal website Regulations.gov released the first round of public comments on the administration’s proposed anti-conscience mandate on Wednesday. The comments were overwhelmingly opposed to the measure: out of 211 comments submitted, only six, less than 3%, offered support for the mandate.  Read full story...

Employee Benefit News: Federal contraception coverage mandate raises ire among insurers, may raise premiums for health plan members

"[Insurers] think it will raise pharmacy costs and won't lower medical costs," says Rhonda Greenapple, chief executive officer of Reimbursement Intelligence. "The idea that preventive care is going to reduce overall health care costs, they don't buy it." Read full article...

Heritage Foundation video: Religious Liberty--Obamacare's First Casualty

Rep. Renee Elmers: "When the government can come in and tell a religious organization how they should do business, then it becomes a violation of religious freedom." Watch video

National Review Online: The Mother of all Freedom

We insist upon the civilly-protected freedom for the practice of religion and freedom for the free exercise of conscience because they are inherently human freedoms. No person may become the pawn of the State no matter how small or diminished; no matter how inconvenient. If we loose sight of the dignity of the person, all else will unravel. Peace will not last, for the violation of conscience makes any other human violation and tyranny justifiable. Read full commentary...

National Journal: Pastor Rick Warren Decries Obama Contraception Compromise

Influential evangelical pastor Rick Warren said Sunday that he is not satisfied with the Obama administration's compromise on a requirement that religious-affiliated organizations provide contraception coverage to employees, and said religious freedom is at stake. "The issue here is not about women's health," Warren said on ABC's This Week. "There is a greater principle, and that is do you have the right to decide what your faith practices?" Read full article...

National Review Online: Will the Obamacare Decision Affect the HHS Mandate?

By Mark Rienzi--Last week's Supreme Court arguments over the Affordable Care Act focused on the constitutionality of the individual mandate and the expanded Medicaid entitlement. Could those cases also affect the religious-liberty lawsuits challenging the HHS abortion/sterilization/contraception mandate, which are now pending in many federal district courts? The short answer is: Maybe. Read full commentary...

National Review Online: Ringing a bell for liberty

‘Nothing guarantees that America's experiment in religious freedom, as we traditionally know it, will survive here in the United States, let alone serve as a model for other countries in the future," Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia writes in the new e-book, A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America. "The Constitution is a great achievement in ordered liberty. But it's just another elegant scrap of paper unless people keep it alive with their convictions and lived witness," he continues. Read full article...

Newsweek guest commentary: Contraceptive mandate uniting people of all religious and political stripes

This controversy is uniting Catholics and non-Catholics, Christians and Jews across the board, and it has the potential to unify fiscal and social conservatives within the Republican Party. It's safe to say that most Republicans-and many independents-can agree that providing free abortion-inducing drugs to all women is not a legitimate function of the federal government. Rather than proving the conventional wisdom that the Catholic Church and Republicans hate women and will do anything to make contraception illegal, the administration's position reminds voters of what they know to be true. They know that an ever-expanding government is a threat to our economic and religious freedom. Read full commentary...

Breakpoint-Chuck Colson: Put on your shoes; we can win this one

This is a battle that is both crucial and winnable. The important thing is to keep the focus on where it belongs: religious freedom. The early polls where a reaction to the media's initial announcement that this was all about contraception, but the Catholic Bishops and everybody else has been working hard to educate them. And you need to continue to educate people that this is about religious liberty. Read full commentary...

Kansas City Star commentary: If they can do this, what can they not do?

The White House has needlessly bought itself a great deal of trouble and a likely Supreme Court case. As with so much that this administration has done, the latest debate again prompts the question: If they can do this, what can they not do? Read full commentary...

Washington Times commentary by R. Doerflinger: No mandate exemption for religious groups

The Washington Times persists in reporting that the Obama administration has "agreed to exempt religion-affiliated universities, charities and hospitals" from its contraceptive coverage mandate ("Limbaugh apology garners bipartisan approval," Web, Sunday). However, this is not the case. On Feb. 10, the administration's controversial mandate and its incredibly narrow religious exemption were finalized "without change." Read full commentary...

House Judiciary Committee holds hearing on contraceptives coercion

The Judiciary Committee held a hearing Feb. 28, 2012 entitled, "Executive Overreach: The HHS Mandate Versus Religious Liberty" More information including written testimony by witnesses can be viewed here. Watch video clips:

• Rep. Sandy Adams' exchange with witnesses Jeanne Monahan, Asma Uddin & Bishop Lori
• Witness Jeanne Monahan's exchange with Chairman Lamar Smith
• Witness Bishop Lori's exchange with Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner
• Witness Asma Uddin's exchange with Rep. Trent Franks (Part 2)
• Witness Bishop Lori's exchange with Rep. Ted Poe

Pharmacists win landmark religious liberty case

A federal court in Tacoma, Washington, has struck down a Washington law that requires pharmacists to dispense the morning-after pill even when doing so would violate their religious beliefs. The court held that the law violates the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty litigated the case for the pharmacists. Read Court opinion, news: Court says pharmacists can't be forced to dispense morning-after pill and analysis: Court Strikes Down Law, Victory For Religious Liberty in Washington, Important Victory for Religious Liberty in Washington State.

New York Times guest opinion piece: Contraception, Against Conscience

Religious liberty isn't even the only thing at risk; the mandate also threatens the financial viability of any organization that disagrees with the administration's politics. They could be forced to stop offering health insurance and be saddled with fines, which are immense competitive disadvantages. They'll have to take money away from their core missions to pay fines. They'll lose employees who can't afford to work for employers who offer no health insurance. They'll lose donors who are scared off by the penalties. The end result: organizations that agree with the administration or are willing to compromise their beliefs will thrive. Organizations that don't will shrink or die. Read full commentary...

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson: Obama's epic blunder on birth-control mandate

The initial policy was a disaster. The partial retreat was more skilled. Obama's goal was not resolution but obfuscation. The contraceptive mandate was shifted from Catholic employers to insurance companies. Instead of being forced to buy an insurance product that violates their beliefs, religious institutions will be forced to buy an insurance product that contributes to the profits and viability of a company that is federally mandated to violate their beliefs. Creative accounting, it seems, can cover a multitude of sins. Read full commentary...

Life News: Pro-life leaders slam White House ‘compromise' on birth control mandate

Jonathan Imbody, Vice President for Government Relations for the Christian Medical Association, called the revisions "offering a distinction without a difference to mute opposition." He said the revision fits a pattern of contempt for conscience that includes how Obama "has gutted the only federal regulation protecting the exercise of conscience in health care, denied of federal grant funds for aiding human trafficking victims because a faith-based organization refused to participate in abortion; lobbied the Supreme Court to restrict faith-based organizations' hiring rights; and issued a coercive contraceptive mandate that imposes the government's abortion ideology on every American." Read full article...

FOX News - Sen. Marco Rubio interview on contraception mandate

FOX News host Greta Van Susteren interviews Florida Senator Marco Rubio about the adminitration's coercive contraception mandate.

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