Help protect conscience rights of health care workers

It only takes a minute to send an email through the the Action Alert tool linked in this email. This is an urgent call for action. I'm still investigating the impact this would have on our health care system, particularly where Christian hospitals are concerned. Feel free to pass this on to others. Silence is complicity! Thanks so much. - Why Mommy is a Republican

As noted previously on Why Mommy is a Republican here and here, the Obama Administration has announced that it is considering the rescinding of the Bush Administration's policy which has protected the conscience rights of health care workers who do not want to participate in abortion.

Since this President is the most pro-abortion in history and has even supported the practice of infanticide by opposing the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, we can consider that it is practically a given that the conscience rule will be rescinded.

It remains vitally important that Americans who value not only the inalienable right to life but also freedom of conscience let the Obama Administration know in no uncertain terms that we do not approve of any attempt to force health-care workers to participate in abortion or risk losing their jobs. The issue is open for public comment for a very short time (only thirty days) so it is urgent that all people of good will take the opportunity NOW to send the Obama Administration a message -- that freedom of conscience MUST BE PROTECTED.

As of Friday, the full notice hadn't yet been drafted and my own search for a public comment area on the conscience rule at the White House website yielded no results, however you may easily send a quick email to the White House on this specific issue through this Action Alert tool at the website of the American Family Association.

House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement about this on Friday and provided much more detailed information in a post on the House Leader Blog yesterday which you may find at this link.

In that post, Boehner referred to Senator Tom Coburn's comments about this in an informal interview with CNS News. Coburn is an OB/GYN who says he and many other health care providers would go to jail before submitting to the President's will that people opposed to abortion on moral grounds must participate in it. Boehner also shares comments made by former President Ronald Reagan to CPAC in 1982 where he called abortion "a great moral evil" as well as the public statement released by Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence in which Pence refers to the "devastating impact" that rescinding of the policy would have not only for health care providers, but also patients.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops expresses "grave concern" and urges the public to take advantage of the public comment period to voice the opposition that surely most Americans still possess in regard to violation of conscience. Boehner, in his blog post, noted that the conscience clause decision will come "on the heels" of a "stinging rebuke" by the Vatican which had been issued in immediate response to Obama's decision to repeal the ban on taxpayer funding of abortion overseas. [TIME offers details in a report entitled "The Vatican Slams Obama Over Abortion."]

NRLC, in a press release dated on Friday, calls Obama's move to rescind the conscience rule the "next step in enactment" of the "expansive Obama abortion agenda".

Rob Stein, writing in The Washington Post, notes his belief that the public comment period "could result in a compromise" but adds that the Administration "acknowledged that [middle ground will] not always be possible."

Please act immediately by sending an email today to the White House through this Action Alert tool at the website of the American Family Association!