Bishops Urging Action on Federal Conscience Protection Bill

Details: 03 May 2013

The Obama Administration’s offensive policy mandating health plans to pay for female sterilization and contraceptives, including those that can cause early abortions, will be fully implemented starting August 1, 2013. This is when religious institutions such as Catholic schools, hospitals and charities will be forced to provide such coverage.

The so-called "contraceptive mandate" (which is a provision of "Obamacare") went into effect on August 1, 2012 for all other employers. But the Obama Administration delayed implementation for the aforementioned institutions to allow time to try to "accommodate" the moral and religious liberty concerns expressed by these institutions.

So far, the Administration has failed to address adequately these concerns and it appears unlikely to do so. Therefore, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is escalating its advocacy for the Health Care Conscience Rights Act (H.R. 940).

The Health Care Conscience Rights Act proposes to correct several inadequacies in federal law with regard to conscience protection. First, it would add meaningful conscience protection language to Obamacare by stating that it cannot be used to mandate coverage of "an abortion or other item or service" to which an individual, sponsor or insurer has a moral or religious objection.

Second, H.R. 940 would make current federal conscience protection provisions clearer and more permanent. And third, H.R. 940 would establish a private right of action so victims of discrimination can take their case to federal court. This ability to sue violators of conscience laws is essential given that these laws are frequently violated and victims currently have no remedy.

H.R. 940 enjoys strong bi-partisan support in the House of Representatives. It currently has 137 co-sponsors, including Nebraska’s three House members: Jeff Fortenberry, Lee Terry and Adrian Smith. The Senate is a tougher hill to climb; there the conscience bill is unlikely to have sufficient votes to be adopted.

In light of this scenario, the USCCB, and its collaborative organization the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment (NCHLA), is urging Catholics to contact our members of the U.S. House of Representatives and urge them to not only support H.R. 930 but to attach the bill to "must-pass" legislation (e.g. debt limit bill or spending bills).

If the House were to include H.R. 940 in a "must-pass" bill, this would increase the bill’s prospects of being enacted into law. If the Senate did not include H.R. 940 in its version of the "must-pass" bill, then a conference committee (comprised of House and Senate members) would reconcile the differences in the two versions of the bill before a final vote is taken. The conscience protection language may—or may not—survive that reconciliation process.

Even though our three Nebraska House members are co-sponsors of H.R. 940, it is still critical that they hear from Nebraskans. We need to thank them for co-sponsoring the bill and urge them to do everything possible to get this bill attached to a "must-pass" bill.

The USCCB and NCHLA have made it quick and easy to send an e-mail message to our Representative in the House and to the House Speaker, John Boehner. On the NCHLA website—www.nchla.org—there is a link with a pre-written message and an option to add additional comments.

Please take a couple of minutes right now and send your message. Then send an e-mail to all your friends and family with a link to www.nchla.org and urge them to send a message as well.

If your parish has not yet implemented NCHLA’s Project Life and Liberty postcard campaign, please do so now. Every parish should have received a supply of postcards (a couple months ago) along with instructions and informational fliers. If needed, additional materials are available from my office.

Finally, I strongly recommend checking out the USCCB’s excellent educational resources on the contraception/sterilization mandate and related Church teaching. They are available online at www.usccb.org/conscience and www.usccb.org/love-and-sexuality.

You can contact Greg at The Nebraska Catholic Conference, 215 Centennial Mall South Suite 310, Lincoln, NE 68508; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.