Category: Proposed Laws

Opposition Mounting Against “Right of Conscience” Act

Alton Daily News, WBGZ radio

John Gregory

Anti-abortion groups are marshaling opposition to a bill which would amend the state’s Health Care Right of Conscience Act.  The bill to amend the law would require medical providers to provide information and referrals on treatment options they don’t provide based on personal beliefs, like abortion. State Rep. Ron Sandack (R-Downers Grove) labels the bill as activism disguised as legislation.  “This is simply an intrusion on people of faith, people of conviction, and the Right of Conscience (Act), no one’s told me how it’s not working,” Sandack said. [Full text]

 

Alabama protection of conscience bill moves forward

‘Fetal Heartbeat Act,’ 2 other abortion bills receive OK in Alabama House committee

Al.com

Erin Edgemon

An Alabama House committee gave favorable reports to three controversial abortion-related bills Wednesday morning. . .The Health Care Rights of Conscience Act would allow health care professionals to refuse to perform abortions, sterilization, human cloning and human embryonic stem cell research that violate their conscience on religious or ethical grounds. . . [Full text]

Illinois Women’s Health and Life Alliance Urges House Defeat of SB 1564

Bill Violates Rights of Doctors, Women and Creates Legal Liabilities

News Release

Illinois Women’s Health and Life Alliance

Contact: Tom Ciesielka, 312-422-1333, 312-403-1333 cell, tc@tcpr.net

SPRINGFIELD, Ill., May 4, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ — A coalition of Illinois and national leaders focused on protecting women’s health and life are calling upon Illinois State Representatives to defeat Senate Bill 1564, which seeks to amend the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act. SB 1564 will dilute and undermine the current, federally compliant law as detailed in a bipartisan U.S. Congressional letter.

WHEN: Tuesday, May 5, 2015, 12 p.m. noon (CENTRAL)

WHAT: Illinois Women’s Health and Life Alliance press conference urging an Illinois House defeat of SB 1564.

WHERE: Blue Room, Illinois State Capitol Building, 401 S 2nd Street, Springfield, IL 62701; Map

ONLINE STREAMING: www.blueroomstream.com (for subscribers)

Choose 05-05-2015 LIVE 12:00 p.m. Rep. Morrison Press Conference (SB 1564 Health Care Right of Conscience) Blue Room Springfield

WHO:

• Dr. Mary Keen, MD, president of the Chicago guild of the Catholic Medical Association, will discuss how SB 1564 tramples on doctors’ rights of conscience.

• Debbie Shultz, executive director of Lifetime Pregnancy Help Center in Springfield, will speak to why it is imperative that the rights of conscience of those working at pro-life pregnancy centers not be violated by SB 1564.

• Illinois House Representative Ron Sandack (R – Downers Grove) will explain why he is voting against SB 1564 and is encouraging his legislative peers to vote against it as well.

• Attorney Anna Paprocki, staff counsel at Americans United for Life, will address SB 1564’s devastating legal implications for Illinois.

WHY: Illinois Women’s Health and Life Alliance is urging an Illinois House defeat of SB 1564 because…

Doctors’ rights of conscience are trampled on. SB 1564 would require doctors to facilitate abortions for any reason, and at any stage of pregnancy, despite their conscientious and professional objections. Illinois’ existing conscience law already ensures patient safety is not compromised by clarifying that a physician is not relieved from a duty to “inform his or her patient of the patient’s condition, prognosis, and risks…” The current law also clearly provides that healthcare personnel are not relieved from “obligations under the law of providing emergency medical care.”

Dr. Mary Keen, MD, will speak to this issue. Keen is the medical director of Pediatric Rehabilitation at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital, clinical associate professor at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, and attending physician in the Departments of Pediatrics and Orthopedic Surgery Section of Rehabilitation Medicine. Keen is also president of the Chicago guild of the Catholic Medical Association.

The rights of those working at pro-life pregnancy centers are trampled on. SB 1564 would require pregnancy center workers to violate their core mission by referring women for abortions or distributing information on where to obtain abortions. Pregnancy centers that exist to offer women alternatives to abortions are healthcare providers bound by the bill’s coercive duties to promote abortions. SB 1564 would force pregnancy centers to discuss the so-called “benefits” of abortions and provide information on where to obtain abortions.

Debbie Shultz, executive director of Lifetime Pregnancy Help Center in Springfield, will speak to why it is imperative that the rights of conscience of those working at pro-life pregnancy centers not be violated by SB 1564.

Illinois becomes rife with new legal liabilities. SB 1564 jeopardizes Illinois’ federal funding including, but not limited to, the federal share of Medicaid. It violates longstanding federal conscience laws, including the Church Amendment, the Coats-Snowe Amendment, and the Hyde-Weldon Amendment. SB 1564’s requirements that healthcare providers “provide in writing information,” “transfer,” or “refer” patients for treatments to which they object, are incompatible with these federal laws. Violating these laws would seriously imperil the state’s federal funding for health-related services, which is expressly conditioned on compliance with these federal conscience laws.

Attorney Anna Paprocki will speak to this issue. Paprocki is staff counsel at Americans United for Life and a resident of Illinois. She has been interviewed about rights of conscience in a variety of news sources including National Review Online, Politico, Washington Times, Touchstone Magazine, World Magazine, National Catholic Register, Fox News, CBN, ABC News, CBS News, and NPR.

Illinois House Representative Ron Sandack (R – Downers Grove) will also address the media to emphasize why SB 1564 is a bad choice for Illinois.

Illinois Women’s Health and Life Alliance represents the following Illinois citizen organizations, physicians, and medical pregnancy center organizations, and national physician and pregnancy center organizations with Illinois members:

• Illinois Citizens for Life

• Illinois Family Institute

• Illinois Federation for Right to Life

• Illinois Right to Life

• Family PAC

• Lake County Right to Life

• Dr. Anthony J. Caruso, MD MPH, Downers Grove OB/GYN,

• Dr. L. Carl Jurgens, MD, OB Hospitalist, Rockford Health Physicians

• Dr. Mary Keen, MD, Clinical Associate Professor, Loyola University Medical Center

• Dr. Robert C. Lawler, MD, Downers Grove OB/GYN

• Dr. Richard G. Moutvic, MD, Obstetrics & Gynecology

• Dr. Joseph J. Kash, MD, Medical Director, Waterleaf, Edward Cancer Center

• Aid for Women

• Woman’s Choice Services

• Waterleaf

• Informed Choices

• Relevant Pregnancy Resource Center

• The Women’s Centers of Greater Chicagoland, Ltd.

• Freeport Pregnancy Center

• Pregnancy Resource Center

• We Care Pregnancy Clinic

• Options Now Medical Pregnancy Center

• Lifetime Pregnancy Resource Center

• Community Hope Center

• Life Network of Southern Illinois

• Alliance Defending Freedom

• American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists

• Americans United for Life

• Care Net

• Heartbeat International, www.HeartbeatInternational.org

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

• The text of SB 1546

• Bi-partisan U.S. Congressional letter outlining how Illinois SB 1564 violates federal funding

• Analysis of the bill by staff counsel Anna Paprocki of Americans United for Life

• Letter from Pregnancy Resource Centers and OB/GYNs against SB 1564

• Americans United for Life staff counsel Anna Paprocki’s response to an op-ed promoting the bill

About the Illinois Women’s Health and Life Alliance

The Illinois Women’s Health and Life Alliance is a coalition of Illinois and national leaders who have come together to protect women’s health and life in Illinois. Represented by two national public interest law firms, the Illinois Women’s Health and Life Alliance is comprised of thirty Illinois citizen organizations, physicians, and medical pregnancy center organizations, and national physician and pregnancy center associations with Illinois members.

Statement of Catholic Citizens of Illinois on SB#1564, Health Care Right of Conscience Act

From the Board of Directors of Catholic Citizens of Illinois

In an act of insufferable arrogance, the Illinois Senate has passed SB#1564.  The bill purports to require all “medical personnel” who don’t provide abortion “services” to refer their patients to someone who does.  The bill continues to undergo amendments.

But amendments can’t cure the problem. The bill is intended to require Catholic “medical personnel” to act against their religious convictions, and thus an inexcusable and unacceptable attempt to coerce consciences.

Catholics do not derive our consciences from the Illinois General Assembly.  Freedom of Religion, the first freedom enshrined in the First Amendment, and in the Illinois Constitution, prohibits the government from violating our unalienable right not to be coerced in matters of faith. The right to freedom of religion is a human right, conferred on us by our Creator, and not by the Federal Government, the State of Illinois or even by our religious authorities.

Some state that they are “neutral” towards the bill.  But for Catholics, “neutrality” in the face of an intrinsic evil is never an option.  Just one year after the Roe v. Wade decision, in 1974, the Vatican issued the Declaration on Procured Abortion which described “abortion and infanticide as abominable crimes.”  Pope Paul VI, speaking on many occasions declared this teaching “unchanged and unchangeable.”

More recently, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reaffirmed long standing Catholic theology which denounces abortion as “intrinsically evil” and therefore “non-negotiable.”

And in Evangelli Gaudium, his most recent Apostolic Exhortation, citing Saint John Paul II, Pope Francis stated that:

“[T]his defense of unborn life is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defense of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, “every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual”[1]

Specifically applied to the field of health care, Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, our Catholic Bishops teach that:

1.Catholic care organizations are not permitted to engage in immediate material cooperation in actions that are intrinsically immoral, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide and direct sterilization.

2. The possibility of scandal must be considered when applying the principals governing cooperation.[2] Cooperation which in all other respects is morally licit may need to be refused because of the scandal that might be caused.[3]

Given these long-settled Catholic precepts, how could any Catholic, in good conscience, comply with a law that our faith and our leadership teaches is immoral?

The answer is obvious: those advocating for this legislation know that we cannot.

[1] John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (30 December 1988), 37: AAS 81 (1989), 461, at http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html#_ftn176

[2] See: Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil (no. 2284): “Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads other to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged.” (no. 2287).  http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P80.HTM

[3] Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Fifth Edition. http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/health-care/upload/Ethical-Religious-Directives-Catholic-Health-Care-Services-fifth-edition-2009.pdf

http://catholiccitizens.org/views/statement-of-catholic-citizens-of-illinois-on-sb1564-health-care-right-of-conscience-act/

 

Morals in medicine

 Senate passes “right of conscience” bill after harrowing testimony

Illinois Times

Patrick Yeagle

Mindy Swank of Chicago grew up in a conservative household – both religiously and politically – so when her pregnancy went wrong, it was a difficult decision to have an abortion.

She and her husband, Adam, were excited to have their second child, she told an Illinois Senate legislative panel at the Capitol in March, but their doctors informed them the child likely wouldn’t survive. Having the child, they were told, could hurt Mindy’s ability to have future children and possibly endanger her life. Instead of receiving the abortion, however, Mindy endured a dangerous, weeks-long miscarriage.

Mindy told her story to the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee on March 17, testifying about a bill that could have prevented her ordeal. The bill passed the full Senate on April 23 and awaits a vote in the House. . . [Full text]