WASHINGTON – A House bill with 50 co-sponsors was introduced Tuesday (March 5) that would exempt organizations and businesses from the Obama administration’s abortion/contraceptive mandate.

Sponsored by Republican Reps. Diane Black (Tenn.), Jeff Fortenberry (Neb.) and John Fleming (La.), the bill would provide a full exemption to any organization or business whose religious beliefs are violated by the mandate, which requires organizations and businesses to carry employee insurance covering abortion-causing drugs and contraceptives. The abortion-causing drugs come under brand names such as Plan B and ella.

The bill, Black said after introducing it, would protect First Amendment rights.

“Non-compliance to the administration’s mandate is forcing many Americans to choose between respecting their religious convictions or following the law,” Black said. “If they refuse to comply, many will be forced out of business, leaving thousands of Americans without jobs or health care coverage.”

At least 218 votes are needed to pass a bill in the 435-member House. But even if it passes there, it faces an uphill climb in the Democrat-controlled Senate and a likely veto by President Obama. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said “we would have some Democratic senators who would support the bill if it got on the floor” of the Senate. He mentioned Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (Pa.) as a likely yes vote.

Land supports the bill.

“This is a question of conscience, not contraception. It’s a question of religious freedom, not reproductive freedom,” Land said during a press conference at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville March 5. “... Freedom of religion leaves citizens of faith free to bring their religious convictions to bear in every arena of life.”

The bill – the Health Care Conscience Rights Act – also would provide conscience protection to individuals and health care entities that refuse to provide, pay for or refer patients to abortion doctors.

The mandate was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services in August 2011 as part of the new health care law. Although the Supreme Court upheld the health care law last June, the justices’ ruling did not deal with the religious liberty issues surrounding the mandate.

A total of 48 lawsuits have been filed against the mandate, and so far, opponents of the mandate are winning. Of the 17 court rulings involving businesses, opponents have won 12 times and lost five. The latest victory by opponents of the mandate came Feb. 28 when a federal court granted a temporary injunction to a Missouri-based plumbing products manufacturer, protecting the business from the mandate. The judge, Ortrie Smith, was nominated by President Clinton. Smith’s jurisdiction resides within the Eighth Circuit, where the court of appeals previously had issued an injunction against the mandate.

“Americans should be free to honor God and live according to their consciences whether they are at home, church, or work,” said Alliance Defending Freedom-allied attorney Jonathan R. Whitehead, who defended in court the Missouri company, Sioux Chief Manufacturing. “The court was right to stop enforcement of this unconstitutional mandate against Sioux Chief and its owners. They, like all other family-run businesses, have the God-given freedom to live and lead their company according to the values of their faith. American entrepreneurs cannot be forced to surrender their First Amendment freedoms when they go to work.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Compiled by Michael Foust, associate editor of Baptist Press.)

WASHINGTON – The Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics entity has told two more federal appeals courts the Obama administration’s abortion/contraception mandate violates religious liberty.

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) signed on to friend-of-the-court briefs filed Feb. 19 with both the Sixth and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals in supporting lawsuits against the mandate, which requires employers to pay for coverage of drugs defined by the Food and Drug Administration as contraceptives, even if they can cause abortions. The ERLC has now endorsed five briefs defending the religious freedom of entities challenging the requirement at the appeals court level.

The administration proposed a change Feb. 1 supposedly designed to satisfy the concerns of faith organizations, but religious freedom advocates said objecting employers – other than churches and church ministries – still would be unwilling participants in underwriting both contraceptive and abortion-causing pills. Under the revision, dissenting employers would have to be affiliated with an insurance plan connected to coverage of such pills and may end up absorbing increased costs for the drugs if the insurance companies pay for them and consequently increase rates.

Religious institutions and business owners with conscience objections to paying for contraceptives or abortion-causing drugs have challenged the mandate in more than 40 lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which issued the rule. So far, owners of for-profit companies that have challenged the rule have won injunctions blocking enforcement of the mandate 11 of 14 times.

The latest ERLC-endorsed briefs – written by the Christian Legal Society (CLS) – are in support of two for-profits that have not gained injunctive relief – Hobby Lobby in the 10th Circuit and Autocam Corp. in the Sixth. The ERLC also has signed on to CLS-authored briefs regarding the mandate in these circuits: District of Columbia (Wheaton College v. Sebelius); Seventh (Korte v. HHS) and Eighth (O’Brien v. HHS).

In the latest briefs, the ERLC and other organizations join CLS in saying the mandate’s “current definition of ‘religious liberty’ is grossly inadequate to protect meaningful religious liberty.” In the mandate, HHS chose to go with a narrower definition of “religious employer” than a standing definition under federal law, according to the brief.

“The proposed rule would continue to violate the [First Amendment clauses protecting religious free exercise and barring government establishment of religion] because the government would continue to squeeze religious institutions into an impoverished, one-size-fits-all misconception of ‘religious employer,’” the brief said.

The HHS mandate “departs from the [United States’] bipartisan tradition of respect for religious liberty, especially its deep-rooted protection of religious conscience rights in the context of participation in, or funding of, abortion,” according to the brief.

“At the end of the day, this case is not about which religious viewpoints regarding contraceptives or abortion are theologically correct – a question, of course, beyond the competency of the courts – but whether America will remain a pluralistic society that sustains a robust religious liberty for Americans of all faiths.”

Federal judges ruled the HHS mandate does not substantially burden the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby and Autocam – or their owners.

Hobby Lobby – founded by evangelical Christian David Green, who remains its chief executive officer – opposes providing insurance for abortion-causing drugs and has said it will not obey the mandate. As a result, the 525-store chain based in Oklahoma City ultimately could face government fines amounting to $1.3 million a day.

Autocam – a Michigan-based auto parts firm owned by John Kennedy, a Roman Catholic – opposes the contraceptive mandate as well as the requirement to cover abortion-causing drugs.

In addition to the ERLC, others signing on to the latest CLS briefs were the National Association of Evangelicals, Prison Fellowship, Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, Association of Christian Schools International and Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance. The C12 Group, which serves Christian CEOs, joined in the brief on behalf of Hobby Lobby.

Drugs considered contraceptives under the mandate – which HHS issued to implement the 2010 health care law – include Plan B and other “morning-after” pills, which can prevent implantation of tiny embryos. That secondary, post-fertilization mechanism of the pill causes an abortion. The mandate also covers “ella,” which – in a fashion similar to the abortion drug RU 486 – can even act after implantation to end the life of the child.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Tom Strode is the Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.)

WASHINGTON – When 40 Days for Life launched a nationwide campaign in 2007, no plan existed for a follow-up. That fall effort was both the first and only, as far as its leaders knew.
 
“We had no intention of doing a second campaign,” said Shawn Carney, 40 Days for Life’s campaign director. “I think the summer of ’07, if you could sum it up for me, we had absolutely no idea what we were getting into.”

Now, more than five years later, the organization’s twice-yearly events have become a vital, inspirational component of the pro-life movement. When volunteers gathered Feb. 13 at 261 locations for the first day of the latest campaign, they did so with a significant record of participation and results. Since 2007, reports by 40 Days for Life regarding its campaigns show:

• More than 6,700 unborn children have been spared from abortion.
• 28 abortion facilities have closed, and 76 clinic workers have left their jobs.
• More than 550,000 people representing more than 15,500 churches have participated.

In addition, thousands of women and men have avoided the consequences of choosing abortion, many post-abortive women have received help and untold numbers have become active in the pro-life movement.

What has happened since that first campaign has confirmed the accuracy of a sense the leaders of 40 Days held regarding pro-lifers and abortion.

“[I]n all of our prayer, we were thinking and hoping that there was a burning fire at the local level for people to do more for the abortions that were happening in their own town,” Carney told Baptist Press (BP). 

“[D]eep down, we really, truly believed that, because we had done that in the community where we lived through the pro-life organization that we worked for,” he said. “And so, that has now been shown ... that people do want to do something to help end abortion at a local level. They don’t want to depend on Washington, D.C., to fix a moral crisis that’s going on in their neighborhoods. And that has summed up the rapid growth of 40 Days for Life.”

When people gathered Feb. 13 for a 40 Days campaign that will extend to March 24, they did so in 44 states and the District of Columbia. Pro-lifers in Australia, Canada, England, Poland and Spain again are holding 40 Days outreaches. For the first time, there are 40 Days events in Moscow, Russia, and Cape Town, South Africa, as well as Nigeria and Wales.

Around-the-clock prayer vigils outside abortion clinics are the focus, but 40 Days efforts also consist of community outreach and prayer and fasting to end abortion.

A 2004 prayer meeting gave birth to that approach, as well as the idea of 40 Days for Life. The staff of a small pro-life organization in College Station, Texas, gathered around an old wooden table in the office to express their frustrations about the lack of results they were seeing as the number of abortions increased at the local Planned Parenthood.

“We said, ‘We need to pray,’“ recalled David Bereit, now national director of 40 Days. “And for one hour around that old table, we just sat and we prayed fervently and just asked God, ‘Show us what to do, and we’ll try to do it.’ ... [D]uring that hour was when He first convicted my heart and us as a group about the 40-day time frame and, of course, the biblical significance of all the times that God has brought about transformation in the life of His people or in the nation or in the world through 40-day time frames, a time of testing but also a time of transformation.”

Carney and his wife, Marilisa, joined Bereit, then executive director of the Coalition for Life, and another staff member around that table. They quickly launched 40 Days locally. At the end of that successful effort, however, “[I]t was really kind of a closed chapter in the back of our minds,” Carney said. 

Yet, pro-lifers in such cities as Green Bay, Wis., and Charlotte, N.C., found out about the 40 Days effort in College Station and followed Coalition for Life’s online manual. Finally, Bereit and Carney decided God was doing something they needed to pay attention to.

“[W]e had all these groups and all these results,” Bereit told BP, “and we were like, ‘That was the Holy Spirit. We had nothing to do with it.’ And that is when we said, ‘God has bigger plans probably than what we would have ever imagined.’”

In the fall of 2007, the first nationwide 40 Days campaign involved 89 cities in 33 states. The effort grew from there. Bereit – who was working for another national, pro-life organization – went full-time with 40 Days, and Carney joined him later. They now lead the effort from the Washington, D.C., area.

The national/international campaigns have produced an influx of new participants in the pro-life movement during the last five years. For more than 34 percent of 40 Days volunteers, it is their first pro-life activity ever.

Participants in 40 Days campaigns represent a cross-section of ages, ethnic groups and religious affiliations. From his observation of hundreds of events, Bereit estimated about 70 percent of volunteers are Roman Catholics. Baptists easily constitute the second largest religious affiliation, he said.

Bereit, 44, and Carney, 30, shared about 40 Days with Baptist Press. Here are additional excerpts from that interview:

BP: Describe what a typical prayer vigil is like? Somebody wants to take part in one – what’s it like?

CARNEY: The first thing they will experience is probably a little fear and hesitation and nervousness. David’s had that. I’ve had that the first time I went out. And that’s healthy. That’s a good thing. There should be a discomfort and awkwardness almost the first time you go out, not just because it’s new but because you are confronting abortion on its home turf – where it’s legal, promoted, sold, where it takes place – for the first time. And it’s not uncomfortable or awkward because you’re there. It’s uncomfortable or awkward because they’re there. ... [W]hen you go out there and you take Christ with you, when you get out of His way and you allow Him to work miracles, there’s great peace. You’re bringing peace, like a missionary does, to a place that has no peace. You’re a witness to the gospel to people that many times have either given up on their own faith or think there is no hope. ... And you bring hope when you participate. And I think that’s how the fear is overcome. 

BEREIT: It’s usually going to be very quiet. It’s going to be a time of prayer. It’s not social hour. It’s not yelling hour. They may or may not choose to hold a sign. ... They’re not going to be expected to sidewalk counsel their first time out in any way, shape or fashion. And they may see no fruit ever throughout the 40 days directly. We use a Mother Teresa quote – “We’re not called to be successful; we’re called to be faithful” – as a way to just help people understand, “If God’s calling us to do that, we do it, whether we see the results or not.” ... [T]he last thing that we’re very transparent about is you may experience out there occasional persecution. Usually it will be somebody driving by waving a hand gesture ... or maybe shouting an obscenity or maybe a worker who gets angered or somebody who is going in and says, “Don’t judge me,” even though you’re not. And sometimes somebody will throw a coat hanger. Sometimes, you know, you’ll have somebody come up and yell in your face. And for me, that has been one of the greatest blessings, as strange as it sounds, because in my Christian walk I can honestly say I don’t remember ever being persecuted for the cause of Christ prior to getting involved in active pro-life efforts. 

BP: Do you get many reports about people sharing the gospel and either young women or their partners in responding positively to the gospel or even abortion clinic workers?

BEREIT: We do hear anecdotal stories. We don’t want people to feel that they have to evangelize, but we also encourage them, “Don’t park your faith at home when you’re out there.” We were in La Puente, Calif. – this one comes right to my mind – and the abortion facility there closed after five 40 Days for Life campaigns. We get to meet a baby who was saved in their past campaign. It was a really neat event. And one of the guys was sharing a story about a young man that had been taking – I think it was – a girlfriend into the clinic, and he came out and started yelling at the volunteers. And he just kept coming back every few days, and he would yell at them and yell at them, but over the campaign he softened. And he started finally to say, “Okay now, why are you here?” And they just shared the love of Christ with him. They explained why they were there, and then this gentleman invited him to go with them to his church, and that guy went with him and ended up choosing Christ as his Savior and deciding to give his life to God. ... I get emails all the time – since email is one of our primary forms of communication – from people saying, “I hadn’t gone to church in 20 years, and just by following 40 Days for Life it’s really deepened my faith, and I’ve started going back to church again.” So there’s a lot of opportunities to evangelize as we serve God in this cause of helping speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves.

BP: What do you think 40 Days has meant to the pro-life movement?

CARNEY: I guess being on the younger side of it, I think it’s been a massive and exciting shot in the arm. The pro-life movement is good, like coffee, but 40 Days for Life is like espresso. It came along and made something extremely good even better, and for so many people, like we talked about before, it gave them something tangible to do that had the right focus, that had the focus of the gospel and prayer and fasting. And that’s what people want, and that’s what’s so effective in local communities. I mean I’ve had people pull me aside ... and just say 40 Days for Life has brought them a renewed sense of hope. 

BEREIT: I’ll preface this by saying all this is due to the grace of God and fully believe that. ... It’s not because of anything that we’ve done. I believe that in many communities and states and even somewhat on the national scene it has provided a bridge of unity for groups and people to work together that perhaps over the years have either not worked together or have even drifted apart over differences of approach. Who can’t agree with the importance of praying and fasting and peaceful response to the crisis of abortion? ... And the other thing somewhat that I’ll mention is: I think through 40 Days for Life God has revealed Himself more readily as the solution, and I’ve had leaders of national, political or legislative groups say to me things like: “You know what, it’s really helped me to realize that while what we do is vital, we have to focus here. We have to be focused on God’s will first, because ultimately that’s what drives all of us.” 

BP: What do you think 40 Days for Life has meant to the abortion industry or to abortion clinic workers specifically?

CARNEY: I think it has been disheartening, number one, because of the enthusiasm 40 Days for Life can bring to the pro-life local community, and that positive enthusiasm, at the same time, sheds an unwanted light on the local abortion industry. Planned Parenthood makes a living at nesting in a community, at trying to embed themselves in a community as a health-care provider. And a 40 Days for Life can really disrupt that through the peaceful vigil, through the community outreach. And so I think it’s brought light to the fact abortion is a local crisis. It’s not just something kept in Washington, D.C. And so it’s ignited a sort of grass-roots movement that the abortion industry does not have. 

BEREIT: When I was mentioning earlier about the unexpected blessings, the worker conversions is by far the one that has pleasantly surprised us the most. And the fact that they are finding in the people outside a welcoming place to turn has demonstrated the true face and the heart of the pro-life movement. 

Locations for this spring’s 40 Days campaign may be found online at www.40daysforlife.com. Bereit and Carney have written a new book, 40 Days for Life, that was released in January.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Tom Strode is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.) 

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‘40 Days’ helps brings healing to N.C. Baptist woman

WASHINGTON – Katherine Hearn never intended to pray at an abortion clinic during 40 Days for Life or any other pro-life effort.
 
Yet, Hearn, a Southern Baptist church member, once again stood outside such a facility Feb. 13 in Charlotte, N.C., on the first day of the latest 40 Days effort – just as she has in every campaign since the pro-life ministry went nationwide in 2007.

At Charlotte and 260 other locations in the world, Hearn and others gathered at abortion clinics for around-the-clock prayer vigils that will continue through March 24. Those vigils – combined with other times of prayer, as well as fasting, and community outreach during two campaigns each year – have been the focus of the highly successful 40 Days approach. In barely five years, the national movement – which has now gone international – has reported more than 550,000 participants and more than 6,700 unborn babies spared from abortion.

Before 40 Days launched nationally, Hearn already had been spending time praying outside an abortion clinic – a place she had planned for a quarter of a century never to revisit. She had undergone an abortion she “never intended to tell anyone about” as a senior in 1976 at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

“I never went back to the abortion clinic for my check-up; I was never going back to an abortion clinic,” said Hearn, 58, as part of email and phone interviews with Baptist Press. “So, about 25 years later, when I knew the Lord was calling me back to my abortion ..., I realized that if I truly trusted the Lord, then I had to obey Him and go back to where I never intended to go. The result for me was that my faith grew, and I met the Lord in a very personal way.”

Photo by Keith Cooper Katherine Hearn, left, and Jill Coward, both representing Concerned Women for America, endure rain during a prayer vigil outside a Charlotte, N.C., abortion clinic Feb. 13 on the first day of the 40 Days for Life spring campaign.

Hearn was saved while a high school student at a Billy Graham evangelistic service in Charlotte, she said, but she “met the Lord in a way that completely, radically changed” her life when He led her to pray at an abortion clinic.

“It’s all about Jesus,” she said.

Hearn and a pro-life friend, Andrea Hines, already had spent an hour a day for 40 days praying outside a Charlotte clinic when Hines discovered on the Internet the 40 Days for Life effort inaugurated by a pro-life organization in College Station, Texas. When David Bereit and Shawn Carney – the leaders of that local campaign – decided to go nationwide in 2007, Hearn and Hines, were ready to lead the effort in Charlotte.

Though Hearn expressed disappointment in the “lack of response” to 40 Days from pastors and churches in Charlotte, that assessment did not extend to her pastor and church. They have strongly supported the 40 Days campaigns, she said. Mark Harris, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Charlotte, led by example in 2008 and has continued to encourage the church to participate.

Harris told the church “he would be out all day, 12 hours,” Hearn said. “That is the kind of leadership that inspires the church body to get involved. The response was overwhelming.”

The prayer vigils outside Charlotte abortion clinics continue beyond the 40 Days spring and fall campaigns. A group from First Baptist Church goes to one of Charlotte’s abortion clinics to pray one day each month. Hearn, Hines and others pray regularly at a facility between 40 Days campaigns.

The 40 Days efforts in Charlotte have resulted in what Hearn conservatively estimated as more than 200 babies being saved. Last fall’s campaign recorded 31 children spared from abortion, she said.

On Oct. 8, a mother who decided not to have an abortion in the previous spring’s campaign gave birth to her son. She came to the clinic March 10 to abort her baby, Hearn said.

“She decided not to abort and came to talk with some of us out praying,” Hearn said. “From March until her son’s delivery in October we had lots of opportunities to witness and share the gospel with her.”

She also has seen at least a glimpse of the kind of healing she experienced occur as a result of 40 Days vigils.

During the fall outreach, a woman with a 40-day-old baby joined Hearn and others to pray outside a clinic. 

“Right before she was preparing to leave, she began to cry,” Hearn said. She finally shared she had undergone an abortion seven years before at the same clinic. 

“She had never told anyone, not even her husband,” Hearn said. “We were able to get her post-abortion help.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Tom Strode is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.) 

Related story

40 Days for Life: ending abortion, starting locally

HOUSTON – A judge on Monday (Feb. 18) granted an injunction against the parents of a pregnant teen who alleged they were forcing her through intimidation and threats of violence to have an abortion. 

Stephen Casey, an attorney representing the 16-year-old girl, said she and the teenage father of the baby are both relieved by the decision of Judge James Lombardino of the 308th Harris County Family Court in Houston that frees her to carry the pregnancy to term without coercion from her parents.

“We are very proud of our teenage client for being strong enough to stand against her parents to save her unborn child’s life,” said Greg Terra in a news release from the Texas Center for Defense of Life. 

Terra and Casey, founders of the Texas organization, represented the girl known in court documents as R.E.K.

Taking the Roe vs. Wade decision and “turning it on its head” as he put it, Casey argued the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion on demand also provides women the right to choose life for their unborn babies. A 1979 case, Bellotti vs. Baird, gave minors the right to choose abortion or life.

Casey admits there is an irony in using the 1973 abortion case to champion a pro-life cause. But he likened the situation to David’s defeat of Goliath.

“It was Goliath’s sword. It wasn’t something David crafted. He used what was there,” Casey told the TEXAN.

A family member of the teenage father sought legal assistance for R.E.K. after discovering she was being pressured by her parents to terminate the pregnancy. Court documents reveal a contentious relationship erupted between R.E.K. and her parents following their discovery of her pregnancy in mid-January. 

The teen’s mom reportedly suggested slipping an abortion pill into a drink for her daughter. On Feb. 8, according to court documents, the teen’s father sent her a text message telling her she “needs an a– whoopin’.”

Casey obtained a temporary restraining order against the parents Feb. 12. The case for the injunction was heard Monday afternoon.

“[Her parents] agreed not to coerce her to have an abortion for the duration of her pregnancy,” Casey said following the hearing.

The parents of both teens agreed in the final order to equally share financial responsibility for medical care related to the pregnancy. If the teens get married the financial burden will fall to them. 

R.E.K.’s parents, the defendants in the case, gave “irrevocable consent” for their daughter to marry the father of her baby. Under a 2005 Texas law, teens as young as 16 can marry with parental consent.

Texas minors can circumvent parental consent and seek judicial intervention when determining whether to have an abortion. Pro-life proponents and their legal advocates claim a majority of abortions are performed on minors who are unaware they can deny consent to the procedure. 

The Texas Center for Defense of Life provides pro bono legal aid to pro-life organizations and women under pressure to terminate their pregnancies.

Those who coerce women to have an abortion violate state and national laws, the attorneys said.

The mother of R.E.K., who indicated she had undergone four abortions, reportedly said an abortion for her daughter was “the right thing to do.” Initial intervention efforts temporarily quelled the situation. When those measures failed, Terra and Casey were called on for help.

“A lawsuit is the nuclear option,” Casey told the Southern Baptist TEXAN last week after filing the temporary restraining order.

Allan Parker, executive director of the Texas Justice Foundation (TJF), said the issuance of a “Dear Parent Letter” usually pacifies parents’ aggression. Created by the TJF, a San Antonio based nonprofit that provides legal assistance for clients like R.E.K., the letter outlines the rights pregnant minors possess. Minors “old enough to get pregnant” can take their case before a judge to keep or abort their babies, he said.

But most minors wanting to keep their babies do not know the law is on their side. The Dear Parent Letter effectively lays out the case on their behalf.

In part, it reads: “Dear Parent ... You (or any other person) may not force, coerce, or pressure your daughter to have an abortion. Besides criminal prosecution ... you and the abortionist could be held liable for the various civil torts, such as battery, negligence, false imprisonment, or other claims.” The letter is used by more than 3,000 crisis pregnancy centers across the nation. Parker credits the letter with saving several thousand unborn babies each year.

Parents usually back down from their intimidating efforts once they learn of the legal ramifications, Parker said. When the fighting stops, more reasoned and life-affirming decisions can be addressed.

Though court intervention is the last resort, the goal is always to bring the family together and not further alienate the daughter from her parents. The reconciliation of the family is a priority in all cases, according to pro-life advocates.

R.E.K., who had lived with her boyfriend’s parents for several months prior to this case, now lives with her mother. Under the ruling, R.E.K. must maintain a “B” average in school in order to have unrestricted use of her vehicle.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Bonnie Pritchett is a correspondent for the Southern Baptist TEXAN.)

Almost 1 in 9 young women who are sexually active have used the morning-after pill after sex, more than double the rate that used it 11 years ago, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released Feb. 14.
 
The study, which evaluated women between 15 and 44, found that 5.8 million women – 11 percent – used the morning-after pill between 2006 and 2010, compared to 4 percent in 2002. For women between 20 and 24, the rate was even higher: 1 in 4 women who had ever had sex used the drug at some point. 
 
The increased popularity of the drug stems in part from easier access and media coverage of efforts to lift the age limit for the over-the-counter sales. Women over 17 do not need a prescription to buy the morning-after pill but must request it from a pharmacy. 
 
Under President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform, employers will be required to cover birth control, including morning-after pills, which likely will increase their use in the future.  
 
Supporters of morning-after pills, which are sold under the names Plan B, Ella and Preven, claim they are merely contraceptive drugs that delay or prevent ovulation, so the egg is never fertilized. But a second mechanism of the pill prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, which makes it an abortifacient drug.  
 
The effectiveness of the morning-after pill has also been called into question. Researchers who demanded making it non-prescription found in 2007 that the pill does not reduce either abortion or pregnancy rates. “No study has shown that increased access to this method reduces unintended pregnancy or abortion rates on a population level,” the authors wrote. They also said the drug’s effectiveness may be “substantially” overstated.
 
Americans United for Life (AUL) Attorney Anna Franzonello said in a statement the increase in use shows many women don’t know what the drugs really do: “AUL’s concern that life-ending drugs are being deceptively labeled as ‘contraception’ has only increased since the period that the CDC’s national Center for Health Services (NCHS) study examined.”

ST. PAUL – An appeals court has blocked enforcement of the Obama administration’s abortion/contraceptive mandate against a Minnesota business, marking the 11th win by businesses or organizations against the controversial federal policy.

The mandate forces businesses to carry insurance that covers contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, such as Plan B and ella.

The issue likely will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, but so far, the opponents of the policy are winning. Of the 14 cases involving for-profits that have been decided, opponents have won injunctions in 11 cases. Injunctions were denied in three cases, according to a tally by the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom.

The case likely is headed to the nation’s highest court because appeals courts – the level directly below the Supreme Court – have issued split rulings. The Seventh and Eighth Circuits have issued injunctions against the mandate, while the Sixth and 10th Circuits have upheld it. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the government in December, although that order did not involve an injunction but instead an order requiring the government to issue new rules for non-profits.

In the latest ruling, the Eighth Circuit unanimously ruled that Annex Medical, Inc., which is owned by a Catholic man, Stuart Lind, does not have to follow the mandate while the case proceeds.

“Lind was unable to secure a plan without the objectionable coverage, because the statute and regulations require all insurers to include such coverage in all group health plans,” the court wrote.

The Eight Circuit panel said Lind is likely to succeed in the case. The ruling involved nominees of Presidents Reagan (Roger L. Wollman), George W. Bush (Steven M. Colloton) and George H.W. Bush (James B. Loken).

Lind is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom.

“Americans have the God-given freedom to live and do business according to their faith,” said Alliance Defending Freedom senior legal counsel Matt Bowman. “Honoring God is not just important within the four walls of a church; it is important every day, in all areas of life, including in our work. Freedom is not the government’s to give and take away when it pleases. The court did the right thing in issuing its order, and we are confident that this unconstitutional mandate’s days are numbered.”

Of the 44 lawsuits against the mandate, 15 involve for-profit businesses and 29 involve non-profits such as Christian hospitals, universities and charities. A court has yet to issue a ruling on the merits in any of the non-profit cases, and opponents have yet to win an injunction in them. That’s mostly because courts have ruled the non-profits aren’t yet impacted – some had until August 2013 to comply – meaning the cases weren’t, in court terminology, “ripe” to consider. But if the Supreme Court rules against the mandate in the for-profit cases, it would impact the non-profits, too.

Covered under the mandate are emergency contraceptives such as Plan B and ella that can kill an embryo after fertilization and even after implantation. Pro-lifers consider that action a chemical abortion.

The mandate was announced by HHS in August 2011 as part of the health care law championed by President Obama. Although the Supreme Court upheld the health care law last June, the justices’ ruling did not deal with the religious liberty issues surrounding the abortion/contraceptive mandate. That means the nation’s highest court could yet strike down what has been for religious groups and some business owners the most controversial part of the law.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Michael Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press.)

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration proposed a rule change Friday it says will appease the concerns religious organizations have about the abortion/contraceptive mandate, but legal groups who defend religious liberty called the proposal inadequate and said it fell far short of what is needed.

Religious groups had hoped the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would announce that all religious organizations – universities, hospitals and charities – are exempt from the mandate, which requires employers to carry health insurance plans covering contraceptives and drugs that can cause chemical abortions. Churches, for example, are exempt from the mandate. Instead, HHS issued a rule it says allows for employees to obtain contraceptives and abortion-causing drugs without the religious employer taking part in the process. Religious liberty groups say employers still will be involved.

The proposal also does nothing to help businesses such as Bible publisher Tyndale House or Christian-owned Hobby Lobby or any other for-profit whose owners have religious objections to contraceptives and/or abortion-causing drugs.

“Having reviewed this proposed rule, we ... have to say we’re extremely disappointed,” Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said in a conference call with reporters. Becket Fund has helped lead the legal charge against the mandate. More than 40 lawsuits have been filed against the mandate. Duncan called the proposal “radically inadequate.”

According to an HHS website, under the proposal, the religious employer “would not have to contract, arrange, pay or refer for any contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds.” Employees “would receive contraceptive coverage through separate individual health insurance policies, without cost sharing or additional premiums.” The insurance company would be required to offer the drugs for free, HHS said.

Religious organizations that are self-insured would have to contact a third party administrator, which would “work with a health insurance issuer to provide separate, individual health insurance policies at no cost for participants.”

Religious liberty groups had multiple objections to the proposal. First, the groups said, religious organizations still will be required to carry an insurance plan that is tied to coverage of contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs. Second, religious employers – particularly those who are self-insured – will be acting as “conduits” with health providers to ensure their employees can obtain the drugs. Third, it’s unclear who is paying for the “free drugs.” As some religious commentators were suggesting: Will insurance companies simply raise rates – and thereby pass the cost for the abortion-causing drugs on to the religious organization?

Duncan said religious organizations are “going to have to carefully consider whether this accommodation really doesn’t change the moral landscape at all. It’s going to be up to them to make that determination. We believe they’re going to have some serious concerns about remaining unacceptably involved in the provision of these drugs and devices.”

Alliance Defending Freedom senior legal counsel Matt Bowman said the proposal still infringes on religious liberty.

“Religious non-profits will, in fact, be forced to provide an insurance plan with a provider that gives the religious group’s employees abortion-pill coverage in direct connection with that plan, the coverage is definitely not free, and the coverage is imposed ‘automatically’ even against the objection of many employees who don’t want free abortion-pill coverage for themselves or their daughters,” Bowman said.

To qualify for the proposal, an organization must self-certify that it “holds itself out as a religious organization,” according to HHS. Ironically that could mean that many of the nation’s leading pro-life organizations – despite being non-profits – won’t qualify for the accommodation because they’re technically not religious organizations.

The HHS announcement did nothing to change the coverage by for-profits. Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts store whose Christian owners say they will not follow the mandate, apparently will face fines of more than $1 million each day if a federal court does not step in. Its owners always have made their faith a central part of their business. Their stores play Christian instrumental music and are closed on Sundays. Hobby Lobby contributes to Christian organizations and runs full-page ads in newspapers during the Easter and Christmas seasons with gospel-centered messages.

The good news for Christian for-profits is they are winning in court, having seen 10 wins and only four losses. Hobby Lobby, though, is one of those losses. The issue likely is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The administration fails to understand,” said Gene Rudd of the Christian Medical Association, “that many employers and individual Americans, regardless of a religious label or not, maintain strong conscience objections to participating in any way, shape or form in a plan that promotes pills that the FDA says can cause the demise of a living human embryo – a developing baby in her earliest stage.”

Covered under the mandate are emergency contraceptives such as Plan B and ella that can kill an embryo after fertilization and even after implantation. Pro-lifers consider that action a chemical abortion.

The mandate was announced by HHS in August 2011 as part of the health care law championed by President Obama. Although the Supreme Court upheld the health care law last June, the justices’ ruling did not deal with the religious liberty issues surrounding the abortion/contraceptive mandate. That means the nation’s highest court could yet strike down what has been for religious groups and some business owners the most controversial part of the law.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Michael Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press.)

CHICAGO – A federal appeals court has once again ruled against the Obama administration’s abortion/contraception mandate in a case that has strong implications for religious liberty.

A panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday (Jan. 30) granted a preliminary injunction preventing the mandate from applying to Grote Industries, a for-profit company based in Madison, Ind., and owned by Catholics. The same panel in December issued an injunction preventing the mandate from applying to an Illinois-based business, Korte & Luitjohan Contractor, also owned by Catholics. Both rulings were 2-1.Appeals court rules against abortion mandate

The issue likely will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In addition to the Seventh Circuit, the Eighth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals have issued either rulings or orders against the mandate, which requires businesses and many religious organizations to purchase insurance plans covering contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives such as Plan B and ella that can kill an embryo after fertilization and even after implantation. Pro-lifers consider that action a chemical abortion.

The Seventh Circuit panel noted that the Grote family claims the mandate “compels them to materially cooperate in a grave moral wrong contrary to the teachings of their church.” Not following the mandate would result in “several financial penalties.”

“We conclude that the Grote Family and Grote Industries have established a reasonable likelihood of success” based on Grote’s claim that the mandate violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the panel ruled. “We also conclude that they will suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction pending appeal.”

Grote Industries is self-insured and its insurance plans did not cover contraceptives or abortion-causing drugs of any kind prior to the mandate, according to the ruling.

The judges consolidated the Grote and Korte cases.

Although the latest ruling involved a Catholic-owned business, evangelical-owned businesses and evangelical colleges also have won in federal court. There are 44 lawsuits involving non-profits and for-profits against the mandate, according to a tally by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Of the 14 rulings thus far involving for-profits, 10 have gone against the mandate.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is representing Grote.

“Americans have the God-given freedom to live and do business according to their faith,” ADF attorney Matt Bowman said in a statement. “Forcing employers to surrender their faith in order to earn a living is unprecedented, unnecessary, and unconstitutional. Honoring God is important every day, in all areas of life, including in our work. Freedom is not the government’s to give and take away when it pleases.”

Voting in the majority were Reagan nominee Joel M. Flaum and George W. Bush nominee Diane S. Sykes. George H.W. Bush nominee Ilana Rovner dissented.

The mandate was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services in August 2011 as part of the health care law championed by President Obama. Although the Supreme Court upheld the health care law last June, the justices’ ruling did not deal with the religious liberty issues surrounding the abortion/contraceptive mandate. That means the nation’s highest court could yet strike down what has been for religious groups and some business owners the most controversial part of the law.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Michael Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press.)

WASHINGTON – Pro-life Americans have reasons to be hopeful even after 40 years of legalized abortion, leaders in their movement said at the annual March for Life and related events.

Speaking Jan. 24 and 25, pro-life speakers pointed to legislative gains in the states and potential developments in the courts – as well as God’s grace and the movement’s perseverance – as hopeful signs.

This year’s March for Life took place Jan. 25 because of scheduling and hotel conflicts with President Obama’s Jan. 21 inauguration. The march normally occurs Jan. 22, the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

States are enacting bills that are “dramatically changing the contours of abortion policy in this country,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life (AUL), the pro-life movement’s leading legal organization. Yoest spoke at AUL’s legal symposium Jan. 24 in Washington, D.C.

Last year, states passed 43 laws restricting abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which is affiliated with the pro-choice movement. That made 2012 the second highest year ever for such laws, trailing only the 92 restrictions enacted in 2011.

The pro-life movement won’t advance much at the national level in the next several years, but progress at the state level will continue, Yoest said.

There is a “tremendous tidal wave of pro-life legislation in the pipeline,” she told the symposium audience.

“I’m looking offshore, and I’m here today to tell you there is a storm surge coming.”

Abortion rights advocates recognize the pro-life gains more than pro-lifers, and they have changed their strategy, she said.

They are “pivoting from choice to coercion,” with the new health care system as an example, Yoest said. “What they could not win through choice they intend to impose by coercion.”

At least partly in response, the most requested model legislation from AUL by states is for the defunding of the abortion industry, Yoest said. Second is AUL’s model to strengthen conscience protections. AUL’s legal team is helping in 39 states, she said.

Photo by Tom Strode Jeanne Monahan, new president of the March for Life, speaks Jan. 25 at the rally on the National Mall preceding the march.

Law professor Gerard Bradley told the same audience, meanwhile, there may be an opportunity to exploit a possibly “fatal flaw in Roe v. Wade’s jerry-rigged legal edifice.”

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that abolished all state bans on abortion, combined with Doe v. Bolton, which was decided the same day, legalized abortion, in effect, throughout the country for any reason at any point in pregnancy.

The protagonist in a Supreme Court reconsideration of Roe “will not be a Good Samaritan or a heroic state official. He will be a bad man, one who has killed his own unborn son or daughter,” Bradley said.

He will be a man convicted under a state “feticide” law, which treats violence causing death or injury to an unborn child as a separate offense, Bradley said. At least 38 states have approved such laws, he said.

“I submit it might be the undoing of Roe, because [the many defendants] convicted of feticide make an equal protection argument against their convictions, to overturn their convictions,” Bradley told the audience. “They say it violates equal protection of the law. It’s unconstitutional to hold him accountable for what she is perfectly free to do. They say, in effect, ... ‘I’m making the same choice. I have the same intention, commit the same act, cause the same harm, engage even in the same behavior – whether it’s an abortifacient drug or stomping on somebody’s stomach – and I can have the same motivation....’”

Such a case could require the high court to resolve the “foundational question” it has suppressed since Roe, he said: “Who counts as a person?”

Though it will be awkward for the justices “to now take up the foundational question it has long suppressed,” he thinks they “actually have no feasible alternative,” Bradley said. “[The men convicted under feticide laws] raise equal protection challenges which go right through the personhood question.”

A Southern Baptist theology dean encouraged pro-life Christians to speak justly and mercifully, recognizing change may come unexpectedly.

“We are people who are speaking from one conscience to another, often to people who have been wounded, to people who are scared and to people who are seeking to cover and to hide,” said Russell Moore, dean of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., during a Jan. 25 Family Research Council (FRC) event before the March for Life.

“That means that we don’t cower,” Moore said. “We speak directly to the conscience. ... And we speak of justice.

“And we must also speak of mercy – that we are the people who recognize and know that God is able to receive those who have done horrific things, those who have been wounded in horrific ways.

“As we speak, we speak not only to those who are with us, but we speak with justice and with mercy to those on the other side, knowing that hearts can be changed,” Moore said.

“And it just might be that in your advocacy, wherever it is, that the arguments that you make will go nowhere for now but will be remembered in a time of turning, in a time of crisis in a way that yields fruit.”

Moore spoke at FRC’s ProLifeCon conference in Washington for the online pro-life community.

At the March for Life rally, Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., addressed President Obama, a strong advocate for abortion rights, as he spoke of the pro-life movement’s resolve.

“Someday future generations will look back on America and wonder how and why such a seemingly enlightened society could have failed to protect the innocent and inconvenient,” said Smith, the leading pro-lifer in Congress. “They will wonder how and why a Nobel Peace Prize-winning president who spoke eloquently about caring, cherishing and safeguarding all of our children could have simultaneously been the abortion president.”

Smith said, “Know this, Mr. President, we will never quit. In our diversity, our faith and trust in God is tested, but it also is deepened and overcomes and forges an indomitable yet humble spirit.”

After the rally, the massive crowd of pro-lifers – dominated by young people – marched to the Supreme Court with the temperature in the mid-20s.

It was the first March for Life ever without Nellie Gray, who died in August. She had been president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund since its founding after the Roe decision. Jeanne Monahan, formerly of FRC, is the new president of the organization.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Tom Strode is the Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.)