Conscience Rights

A few newsbites:

• USCCB writes open letter to protect conscience rights. CMA, NCBC, Knights of Columbus, Catholic colleges sign on.
• An NJ hospital pressures 12 nurses who refused to assist in abortions.
• Christian Medical Association criticizes Obamacare's useless conscience clause (scroll down for Jonathan Imbody and David Stevens' editorials)

I got this summary from an AAPLOG email:

In a nutshell, Health & Human Services (HHS) has adopted the most limited right of conscience language ever to be used in federal law in its new contraceptive mandate to health insurance. Using language developed by the ACLU, the mandate now requires all policies issued to cover all forms of FDA-approved contraceptives, sterilization and counseling with no co-pay. The only entities exempt are those that:

1. Have the inculcation of religious values as their purpose;
2. primarily employ persons who share its religious tenets;
3. primarily serves persons who share their religious tenets; and
4. are non-profit organizations under section 6033(a)(1) and section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) or (iii) of the Code.

Practically, this means that ROC protections are limited to churches. The one-in-six hospitals in the country that are Catholic must provide coverage for birth control and sterilization. Christian practices and non-profits that serve the poor must provide coverage for morning after pills.