Thursday, August 21, 2014

Why Pro-Lifers Care About Religious Liberty, Important Religious Liberty Conference Coming To Reno in September.

Religious liberty group LIBERTAS Nevada, in Collaboration with the Nevada Students for Life, the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Thomas More Society are presenting the first annual Nevada Religious Liberty Conference on September 19 at the University of Nevada in Reno. Religious liberty is important to pro-lifers. Our pro-life colleague and Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jason Guinasso asked me to share a few reasons why. Here are a few reasons why we care about religious liberty.

Why Pro-Lifers Care About Religious Liberty
Important Religious Liberty Conference Coming To Reno in September. 

Why are pro-lifers concerned about religious liberty and conscience rights? Because conscience rights are a tremendous curb on abortion. Abortion advocates say that the right of conscience is so pervasive that access to abortion suffers. 86 percent of American hospitals do not perform abortions and almost all doctors do not provide abortions or refer.
 
Abortion advocates are facing a situation where abortion is still legal from conception to birth but believe they might be hard pressed to find anyone willing to do them. The number of abortion providers is down by 2/3rds since the 90s and many are past retirement. That's why we've seen attempts to force medical residents to take abortion training to become certified or to be part of a medical program, or to force graduate programs to provide or make provision for abortion training to receive accreditation.
Religious liberty and conscience provisions are effective at reducing access to abortion and thereby lowering the number of abortions.
Second, even though we have some laws to protect against attacks on religious liberty and conscience we feel a sense of urgency right now because there are many efforts to chip away at conscience protections and pro-life medical professionals have felt threatened. The conscience protecting laws that we have  are for the most part yearly amendments or riders to legislation and have to be approved every year.  We've been passing them year after year for many years, but they need to be passed into law and the need is urgent and real.
In 2008, the very pro-life Bush administration passed a rule on conscience protections that created regulations based on these conscience amendments to grant the most liberty possible because, the Bush administration was "concerned about the development of an environment in sectors of the health care field that is intolerant of individual objections to abortion or other individual religious beliefs or moral convictions." The Obama administration revoked the Bush rule in its first year.
What about that intolerant environment? The Christian Medical Association reports that more than 40% of its membership surveyed reported having experienced pressure to violate their convictions, with "physicians . . . losing positions and promotions because of their life-affirming views" and "[r]esidents . . . losing training privileges because they refused to do abortions."
The Bush administration noted that "'In May 2005, the Catholic Medical Association, an organization of Catholic physicians in the United States and Canada, reported 'receiv[ing] numerous reports of pressure and persuasion being exerted on medical students, clerkships, and residents in public and private hospitals to conform to institutional policies and 'accept their share' of duties requiring performance of participation in activities contrary to Catholic ideology.'"
The administration also said "Lawsuits, editorials, and media reports have appeared throughout the United States detailing efforts to require individuals and institutions to provide controversial medicine or services in violation of their conscience and describing instances of discrimination against those who act according to their conscience."
They concluded that "The foregoing examples appear to indicate an increasingly pervasive attitude toward the health care professions-namely, that health care personnel and institutions should be required to violate their consciences by providing or assisting in the provision of controversial medicine or procedures, or else face being blacklisted, excluded from practice, terminated from their jobs, or otherwise subjected to discrimination."
There have been numerous attacks on institutions that we don't have time for, but let us note that in 2008 the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AKA ACOG) issued a new policy that made certification contingent upon compliance with ACOG ethical principles. In regard to abortion and conscience rights it proposed that its members must mention the possibility of abortion, must refer for it, and if they can't make a timely referral and won't do them they should practice in areas where abortion services can be provided. That policy was revoked under pressure. Don't count on them not trying again.
Third, pro-lifers are also concerned about religious liberty and conscience rights because pro-life doctors would be dehumanized if they are forced to participate against their consciences in an abortion. It would be obscene to force a Catholic doctor or other Christian doctor to perform an abortion after going to early morning mass or bible study to pray and worship before heading to their offices to perform their God given vocation that they believe they have called to and specially gifted for by God in which they exercise every ounce of skill and Christian compassion.
But abortion advocates would do that. When you force pro-life doctors and medical personnel to violate their consciences and participate in killing, you are violating and destroying the doctor. We support religious liberty because we don't want pro-life doctors violated and destroyed.
And the medical industry and public policy advocates should want that too. What good are doctors whose motivation for what they do and their consciences are destroyed? How is the public-especially the poor and elderly-served by this? Many doctors will simply leave medicine instead of doing abortions or prescribing contraception, and many pro-lifers will not go into medicine for the same reason, creating larger shortages.
There's a lot more to write about, but these are some of the reasons pro-lifers are concerned about religious liberty. Please be involved. Please consider attending the Nevada Religious Liberty Conference. Click here to register.  
 
Don Nelson
Nevada LIFE

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