Biden's Catechetical Dementia

Edited and published in The Federalist, April 27, 2022. Original version is below:

How the administration's abortion ideology-driven assault on faith and conscience threatens care for millions of needy individuals

By Jonathan Imbody[i]

The year is 2024, and the Biden administration's assault on conscience freedoms has taken a tragic toll on the healthcare landscape.

Since the 2022 elimination of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conscience protections for health professionals, government-sanctioned discrimination has driven out of medicine persons of faith and pro-life convictions, accelerating and exacerbating the long-predicted physician shortage crisis. The shortage leaves millions of patients, especially the poor and marginalized, without the faith-based care on which they had depended.

From medical students to doctors to hospitals and clinics, no one who hews to Hippocratic or Judeo-Christian ethics can survive the administration's ideological purge of healthcare.

Policy versus politics: A retrospect and prognosis

A physician member of the Christian Medical Associations (CMA) recently asked me for a perspective on the tragic temporary takeover of the U.S. Capitol and the role of politicians before and after that tumultuous event.

The physician's email began, "I’m so saddened by this incident and so appalled…."

I've been asked to share the response to that physician more widely, so my edited response is below, followed by some thoughts on public policy ministry, the past four years and the next four years.

Thoughts on the Capitol takeover and surrounding events

I responded to the physician's concern and request for perspective about the Capitol takeover and surrounding politics as follows:

U.S. Dept. of HHS: No, Hawaii, you can't make pro-life pregnancy centers refer for abortions

Thankfully, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services is enforcing federal conscience laws. The press release below details one example of how the agency, unlike in previous administrations, is holding states accountable for illegal discrimination.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2019

Contact: HHS Press Office202-690-6343media@hhs.gov

OCR Issues Notice of Resolution to the State of Hawaii After Hawaii Takes Action in Safeguarding Conscience Protections for Pregnancy Care Centers

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today that it issued a Notice of Resolution to the State of Hawaii after Hawaii took corrective action in response to OCR’s investigation of complaints of discrimination by the state against non-profit pregnancy resource centers.

Complainants, Aloha Pregnancy Care and Counseling Center, Inc. and Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor, filed a complaint with OCR alleging that Hawaii engaged in impermissible discrimination under one or more of federal conscience laws when Hawaii enacted the notice requirements of Act 200, a 2017 law which required them to disseminate a government-scripted notice that promotes abortion – a service for which they do not offer, counsel, recommend, or refer. The Complainants are pro-life and dedicated specifically to providing women options other than abortion.

OCR’s new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division initiated an investigation into the allegations under OCR’s authority to enforce the Weldon and Coats-Snowe Amendments. As a result of OCR’s investigation, on March 15, 2019, Hawaii’s Attorney General issued a memorandum to the Department of the Attorney General for the State of Hawaii, which is charged with enforcing Act 200, stating that it will not enforce Act 200’s notice provisions against any limited service pregnancy center.

The Hawaii Attorney General also committed to notify Hawaii’s legislature of its decision not to enforce Act 200’s notice provisions against any limited service pregnancy center.

Hawaii’s actions follow the Supreme Court’s ruling in National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra, 138 S. Ct. 2361 (2018) (NIFLA), which held that a California law similar to Hawaii’s Act 200 likely violated pregnancy resource centers’ Free Speech rights.  The action also follows stipulated permanent injunctions, entered by the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii against Act 200 in separate litigation in September 2018, against Hawaii enforcing the Act against the plaintiffs in the lawsuits.  Hawaii’s action in response to OCR’s investigation commits the state to respect the rights of every pro-life pregnancy resource center in the state, not just the particular parties covered by the injunctions. As a result, OCR now considers the complaints before it as satisfactorily resolved, and will be closing the matter.

Roger Severino, director of OCR stated, “Although Hawaii should never have burdened the rights of nonprofits seeking to provide pregnant women life-affirming options, we commend Hawaii for committing to not enforcing Act 200’s notice provisions against anyone, in response to our investigation.” Severino continued, “OCR takes allegations of conscience violations seriously.  We encourage other states to take a hard look at their own laws and make sure that they do not violate federal conscience and religious freedom statutes in health and human services.”

View OCR’s Notice of Resolution to Hawaii - PDF.*

Christian Medical Association lauds new Title X family planning rule

Washington, DC - February 22, 2019: The 19,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org) in a statement today enthusiastically welcomed a final new rule that will govern tax funds awarded for family planning purposes under the Title X program administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The following statement may be attributed to VP for Govt. Relations Jonathan Imbody (JI@Freedom2Care.org), who also serves as Director of Freedom2Care (www.Freedom2care.org) and its over 30,000 constituents.

"Practically speaking, the new rule now opens the door to many more health organizations, which should translate into more and better options for patient care. Many life-affirming, full-service health organizations nationwide had been shut out of the program by the previous administration's abortion-related requirements.

"Our polling, cited in the final rule document, showed that 91 percent of faith-based health professionals will leave medicine rather than bow to pressure to compromise their life-affirming convictions.

"As the new rule document notes while citing this polling (p. 268), 'With the final rule’s added emphasis on protecting rights of conscience, more individuals may enter the Title X family planning program, helping to meet that unmet need for care.'

"The program remains open to any organization willing to respect the statutory separation of abortion from Title X family planning funds and operations. The only organizations shut out of the Title X family planning program will be those who insist on mingling abortion with Title X funds and programs. So Title X will no longer serve as an exclusive  funding pipeline for the abortion industry while shutting out pro-life health programs.

"This new rule finally brings the Title X family planning program in line with federal Title X law that forbids funds for abortion as a family planning method—a principle that reflects the values of the American people."

U.S. House votes to overturn pro-life policies

On Jan. 3, the House passed H.R. 21, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019 by a vote of 241 - 190. 234 Democratic Members and 7 Republican Members (Fitzpatrick, Hurd, Katko, King (NY), Stefanik, Upton, Walden) voted in support of the bill. 190 Republicans voted against the bill. 2 Members did not vote.

Not your mother's family planning program

Several federal grants awarded under a recent Title X funding opportunity illustrate the current administration's determination to ensure that faith-based and pro-life clinics, hospitals, pregnancy centers and sexual risk avoidance programs get a fair and legal chance to compete for federal funding.

Drs. David and Janet Kim direct a faith-based health clinic
recently awarded a $2-million Title X family planning grant.