Last month, President Donald Trump issued a pro-life rule that will protect pro-life Americans and help save babies from abortion. This time, his administration has issued a rule to block the effects of a dangerous Obamacare provision that could be used to compel doctors to participate in abortions.
The Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule that revises 2016 provisions of the Obamacare section 1557 rule that had redefined discrimination “on the basis of sex” to include “pregnancy termination.” The rule helps protect health care providers from being forced to participate in and perform services that substantially violate their consciences and help protect their patients, such as abortions.
But Democrats have filed suit seeking to overturn the rule and force doctors and nurses to participate in killing babies as 22 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration in federal court Monday.
The lawsuit, filed in New York and led by attorneys general of New York, California and Massachusetts,has Democrats call killing babies in abortions “health care.” They claim this “broad religious exemption” violates Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act and “attempts to give religiously-affiliated providers and insurers license to deny care and coverage for discriminatory reasons.”
“It’s never acceptable to deny health care services to people who need it, but it’s especially unacceptable to do this during a pandemic,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said during a press call Monday.
“By removing and weakening language access requirements the rule will diminish public knowledge of the means and methods for accessing health care and health insurance,” the complaint states.
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin all joined the lawsuit.
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Mary Beth Waddell, who serves as the Senior Legislative Assistant for Family Research Council, told LifeNews.com after the rule was adopted that it was very helpful for pro-life medical professionals.
“The Department of Health and Human Services has corrected a dangerous Obamacare rule that distorted key portions of the legislation to the detriment of both medical professionals and patients,” she explained.
Waddell said that, “Under the old Obama rule, medical professionals could have been forced to facilitate … abortions — even if they believed this was a violation of their conscience or believed it harmful to the patient. Fortunately, soon after it was finalized, the courts blocked the far-reaching rule that was clearly unconstitutional.”
“The rule finalized today helps protect health care providers from being forced to participate in and perform services that substantially violate their consciences and help protect their patients. Family Research Council fully supports these revisions to ensure Obamacare isn’t used as a vehicle to advance transgender or abortion politics,” she said.
Thew new Trump Administration rule will clarify that the federal definition of sex discrimination under Obamacare (ACA) does not include abortion. Proposed last year, the new rule brings ACA regulations into compliance with longstanding conscience protection laws.
“President Trump is the most pro-life president our nation has ever seen, and today he delivered another important victory for conscience in America. Abortion is not health care and should never be mandated by the government,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.
She told LifeNews.com: “The Obama/Biden administration sought to expand abortion at every turn, even trying to reinterpret federal law to define abortion as a civil right. Since serving in the Obama administration, Joe Biden’s views on abortion have become even more extreme, as he now supports forcing taxpayers to pay for abortion on demand – even brutal late-term abortions. We thank President Trump and Secretary Azar for standing firmly on the side of the majority of Americans who reject taxpayer funding of abortion, and for the action taken today to roll back the Obama/Biden-era assault on conscience.”
The Heritage Foundation’s senior research fellow Ryan T. Anderson, who submitted comments on the HHS rule and wrote on the Obama-era HHS and HUD regulations, had the following response:
“Truth matters and words have meaning. The Trump administration is right to formally rescind Obamacare regulations that radically altered the meaning of ‘sex’ to mean things it doesn’t. Today’s action follows the precedent of a federal court issuing a 50-state preliminary injunction that blocked these unlawful regulations from ever taking effect.”
“When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, it prohibited discrimination on the basis of ‘sex.’ Several years later, the Obama administration redefined ‘sex’ to mean … termination of pregnancy. In addition to being an unlawful abuse of agency power, these rules would have caused serious harm.”
“They would have required doctors, hospitals, and health care organizations to act in ways contrary to their best medical judgments, their consciences, and the physical realities of their patients, or face steep fines and become easy targets for unreasonable and costly lawsuits.”
He concluded that federal law should not “force anyone to violate their prolife conscience or the privacy and safety of others in the name of political correctness.”
