Tag Archives: Topic: Conscience

Religion Clause: The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that the Catholic dioceses of Joliet, Springfield and Belleville, Illinois have dropped their lawsuits against the state of Illinois in which they were seeking to retain state funding for foster care services without placing children with same-sex couples who had entered civil unions.

CBS New York (AP)(includes audio): dozen nurses who object to assisting abortion procedures on religious and ethical grounds say they’re still being compelled to help with the procedures despite having filed suit against New Jersey hospital where they work. (ADF not mentioned directly)

OneNewsNow.com: The 1974 Church Amendment and the 2005 Hyde-Weldon Conscience Law prohibits violations of religious and moral beliefs. The Alliance Defense Fund sought and received a temporary order to halt the practice until the case is resolved.

NJ Star Ledger: “The law said they don’t have to assist any part of the (abortion) case,” said Matt Bowman, the attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund. Demetrios Stratis, a Fair Lawn attorney who’s the local counsel, said the definition of what constitutes assisting in an abortion could be very fine.

News from Missouri Family Policy Council: The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the nurses in the case. Matt Bowman, legal counsel for ADF, says the hospital’s actions are “flatly illegal.” “These twelve nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since the policy change required them to participate in abortions regardless of their religious and moral objections.” [more]

Christian Post: The Alliance Defense Fund, the legal firm defending the nurses, estimates that the university receives about $60 million annually in federal funds.

Washington Examiner: Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian lawyers and organizations that is representing the nurses, said the hospital had previously hired per-diem nurses or those who volunteered to assist with abortions to help perform them. Bowman said the hospital notified nurses in writing in September that its new policy would require same-day surgery unit nurses to assist in abortions. The nurses filed suit on Oct. 31, claiming the hospital was compelling them to undergo training that involved assisting in abortions, and indicated they could be subject to termination if they didn’t comply.

Sydney Morning Herald: JULIA Gillard will back a conscience vote for Labor MPs on gay marriage, as the Age/Nielsen poll shows a growing majority of Australians favour legalising marriage equality

USA Today: The U.S. Catholic bishops Monday blasted “aggressive secularism” and the Obama administration for attacking the Church — and all believers — on religious liberty by curtailing the voices of faith in the public square.

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman at National Review Online: As we all know from politics, and from our childhood, real trouble comes not so much from breaking the rules but from lying to cover it up. Yet that’s exactly what the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey is doing to cover up its illegal insistence that nurses assist in abortions, in violation of their religious and moral beliefs.

Patrick Krey at The New American: The national Christian legal defense organization Alliance Defense Fund is also standing by to handle her case when necessary. Meanwhile, other supporters have put together an informative website to tell her side of the story.

AuBurnPub.com: Rev. Jason McGuire, executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, said Friday if a lawsuit is filed against Belforti, she will have support. “We do have people we work with like the Alliance Defense Fund that are more than willing to represent (Belforti) and even the municipality at no cost,” he said. “ADF and Liberty Counsel tend to get involved in these matters. We don’t want there to be any cost to the town of Ledyard or the town clerk.” The Courage Fund was created by New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms to help clerks who oppose the state’s marriage law. McGuire said the Courage Fund doesn’t exist to provide clerks with legal advice, but does help them by connecting clerks to groups like ADF and assists with media requests.

Christianity Today: Family Research Council recently elevated the criticism of President Obama, saying the President disrespects Christianity and is creating an environment “hostile” to Christianity . . . Alliance Defense Fund president Alan Sears and American Values president Gary Bauer joined Perkins on Dobson’s show.

Becket Fund: Today, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of Belmont Abbey College over the “Affordable Care Act” (aka “Obamacare”), that forces the College to violate its deeply-held religious beliefs or pay a severe fine.

Several of the 12 nurses who recently filed suit to stop a New Jersey hospital from forcing them to help with abortions will participate in a press conference Monday at 1 p.m. EST. Joining the nurses will be U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) . . .

Catholic Review, Nov. 10, 2011

Christian News: The Alliance Defense Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of 12 nurses who work for the federally funded facility. “The hospital passed a policy and put one of the nurses who did abortions in a supervisory position and started forcing nurses to assist in abortions out of the blue,” said legal counsel Matt Bowman. “It’s in complete violation of federal and state law – that says you can’t force people to assist abortions.”

Rose Marie Belforti has won re-election as town clerk in the Finger Lakes community of Ledyard, a result which drew praise from traditional marriage advocates.

ADF Allied Attorney Demetrios K. Stratis appears in the video.

Christian Post: Belforti reached out to the Alliance Defense Fund, a religious freedom advocacy organization, for help. An ADF lawyer, Jordan L[o]rence, commented on the case: “We need to protect religious liberty and the right of conscience. And legalizing same-sex marriage creates these kinds of conflicts.” “[Protecting] these town clerks,” L[o]rence says, is akin to protecting religious freedom.

NRL News Today: According to the Alliance Defense Fund, which is defending the twelve nurses, “The order also prohibits any acts of employment discrimination against the nurses until that matter is resolved.” The ADF filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, on behalf of the nurses who “possess strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a preborn child,” according to ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman.

Christian Post: “The hospital has been relentless in demanding that these nurses participate in abortion procedures,” Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman told The Christian Post. “It’s indisputable that the hospital is seeking to break both federal and state laws. The sole purpose of passing laws was to protect people after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land.”

Catholic News Agency (CNA): “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions. Federal and state law both prohibit this,” said Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman.

OneNewsNow.com: Attorney Matt Bowman laments the fact that the hospital continues to push the issue, despite the federal restrictions. “These … nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases, regardless of their religious and moral objections,” the attorney explains. “The court’s order prevents that until the November 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

The ACLU blog on the topic is here.  Congressional testimony given by ACLJ Attorney Colby May is cited if the ACLU post.

WORLDmag.com : ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman said that the hospital’s directive was “flatly illegal.” The Christian Post also reports that the ADF is handling a similar case involving Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. This seems like a straightforward case of a hospital breaking the law, and perhaps there will be a happy ending. I’m grateful the ADF is on the case, and for the temporary restraining order

WorldNetDaily: “These 12 nurses,” said ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman, “have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases regardless of their religious and moral objections. The court’s order prevents that until the Nov. 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

NRL News Today: The ADF filed suit in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, on behalf of the nurses who “possess strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a preborn child,” according to ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections,” he said. “That is flatly illegal.”

LifeNews.com: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman told LifeNews . . . “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist or train in services related to abortions. Federal and state law both prohibit this,” he said. “These 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortion cases regardless of their religious and moral objections. The court’s order prevents that until the Nov. 18 hearing, but it is disturbing that the hospital may fight to continue violating laws that clearly protect conscience rights.”

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday that prohibits a New Jersey hospital from forcing any of 12 nurses that sued the facility to participate in training or services related to abortions. The order, which the hospital agreed to, is in effect until the court decides whether to issue any additional order at a Nov. 18 hearing.

Karla Dial at CitizenLink: his morning, the U.S. House of Representatives heard from a panel of experts about how the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — aka ObamaCare — violates health care workers’ rights not to participate in acts they find morally objectionable.

Matt Bowman at National Review Online: Before October 2011, Lorna Mendoza and her nurse colleagues at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey served patients every day in the same day surgery unit without any hint that the hospital’s respect for the nurses’ religious beliefs was about to come crashing down around them.

Crosswalk ReligionToday News Summaries: Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, who will be representing the nurses in court, said “the right of pro-life nurses not to be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs” should be defended.

Christian Examiner: Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said the Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.” ccording to ADF, federal law prohibits hospitals that receive certain federal funds from forcing employees to participate in abortions.

Charles Toutant at New Jersey Law Journal (subscription): The suit was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Ariz., which describes itself as a Christian and legal policy organization and is opposed to abortion . . . The Alliance Defense Fund believes the UMDNJ case will end differently because it concerns a government-run hospital, unlike the private hospital in the New York case, according to its legal counsel, Matthew Bowman. Private entities aren’t subject to suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, but government agencies are, says Bowman.

CBN.com: The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the litigants. Attorneys claim federal and state law protects their clients from being forced to take part in the procedure.

ProLifeBlogs: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.” . . . Demetrios K. Stratis, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance is local counsel in the case, Danquah v. University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. ADF is currently involved in a similar lawsuit in New York state court involving a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

The Religion Clause Blog reports on the hearing and links to some of the expert testimony that is available online.

Religion Clause: That section provides an exemption from Social Security taxes where both the employer and employee are members of a religious sect that opposes participation in Social Security. However, changes in regulations in 2009 created a problem where the employer was not an individual . . .

Canada Free Press: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

NRL News Today: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.” The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, on behalf of the nurses who “possess strongly held religious and moral beliefs that she may not participate in the process of an abortion that causes the death of a preborn child,” Bowman said.

World Net Daily: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the organization. “No [fewer] than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. “That is flatly illegal,” he said.

Christian Post: “ADF is committed to defend the right of pro-life nurses not to be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said Matt Bowman of ADF on Tuesday. Bowman also said that throughout the country there are other legal challenges to hospitals requiring medical personnel to assist in abortions even if they hold religious objections. “ADF is currently litigating this case on behalf of a nurse at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York,” said Bowman, who added that his organization “successfully intervened on behalf of nursing applicants to a program at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.”

LifeSiteNews.com: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

Twelve nurses represented by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit Monday against their employer, a hospital run by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, for requiring them to participate in abortions. Federal and state law both protect them from being forced to do so.

Human Events: The freshman senator from Pennsylvania announced Oct. 20 he will co-sponsor the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act to thwart a regulation he said forces Catholic organizations to cover contraceptives against their faith.

LifeNews.com: “Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” Bowman told LifeNews. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.”

Fox News: “The hospital told the nurses they have no regard for their religious beliefs,” said Matthew Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund. “They were going to be assigned these abortions or they would be terminated.”

Fox News: A coalition of social workers, psychologists and family therapists demanded Monday that the state adopt rules that would require certain mental health professionals to offer referrals to gay patients if they refuse to treat them because of religious beliefs.

ADF Attorney David Cortman at Townhall Conservative: So how exactly do we move from a nation whose founders and first public servants included many Christians, to a place where Christians are no longer fit to participate in public life? Because if the “Freedom From Religion Foundation” (FFRF) has their way, that’s exactly what our country will look like.

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: In an open letter to his fellow bishops, Bishop Dolan, President of the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops lists numerous examples of government laws, policies, and regulations that have been propounded without any regard for the religious liberty upon which they are trampling.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. | MP3 audio 8:38 mins | ADF Media Resources: Bronx Household, Alpha Delta Chi, Utah Highway Patrol, Forsyth Co.

First Things: We are slowly losing our sense of religious liberty in America.

LifeNews.com: The Obama administration today is coming under fire from pro-life advocates who submitted tens of thousands of public comments opposing a new mandate that would force insurance companies to cover birth control, contraception and drugs that may cause abortions.

The Washington Post: On Friday, the House will consider H.R. 358, the “Protect Life Act.” The measure, introduced by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), would prohibit federal funds from going toward any health care plan that covers abortion services; it also would block funding from being withheld from institutions that are opposed to providing abortions. The bill is one of two abortion-related measures introduced by House Republicans in this Congress; the other is H.R. 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” . . .

LifeNews.com: Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul blasted President Barack Obama today over the mandate his administration will likely give final approval to soon that forces insurance companies to cover birth control and drugs that can cause abortion.

CNSnews.com: Bantering with the audience at a fundraiser in St. Louis yesterday, President Barack Obama bragged about a new regulation, proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services, that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has denounced as an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty.”

Jacques Berlinerblau at the Washington Post: The Alliance Defense Fund has been training pastors to preach politics from the pulpit in violation of the IRS’s 501 (c) (3) provision. And they have filmed the proceedings. And sent the evidence to the IRS. And the IRS has done nothing (as best we can tell). Leading me to wonder if tax cheats ought just make a little video chronicling their crimes and send it to the IRS in a preemptive, innoculating sort of a gesture. [more . . . ]

LifeSiteNews.com: The Obama administration’s plan to force virtually all private insurers, including faith-based employers, to offer free abortifacient birth control is open for public comment until midnight tonight.

Matt Bowman at LifeNews.com: On Thursday September 29, 2011, the Alliance Defense Fund submitted a comment to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, pointing out the illegal character of HHS’s proposal to mandate that the vast majority of religious entities, individuals, and insurance plans must cover abortifacients, contraceptive and sterilizing drugs, devices and information. ADF submitted its comments on behalf of The Cardinal Newman Society’s Center for the Advancement Catholic Higher Education and multiple Catholic Colleges and Universities.

HSLDA: We have previously let you know about the new mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that will require nearly all health insurance providers to fully cover birth control drugs and abortion-inducing drugs.

Arland K. Nichols at Public Discourse: The HHS mandate on contraception is based on insufficient research and betrays the committee’s deep pro-contraceptive bias.

Helen Alvaré, Gerard V. Bradley and O. Carter Snead at Public Discourse: The Witherspoon Institute’s Task Force on Conscience Protection recently reviewed and will submit comments on the “interim final rule” jointly issued by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury on “preventive services” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We present our findings here. First, we treat the mandate that all health plans provide both contraceptives and certain abortifacients. Second, we comment upon the narrow religious freedom exemption in the rule. Third, we address the mandate in light of current social circumstances concerning sexual freedom and sexual restraint.

NOW has distributed an email encouraging readers to oppose religious exemptions from birth control insurance coverage. It provides in part: “Opponents of women’s access to contraception have stepped up pressure on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to expand an exemption allowing some religious institutions to deny birth control insurance coverage to their employees. This exemption should not have been included in the HHS rules in the first place. But religious extremists are lobbying hard to convince HHS to completely remove the requirement for full insurance coverage of contraception from the new regulations. This would be a huge loss for women.”

LifeSiteNews.com: A Catholic college in Colorado is contemplating how to respond to a new state law that mandates that insurance plans cover contraception, including the abortifacient morning-after-pill, according to a statement issued by the college.

The Advocate: Belforti, who earned $19,116 in her part-time clerk position last year, refuses to resign. New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a group of evangelical Protestants that advocated against the marriage equality law before it passed in June, has offered to connect her and other clerks to legal support from the Alliance Defense Fund.

ADF Attorney Jeffrey A. Shafer will be participating in this Regent University Law Review Symposium.

Catholic Culture: When Church leaders appeal for government to recognize the rights of the individual conscience, Hadley Arkes remarks, they risk creating confusion, because the contemporary world does not recognize the proper meaning of the term . . .

Robin F. Wilson and Jana Singer at The Federalist Society: First, let me thank the Federalist Society and the LGBT Law Student Alliance for co-sponsoring this discussion and to thank my friends and former colleagues, Professor Richard Boldt for moderating and Professor Jana Singer for taking up this important conversation. I will talk today about reconciling same-sex marriage with religious liberty, values that I will argue need not be in tension if legislatures enact nuanced, thoughtful legislation recognizing same-sex marriage…

Religion Clause: The fines of $148 to $600 grew out of defendants’ refusal to display bright orange-red safety triangles on the backs of their horse-drawn buggies.

People For the American Way: People For the American Way Foundation and Proskauer Rose, LLP, a global law firm, sent a letter this weekend to the Ledyard Town Board, demanding that the town’s clerk fulfill her legal duty to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The letter refers to Ledyard Town Clerk Rose Marie Belforti, who had publicly stated that she will not sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples and refused to do so for Katie Carmichael and Deirdre DiBiaggio on August 30.

LifeNews.com: Guidelines proposed by the pro-euthanasia Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) call on doctors in the Netherlands to refer patients for euthanasia — even if they have moral or religious objections to the practice of killing patients.

LifeNews.com: A top pro-life organization is encouraging pro-life advocates to contact the Obama administration and urge it to protect conscience rights for organizations that don’t want to be involved in promoting abortion, drugs that can cause abortions and birth control.

LifeNews.com: For a genuinely healthy national future–for a future in which America nurtures healthy children, personal and group initiative, and volunteerism, while avoiding stultifying bureaucracy and governmental totalism–it is imperative that the next president and next Congress have a firm and intelligent grasp on the real blessing that is our tradition of religious freedom.