There’s uncertainty surrounding the future of an Illinois law now that the Supreme Court has ruled against a similar statute in California requiring pro-life pregnancy care centers to inform expecting mothers about the availability of abortions.
In a fast-moving story, right of conscience cases are moving forward and possibly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here are just two recent headlines from Life News:
October 30: Pregnancy Centers Ask Supreme Court to Overturn California Law Forcing Them to Promote Abortions
October 31: Judge Blocks California Law Forcing Pregnancy Centers to Promote Abortions
In a case that could impact Illinois, Life News reports, “California pregnancy centers could hear any day now if the United States Supreme Court will hear their appeal for relief from a pro-abortion state law”:
Their cases involve a pro-abortion California law that forces pregnancy centers to promote abortions. Deceptively named “The Reproductive FACT Act” by its pro-abortion authors, the 2016 law is the subject of multiple lawsuits. It forces about 200 pregnancy help non-profits to either promote taxpayer-funded abortions through the state or face heavy fines.
Jay Alan Sekulow, an attorney for the American Center for Law and Justice which is representing several pregnancy centers, said the case is about whether California can “compel nonprofit, faith-based, pro-life licensed medical facilities, against their religious convictions and identity to advertise a government program that provides free or low-cost abortions.”
If that sounds familiar, it is, because back in 2016, Governor Bruce Rauner signed SB 1564, which forced
medical facilities and physicians who conscientiously object to involvement in abortions to adopt policies that provide women who ask for abortions with a list of providers “they reasonably believe may offer” them. Two federal laws, known as the Coats-Snowe amendment and the Hyde-Weldon amendment, together prohibit states that receive federal funding from forcing pro-life physicians and entities to refer women for abortion or to make arrangements for their referral. Illinois law also prohibits government from placing burdens on religious conscience without a compelling interest for doing so.
Since then, the Alliance for Defending Freedom, alongside attorneys at Mauck & Baker, filed suit on behalf of Illinois clients to overturn the law.
As IFI reported back in August,
a Federal District Court granted the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates and several pro-life pregnancy centers a preliminary injunction against an Illinois law that forces pro-life healthcare professionals to make abortion referrals. The injunction prohibits the State from enforcing the law against healthcare facilities or physicians who have a conscience objection to performing abortions or making abortion referrals.
Attorney Noel W. Sterett told the Illinois Family Institute that the Illinois case is now proceeding through the discovery phase.
Life News reports that whether the challenge to the California law will be heard by the United States Supreme Court might be known as early as Monday.
The Justices have considered the appeals for more than three weeks in their weekly conferences, suggesting at least several of them are inclined to hear the cases.
Recently, lower courts have split on controversies arising from state regulations of medical professions.
The American Center for Law and Justice’s Jay Sekulow said the law violates “the principle that one cannot be conscripted into acting as a ventriloquist’s dummy for a government message.”
“This law is like forcing the Sierra Club to advocate for oil spills or demanding St. Jude expose their patients to lead poisoning,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which is representing another group of California pregnancy centers.
“However, this law is actually much more repulsive. While those situations might cause unintended harm, abortion is intended — even specifically designed — to kill.”
Here is Mauck & Baker’s Noel W. Sterett on the topic of the Illinois law:
“The government has no business forcing pro-life doctors and pregnancy care centers in Illinois to operate as referral agents for the abortion industry. A law that targets medical professionals because of their pro-life views and right of conscience is unconstitutional and unethical.”
In the Life News story from October 31, Jay Hobbs reports:
In a major victory for free speech, Riverside County Superior Court Justice Gloria C. Trask ruled late Monday that California must not force pro-life pregnancy medical clinics to post signage promoting state-covered abortions to their clients.
The October 31 Life News article also includes a reference to the above-referenced statewide preliminary injunction on the 2016 Illinois law.
The Illinois Family Institute will continue to monitor the news regarding both the Illinois and California lawsuits. Please pray for the ultimate demise of these tyrannical laws.
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Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing an Illinois doctor and two pregnancy care centers filed suit in state court against Gov. Bruce Rauner after he recently signed a bill into law that forces doctors and medical facilities to promote abortion regardless of their ethical or moral views on the practice.
ADF sent a letter to Rauner in May on behalf of numerous pro-life physicians, pregnancy care centers, and pregnancy care center network organizations advising him that the bill, SB 1564, would violate federal law and therefore place federal funding, including Medicaid reimbursements, in jeopardy. ADF also warned legislators about the problems with the bill last year. The lawsuit claims the new law, which is actually an amendment to the existing Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act, violates state law and the state constitution.
“No state should attempt to rob women of the right to choose a pro-life doctor by forcing pro-life physicians and entities to make or arrange abortion referrals. What’s even worse is that Illinois did this by amending a law designed specifically to protect freedom of conscience,” said ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman. “The governor should have vetoed this bill for many reasons, including its incompatibility with Illinois law and the state constitution, which specifically protects freedom of conscience and free speech.”
The new law forces medical facilities and physicians who conscientiously object to involvement in abortions to adopt policies that provide women who ask for abortions with a list of providers “they reasonably believe may offer” them. Illinois law prohibits government from placing burdens on religious conscience without a compelling interest for doing so. Additionally, the Illinois Constitution protects “liberty of conscience,” saying that “no person shall be denied any civil or political right, privilege or capacity, on account of his religious opinions.” It also protects free speech, which includes the right not to be compelled by government to speak a message contrary to one’s own conscience.
“Pro-life health care professionals shouldn’t be forced to hand out lists describing how to contact abortionists, yet that’s what this law mandates that they do,” explained ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “If this profane amendment to Illinois’ conscience protection law remains on the books, doctors and medical staff committed to saving all lives will be forced to promote the killing of some children, women will lose access to doctors who unconditionally value human life, and pregnancy resource centers that offer free help and hope to pregnant women will be forced to refer to abortionists. This is the kind of government coercion that the state constitution, the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the very law that was amended were all designed to prevent.”
Mauck & Baker LLC attorney Noel Sterett, one of more than 3,000 private attorneys allied with ADF, is co-counsel in the case, The Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford v. Rauner, filed in the Circuit Court of the 17th Judicial Circuit in Winnebago County.
Attorney Noel Sterett, co-counsel in the case and partner at Mauck & Baker, LLC, in Chicago, says, “These crisis pregnancy centers have been doing tremendous work serving their community for years, but now their core mission is being threatened. People disagree on whether abortions end human lives, but I’d hope we can all agree that pregnancy centers dedicated to protecting the unborn should not be forced to recommend abortion to mothers.”
Written by David E. Smith and Laurie Higgins
Despite a full-court press by IFI and many Illinois pro-life groups–including dozens of pregnancy resource centers (PRCs)–Governor Bruce Rauner chose to sign legislation (late Friday afternoon) that will result in our state government requiring pro-life medical professionals to refer patients for medical procedures/services they find morally objectionable such as abortion, sterilization and certain end-of-life care protocols.
This is not the result for which so many hoped and prayed.
Nonetheless, IFI wants to thank all those who took time to call or email the governor to ask him to veto SB 1564.
IFI also wants to acknowledge and thank those handful of pro-life state lawmakers who recently met with Rauner in an attempt to persuade him to reject this proposal. IFI is deeply grateful for those who took time to plead the pro-life, pro-conscience position with Rauner.
Despite the fact that not one Republican voted for the final version of SB 1564, Rauner decided to side with the Democrats in approving its final passage.
Thankfully, we have a system of checks and balances. IFI has been informed that a lawsuit is being planned to challenge this onerous and tyrannical new law. So now we must now shift our focus to praying for the Thomas More Society in their effort to overturn this unconscionable law in court.
This legislative travesty accentuates the need for Christians to be involved in the political process and engaged in the public square. No American should ever be required by the government to do or say something that violates their deeply held beliefs.
It is because so many Christians have abdicated their civic responsibilities with regard to self-government (also known as “politics”) that we are seeing tyranny rise and religious liberty erode. Unless and until conservatives cease being one- or two-issue voters (e.g., focusing almost solely on the economy and defense), secular humanists, cultural Christians, and libertarians will continue their perversion of the legislative process.
Unless and until social conservatives exercise their power while they still have any, there will remain no party to defend social conservatism, including issues related to life, marriage, properly ordered sexuality, physical privacy, religious liberty, and conscience rights. Unless social conservatives reject those who reject social conservatism, the already-present hostility to social conservatives and rejection of social conservatism will intensify.
Instead of throwing in the towel in response to the traitorous outrage perpetrated by Rauner–who has demonstrated his willingness to thwart the will of Democrats with regard to the budget bill–IFI wants to challenge conservatives to double down instead. We desperately need more–many more–pro-life/pro-family/pro-children’s rights men and women in Springfield.
As we head into fall, the November election looms large. Don’t disengage! Find a local candidate you can get behind, and volunteer and/or financially support him or her. Support those candidates who demonstrate an unequivocal and unashamed commitment to the social issues, which are essential to the continued flourishing of America.
In addition, consider volunteering and/or financially supporting a local pregnancy resource center, starting a pro-life/pro-family committee at your church, and attending IFI events and forums.
And let us not grow weary while doing good,
for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
~Galatians 6:9~
Written by Teri Paulson
There is a scene in the movie 1984 in which Winston is reminded of this statement that he wrote in his diary: “Freedom is the freedom to say 2 + 2 = 4.” An updated version might say, “Freedom is the freedom to call a man a man and a woman a woman.”
There’s a sense in which we surrendered this battle a long time ago when we quietly and foolishly capitulated to the expulsion of God from government and public policy. It seemed so harmless then.
But government recognition of God is the lynchpin of freedom. Once a government stops recognizing God as an authority over itself it is only a matter of time before it stops acknowledging the existence of any morality external to itself that is binding upon its actions. Unrestrained by God and his moral law, government officials are free to make up the rules as they go along. Stated simply, government without God becomes God. Citizens get whatever liberties the people who happen to be in power at the time decide to give them. Welcome to America in the 21st century.
Christian business-owners are forced to participate in homosexual “weddings” or risk losing their livelihood. Laws are passed and edicts issued to force us to pretend that men are women and women are men. If Gov. Bruce Rauner signs SB 1564 into law pro-life doctors and nurses will be forced to discuss the “benefits of abortion” with their patients. Freedom of conscience and the right to speak and live in obedience to truth is on the verge of obliteration. Will anyone miss it when it’s gone?
I’m not sure they will.
We’re about to lose these rights in part because we haven’t been exercising them. Ironically, the problem is also the solution. God’s truth in the public square is still what is desperately needed whether it staves off national disaster or not. Unfortunately, what could be a shining moment for the church is looking more and more like a non-event. Where are the letters to the editor from local church leaders? Where are the pastors speaking out at local school board and civic meetings? Where are the sermons preparing us for the persecution that’s all but inevitable? What’s the plan, oh Mighty Men of God?
My greatest fear is that the plan is to do nothing, say nothing, stand for nothing. Our biggest failing is not intolerance. It’s indifference. Are we our brothers’ keepers or not? Cain thought that was a throwaway question. Do we?
Two plus two is about to equal five. What’s the plan, oh mighty men of God?
ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Illinois Governor Rauner, urging him to uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois. Ask him to veto SB 1564 and the tyranny it represents.
After you send an email, please also call the Governor’s office at (217) 782-0244 or (312) 814-2121. Once you’ve done this, please pray that Gov. Rauner and his staff will understand how coercive and unjust this legislation is.
Teri Paulson is the Director of Women’s Discipleship New Hope Community Church, Palatine, IL
Leftists in our leftist-controlled state are seeking to amend the “Health Care Right of Conscience” law so as to deny the right of conscience of medical professionals who oppose feticide, artificial contraception, and certain end-of-life protocols that intentionally and prematurely end lives.
Senate Bill 1564 (SB 1564) has passed both houses in Springfield, and as soon as Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) sends it to Governor Bruce Rauner, he will have 60 days to decide if he will sign it into law or veto it.
This law would, for example, compel medical professionals who oppose feticide to help women find abattoirs and doctors committed to the practice of feticide. And this law would undermine the free exercise of religion by forcing those medical professionals whose commitment to life derives from their faith—including those who work in pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.
IFI is hearing the usual irrational arguments from leftists about choice and the inability of society to agree on when the “product of conception” becomes human and/or is entitled not to be exterminated. Leftists say that because there is no consensus about when the product of conception between two humans becomes a human and/or deserves protection, the government should allow each individual to decide for herself. Ironically, leftists believe that each individual doctor should be legally prohibited from making a similar decision and acting in accordance with that decision.
A rational society cannot rationally encode in law the proposition that the product of conception between two humans is at once human and not human or at once deserving of the right merely to exist and undeserving of the right merely to exist. When leftists proclaim that every woman should have the right to decide whether to end the life of the product of conception between two humans that is growing within her, they must have concluded either that the life being nourished is not human–which is objectively false–or that it is undeserving of protection. To say it matters not whether feticide is practiced or not makes them sound eerily like Stephen Douglas who said he didn’t care whether slavery was voted up or down.
Some years ago, Northwestern University law professor Andrew Koppelman expressed his desire that abortion be rare. If the growing things being nourished by women’s bodies are not human or are so devoid of personhood as to be undeserving of constitutional protection, why wish their destruction to be rare?
If, as the left claims, there is uncertainty about when the product of conception between two humans becomes human, how ghastly it is to err on the side that presumes it becomes a person at birth (or at some other arbitrary point) and then one day discover they were wrong.
As a thought experiment, imagine a law that compelled Americans in the antebellum South who knew that African Americans were humans equal in all respects to whites to facilitate slavery. Oh, wait, we don’t have to imagine it. With the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Democrats sought–as they are seeking now–to force Americans to violate their consciences in the service of a grievous moral injustice that denies a group of weak, vulnerable humans their dignity, their freedom, and their rights.
Until the day when Americans restore moral sanity to our legal and cultural landscape by recognizing that the unborn have a right to be protected from the merciless and lethal assaults of abortionists, our laws should at least protect the rights of those who cannot, will not, and should not be forced to facilitate evil.
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Illinois Governor Rauner, urging him to uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois. Ask him to veto SB 1564 and the tyranny it represents.
After you send an email, please also call the Governor’s office at (217) 782-0244 or (312) 814-2121. Once you’ve done this, please pray that Gov. Rauner and his staff will understand how coercive and unjust this legislation is.
Thank you!
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It’s time to send a message to Governor Bruce Rauner, please veto a pro-abortion bill that would violate the rights of pro-life doctors, medical personnel and pregnancy care workers.
Last week the Illinois House debated and passed SB 1564 by a vote of 61-54 — a bill that would force doctors, nurses, pharmacists to distribute information to help patients find morally objectionable medical services such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care. This proposal was passed by the Illinois Senate on April 22, 2015 by a vote of 34-19.
SB 1564 now heads to the office of the governor.
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to ask him to please uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois. Ask him to veto SB 1564 and the tyranny it represents.
After you send an email, please also call the Governor’s office at (217) 782-0244 or (312) 814-2121. Once you’ve done this, please pray that Gov. Rauner and his staff will understand just how coercive this legislation is.
Thank you!
SB 1564 undermines the freedom
of conscience and invites intimidation and
legal action against pro-life healthcare providers.
Last year, State Senator Daniel Biss (D-Skokie) introduced SB 1564 to radically alter the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act. This proposal was passed by the Illinois Senate on April 22, 2015 by a vote of 34-19. It then moved to the Illinois House where it was picked up by State Representative Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston).
Late in the afternoon of May 25th, the Illinois House debated and passed this ominous new mandate by a vote of 61-54. (See roll call below.) The bill now heads to the office of the governor.
SB 1564 would force doctors, nurses, pharmacists to distribute information to help a patients find objectionable medical services such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care.
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to ask him to please uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois. Ask him to veto SB 1564 and the tyranny it represents.
Emails are noticed, but we also need a flood of calls to the Governor’s office: (217) 782-0244 or (312) 814-2121. Once you’ve taken action, please pray that he will understand how coercive this legislation is.
You may want to point out that according to the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, 95 percent of physicians in a national poll agreed, “I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether then be forced to violate my conscience.”
It is important to know that SB 1564 will also negatively affect crisis pregnancy centers that provide health care services by requiring that these life centers give referrals to Planned Parenthood or other venues that promote abortion.
IFI is deeply grateful to those lawmakers who spoke out during debate today, including: State Representatives Peter Breen (R-Lombard), Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton), Barbara Wheeler (R-Cyrstal Lake), Tom Morrision (R-Palatine), C.D. Davidsmeyer (R-Jacksonville), Sheri Jesiel (R-Antioch), and Margo McDermed (R-Frankfort).
(Click HERE to learn more about the problems of SB 1564.)
The regular session of the Illinois General Assembly ended on May 31st, but with lawmakers at an impasse over the state budget, they could be meeting in overtime sessions well into the summer. Along with debate over a spending plan, workman’s compensation and the public sector pension crisis will keep lawmakers busy in Springfield for at least several more weeks. According IFI sources, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) has told state representatives that the Illinois House will be meeting every Tuesday throughout the month of June, and even into July.
Lawmakers could use their extra time in the State Capitol to address other issues as well.That includes SB 1564, which would require doctors, nurses and pharmacists to distribute referrals to patients who are seeking objectionable medical services such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care.
In the video below, Dr. Lainna Callentine, a physician, instructor, writer, speaker, and pediatrician at Bolingbrook Christian Health Center, speaks out against SB 1564 on behalf of the Christian Medical and Dental Association. IFI also interviewed Dan McConchie, Vice President of Government Affairs for Americans United for Life, who warns that passing this legislation into law would be handing proponents of abortion a tool to dramatically change how crisis pregnancy centers operate.
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to your state representative. Ask him/her to uphold Rights of Conscience for medical professionals and vote NO on SB 1564.
Please also call your state representative during normal business hours to politely ask them to uphold the rights of conscience for medical personnel. The Capitol switchboard number is (217) 782-2000.
An important lesson I learned early in my theological training was that I ought never violate my own conscience and I must never put pressure on others to violate theirs. To do so would be immoral and unethical. One’s conscience may be incorrect, and it is appropriate to educate it when necessary, but in the mean time, it must not be crossed lest that vital “alarm” be deadened.
With the politicians in Springfield debating whether to require medical professionals who oppose abortion to refer abortion seekers to others who will provide those services we see the government of the State of Illinois taking actions that no ethical person can take. Those of us who oppose abortion see this as similar to someone approaching us to do a “hit” for them, but finding we will not, enlisting the government to force us to refer them to someone who will!
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was drafted for the specific purpose of protecting the sanctity of conscience. The government must never be permitted to force people to in any way support actions that violate their personal convictions. This vital protection has been eroded significantly already, but it must be reestablished!
SB 1564 is not merely a bad piece of legislation that goes against the most precious values that made America great, it is also an insult against young women! What it says is that while a woman may be wise enough and smart enough to choose an abortion, she may well be incapable of finding an abortion provider on her own. Apparently, the Yellow Pages and Google are just too complicated for her. In fact, she may be so helpless that the only possible way for her to exercise her choice is to force those who disagree with her to help her locate an abortion provider!
Does this mean the Left sees its conservative opponents as smarter than these young women?
Strange, don’t you think?
I am sure that proponents of this legislation would reply that the trauma of an unwanted or crisis pregnancy sometimes makes such things as locating assistance difficult. Well, maybe, if the “crisis” of the moment is such that she struggles to use the moderately simple contemporary tools available for locating service providers, she is in that moment too confused to terminate the life within her as well.
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to your state representative. Ask him/her to uphold Rights of Conscience for medical personnel, and vote NO to SB 1564.
Please also call your state representative during normal business hours to politely ask them to uphold the rights of conscience for medical personnel. The Capitol switchboard number is (217) 782-2000.
On Wednesday morning, the Human Services Committee heard testimony about SB 1564, a bill that would change the Health Care Rights of Conscience Act by forcing doctors, nurses, pharmacists to distribute information to help a patients find objectionable medical services such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care. The bill passed out of committee on a party line vote of 8-4, as expected. The bill now moves to the Illinois House floor where it could be voted on as early as next week.
It is important to point out that SB 1564 would also negatively affect crisis pregnancy centers that provide health care services by requiring that these life centers give referrals to Planned Parenthood or other venues that promote abortion.
Dr. Pamela Smith, a Chicago area Obstetrician who graduated from Yale University of Medicine, shares her thoughts about SB 1564 with Illinois Family Institute:
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to your state representative. Ask him/her to uphold Rights of Conscience for medical personnel, and vote NO to SB 1564.
Please also call your state representative during normal business hours to politely ask them to uphold the rights of conscience for medical personnel. The Capitol switchboard number is (217) 782-2000.
To the Members of the Illinois Legislature:
I understand that you are considering passing SB 1564, a bill to amend the existing laws of Illinois that protect freedom of conscience. I urge you not to do so, as SB 1564 fatally weakens the conscience rights of Illinois citizens.SB 1564 would amend existing law to, among other things, add a new section regarding “access to care and information protocols.” This section would require “health care facilities, physicians, and health care personnel” who are opposed for reasons of conscience to performing an abortion to, nevertheless, “refer, transfer, or give information . . . about other health care providers who they reasonably believe may offer . . . the . . . service,” which includes abortion. In so providing, SB 1564 violates elementary notions of conscience protection.The point of conscience protection is to shield a person from being forced to participate in something that he or she finds morally wrong — perhaps, as in the case of abortion, gravely so. Accordingly, Illinois’s existing law states: “It is the public policy of the State of Illinois to respect and protect the right of conscience of all persons” regarding “medical services” whose morality is disputed. There is no more disputed “medical service” than abortion.
How might one be forced to participate in a “disputed medical service”? One way, of course, would be to require that the objector perform the procedure. The proposed revision of the law does not go that far, but that does not mean that it is modest or moderate. Requiring the objector to refer (or to transfer) the person to a different medical provider who will perform the abortion is radical and unacceptable because it implicates the objector in the obtaining of the disputed “medical service.” It makes her or him a participant, that is, one who facilitates the procedure by assisting in its being obtained. It overlooks the simple point that the objector finds the procedure to be morally wrong and wishes not to be associated with it.
This conclusion holds whether the referral is direct or indirect. In requiring the objector to at least provide a list of those whom he or she “reasonably believes” may offer the “service,” SB 1564 requires that the objector facilitate the very procedure to which he or she objects — because the list necessarily is composed solely of those of whom it is “reasonable” to believe would perform the abortion. (If one has no reason to believe a facility performs abortions, it would not be “reasonable” to put it on the list. Similarly, if one knows a facility does not perform abortions, it would not be reasonable to put it on the list.)
The truth of the point I am making can be shown by imagining a different situation, one in which racial segregation in public accommodations was legal but not mandated, and imagining further that some restaurants segregated their clientele by race but that others did not, believing that doing so would be morally wrong. Imagine further that a law were passed requiring that any restaurant that did not segregate nevertheless tell anyone who asked where to find a segregated restaurant. Clearly such a law would make the non-segregating restaurant owner a participant in facilitating the underlying wrong to which he or she objected (racial segregation). Would anyone conclude differently if the law, instead, required the restaurant owner to provide a list of restaurants that the owner “reasonably believed” were segregated? The owner would be right, and consistent, to point out that this violated his conscience every bit as much as requiring him to segregate his restaurant. The same is true in the case before you. It makes no difference whether referrals or transfers or “reasonable” lists of abortion providers are required of those who object to abortion – in each case, the result would be coercing them through the power of the law to facilitate a procedure they find profoundly morally objectionable.
Conscience is the very citadel of the soul. One’s conscience enables one to make basic decisions about right and wrong. To violate it is to violate an individual’s personal integrity in the most fundamental way. Thus, the right to freedom of conscience has been recognized everywhere, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Vatican II’s great declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis Humanae. Cardinal John Henry Newman called conscience, written in every human heart, “the aboriginal vicar of Christ.” One need not be Catholic to understand that robust protection for freedom of conscience is the mark of a just society. Since SB 1564 fatally undermines conscience protection, I urge you to reject it.
Sincerely,
Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence
Princeton University
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to Gov. Bruce Rauner to ask him to VETO SB 1564. Ask him to uphold Rights of Conscience for medical personnel.
How did they vote?
This afternoon, the Illinois Senate voted 34 to 19 to pass SB 1564 — the onerous re-write of the Healthcare Right of Conscience Act. This bill broadly defines “health care,” “health care personnel,” and “health care facility.” SB 1564 will force health care personnel to violate their consciences in regard to morally dubious medical procedures such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care. Pro-life lobbyists are deeply concerned that even Crisis Pregnancy Centers that offer pregnancy tests would be subjected to unsavory duties under the law (e.g. abortion referrals).
According to the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, ninety-five (95) percent of physicians in a national poll agreed with this statement: “I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether then be forced to violate my conscience.”
Click HERE to see how your state senator voted on this legislation, or look at the graphic below. State Senators Kyle McCarter (R-Vandalia), Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington), Dale Rigther (R-Mattoon), and Bill Haine (D-Alton) spoke against the bill. Unfortunately, Republican leader Christine Radogno and Senator Chris Nybo (R-Hinsdale) voted in favor of the bill. Sen. Nybo also spoke if favor of SB 1564 on the floor.
The bill now moves to the Illinois House. We can stop this bill — but only with your help, calls and prayers!
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to your state representative. Ask him/her to uphold Rights of Conscience for medical personnel, and vote NO to SB 1564. (If you have already sent an email to your state senator, please send an email to your state representative.)
Please also call your state representative during normal business hours. The Capitol switchboard number is (217) 782-2000.
Written by Anna Paprocki, AUL Staff Counsel
Sunday’s Chicago Tribune article, “State bill seeks to mandate disclosure,” is terribly misleading. It implies SB 1564* merely requires a healthcare provider to disclose that she has a conscientious objection, that the bill is simply about not having patients be “blind-sided” that a Catholic hospital/provider doesn’t perform abortions, elective sterilizations, etc. The bill does not require mere transparency about objections, but creates new obligations for healthcare providers, including pregnancy resource centers that offer women alternatives to abortion, to promote and participate in conscience-violating activities. Sponsored by State Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Skokie), the bill promotes the coercive anti-conscience agenda of his abortion-industry backers, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.
Pregnancy resource centers that offer “health care” such as ultrasounds, and perhaps even pregnancy testing, would be required under the bill to violate their core mission by discussing “benefits” of abortion and providing information on where to obtain abortions.
The article heavily quotes OSF ethicist Erica Laethem for irrelevant points. While Ms. Laethem explains that providers in her healthcare system do not have a moral objection to discussing any “topic” with patients, the bill is not about permitting doctors to talk about what they don’t object to, or providing information to what they don’t object to. It literally does the opposite. It creates duties on all healthcare providers regardless of his or her conscientious objection.
There is a fundamental difference between Ms. Laethem’s role in advising those in her healthcare practice about her view on complicity and a government-imposed mandate that all healthcare providers must, regardless of sincerely held moral convictions, promote and participate in conscience-violating services.
Notably, federal law does not share Ms. Laethem’s view that there is an appreciable “distinction” between a technical referral and effectively facilitating one that makes mandating the latter acceptable. Federal law prohibits discrimination against those who object to referral, in the technical sense, and also when she “refuses to make arrangements for” referral.
By violating federal law, SB 1564 could jeopardize Illinois’ federal financial assistance, including reimbursements through federal Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal health programs.
SB 1564 is detrimental to both healthcare providers and patients in Illinois.
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your Illinois state senator to ask him/her to please uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois. Ask them to reject SB 1564.
*SB 1564 is co-sponsored by State Senators Julie A. Morrison (D-Deerfield), Toi W. Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), Linda Holmes (D-Chicago), Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Chicago), Michael Noland(D-Elgin), Heather A. Steans (D-Chicago), William Delgado (D-Chicago), Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago), Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago), and Emil Jones III (D-Chicago).
SB 1564 undermines the freedom
of conscience and invites intimidation and
legal action against pro-life healthcare providers.
Earlier this year, State Senator Daniel Biss (D-Skokie) introduced SB 1564 to radically alter the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act — an Act that allows medical personnel and health care facilities to avoid participating in morally dubious medical procedures such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care. Doctors, pharmacists, and other medical personnel have been protected from having to violate their beliefs and values for almost twenty years under this Act.
This week, State Senator Biss introduced Amendment No. 3 in hopes of assuaging opponents of this bill. However, Amendment 3 does nothing to secure conscience rights. According to the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, 95 percent of physicians in a national poll agreed, “I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether then be forced to violate my conscience.”
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your Illinois state senator to ask him/her to please uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois. Ask them to reject SB 1564.
IFI, Americans United for Life, the Christian Medical and Dental Association, Illinois Citizens for Life, and Lake County Right to Life all agree: The changes to SB 1564 are woefully inadequate. The bill would still require pro-life doctors to participate materially in actions that violate their deeply held beliefs, such as helping patients find abortion-providers or securing other similarly objectionable procedures.
Background
American’s United for Life Analysis of SB 1564
Detrimental to Both Healthcare Providers & Patients
Written by Anna Paprocki, AUL Staff Counsel
AUL RECOMMENDATION: Vote NO
SB 1564 as amended by Senate Amendment 3 erodes the freedom of conscience for healthcare providers—including the right not to counsel or refer for conscience-violating services—which has been statutorily protected in Illinois for nearly 20 years. Instead, it creates new obligations for healthcare providers to participate in conscience-violating activities.
Under current law, healthcare providers are protected against participating in any phase of a healthcare service that would violate their sincerely held moral convictions, including “counselling, referrals, or any other advice …” The law respects a healthcare provider’s conscientious determination of what constitutes his or her complicity.
That same existing law already ensures patient safety is not compromised by clarifying that physicians are not relieved from a duty to “inform his or her patient of the patient’s condition, prognosis, and risks…” The law also clearly provides that healthcare personnel are not relieved from “obligations under the law of providing emergency medical care.”
SB 1564 as amended by Senate Amendment 3 uses the force of government to impose new and unnecessary obligations that are contrary to this longstanding law that appropriately protects both the freedom of conscience and patient care.
Contrary to existing law, SB 1564 as amended by Senate Amendment 3 obligates a healthcare facility, physician, or healthcare provider to participate in potentially conscience-violating services by requiring the provider to refer or transfer a patient or provide information to the patient regarding other healthcare providers who the provider reasonably believes offer the objected-to healthcare service. While this may be the existing practice for many healthcare facilities and providers, mandating it as a legal obligation would eliminate the law’s respect for the sincerely held moral convictions of a healthcare provider for whom these actions constitute complicity with the objected-to service.
The bill further creates a duty to inform patients of “legal treatment options” and “benefits of treatment options.” This is an unnecessary and potentially dangerous new obligation that may later be used by abortion advocacy groups as the basis for a lawsuit against healthcare providers whose consciences are violated by suggesting abortion—a “legal treatment option” service—to pregnant patients.
The bill additionally requires that this information on “legal treatment options” be given in a “timely manner” without defining what constitutes “timely.” All abortions, whether accomplished by invasive surgery or potent chemicals, pose significant risks to women’s health. It is also undisputed that these risks increase with gestational age. Therefore, “timely” may be construed by abortion advocacy groups to mean “immediate” with regards to abortion information, as any delay would potentially increase abortion’s risks.
Although not expressly applied to the new duties regarding referral, transfer, and information, the bill does contain a definition of “undue delay” that is defined as “unreasonable delay that causes impairment of the patient’s health.” Problematically, it fails to define “health.” In the context of abortion, federal courts have defined “health” expansively. In Doe v. Bolton, decided the same day as Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court created an unlimited definition of maternal “health.” The Court wrote, “[T]he medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.” The Court held that the abortionist alone was allowed to make this judgment.
Abortion proponents such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and Planned Parenthood already frequently file lawsuits aimed at intimidating and discriminating against pro-life healthcare providers and facilities. SB 1564 as amended by Senate Amendment 3 provides fodder for their coercive litigation and intimidation tactics, as well as their anti-conscience agenda.
SB 1564’s attack on the freedom of conscience advances a radical ideology and fails to meet any demonstrated need.
There is no demonstrated need for SB 1564’s erosion of the freedom of conscience that has been protected by Illinois law for decades. Rather, the bill fits a nation-wide pattern of ideological discrimination advanced by abortion proponents.
For example, the factual findings in Stormans v. Selecky, a challenge to anti-conscience Washington State Board of Pharmacy rules, document that purported “refusal stories” used to advance the coercive rules were not the result of natural encounters with access problems, but were “manufactured” by Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates. In fact, the court in Stormans found, “no Board witness, or any other witness, was able to identify any particular community in Washington—rural or otherwise—that lacked timely access to emergency contraceptives or any other time-sensitive medication.”
SB 1564’s attack on the freedom of conscience would be counterproductive for patient access to care in Illinois.
Protecting the freedom of conscience of healthcare providers and institutions is necessary to avoid added stress on an already overtaxed healthcare system.
Experts project that current shortages of physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals will worsen, failing to meet future requirements. There is an important public health interest in ensuring the protection of conscience rights; forcing healthcare professionals to choose between their consciences and their careers will only heighten the current healthcare provider shortage.
In a survey conducted in 2008, 91 percent of faith-based physicians agreed with the statement, “I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether than be forced to violate my conscience.”
Protecting the freedom is critical to slowing, not exacerbating, shortages of healthcare professionals and ensuring access to quality health care in Illinois.
(Click HERE for the PDF version.)
*SB 1564 is co-sponsored by State Senators Julie A. Morrison (D-Deerfield), Toi W. Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), Linda Holmes (D-Chicago), Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Chicago), Michael Noland(D-Elgin), Heather A. Steans (D-Chicago), William Delgado (D-Chicago), Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago), Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago), and Emil Jones III (D-Chicago).