Congressional committee examines state pro-life measures

November 14, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2 Print

Washington D.C., Nov 14, 2019 / 12:10 pm (CNA).- A House of Representatives committee will hold a hearing on Thursday to investigate restrictions on abortion clinics passed in pro-life states. 

The hearing, titled “Examining State Efforts to Undermine Access to Reproductive Health Care” will feature testimony from abortion advocates and the chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. 

The hearing is being convened by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by the majority-member Democrats. 

Allie Stuckey, a new mother who hosts a podcast discussing politics and culture from a conservative, Christian perspective, is scheduled to be the minority witness.

The hearing will focus on recent laws passed in Missouri, which may become the first U.S. state without an abortion clinic. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, told NPR in a statement that Missouri has served as a “case study” in state resistance to abortion under the Trump administration. 

“State governments have been emboldened in their efforts to restrict access to abortion by the Trump Administration’s systemic attacks on reproductive health care, including by dismantling the Title X federal family planning program and expanding providers’ ability to discriminate by denying care,” the Committee on Oversight and Reform said in a background explainer before the hearing.

The Trump administration announced a new policy that does not allow Title X fund recipients to perform abortions or refer people for abortions. Planned Parenthood, the nations’ largest abortion provider, lost millions in funding due to its refusal to stop providing abortions. Title X funds are designated for family-planning purposes. 

Additionally, the administration has moved to protect conscience rights of doctors and other medical professionals who consider abortion to be against their religious beliefs. 

The hearing also concerns the “draconian steps” taken by some states to limit the availability of abortion. Due to these new state laws, six states have only one abortion clinic. 

Missouri’s last remaining abortion clinic was denied a state license earlier this year and was scheduled to close. It remains open only because of a court order.

Planned Parenthood sued the state of Missouri May 28 after the state’s health department declined to renew the clinic’s license. Representatives of the clinic have argued that there is no valid reason for state rules that mandate two pelvic exams before the administration of abortion-inducing drugs. It has also rejected state demands that officials interview its medical trainees on staff.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services rejected a license renewal request June 21 from the clinic, citing an “unprecedented lack of cooperation, failure to meet basic standards of patient care, and refusal to comply with state law and regulations.”

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Appeals court: House not required to accept ‘secular prayer’ at start of work day

April 23, 2019 CNA Daily News 1

Washington D.C., Apr 23, 2019 / 10:59 am (CNA).- A D.C. federal appeals court has ruled that the chaplain for the House of Representatives cannot be forced to allow a self-described atheist to proclaim a secular prayer publicly to the body.

The decision, delivered on Good Friday, said the House rules allow for a religious invocation at the start of its work day, and a secular prayer does not qualify as a religious invocation.

The suit was raised by Dan Barker with the Freedom from Religion Foundation. He had asked to be a guest chaplain for the House of Representatives, but had been rejected by the House chaplain, Fr. Patrick Conroy.

Barker claimed that he had been rejected because he was an atheist, which he said amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion by Congress.

But the appeals court said the prayer was rejected because it was non-religious in nature, which renders it irrelevant that the proposed minister was an atheist.

“Even though we accept as true Barker’s allegation that Conroy rejected him ‘because he is an atheist,’ the House’s requirement that prayers must be religious nonetheless precludes Barker from doing the very thing he asks us to order Conroy to allow him to do: deliver a secular prayer,” wrote Judge David Tatel on behalf of the three-judge panel.

He noted that Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution allows the House to make its own rules. “Accordingly, we accept the House’s interpretation of its own rules as requiring a religious prayer,” he said.

Conroy, who has served as the House chaplain since May 2011, made headlines last year when he offered his resignation but then rescinded the resignation two weeks later.

He told then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) that he would not leave voluntarily and that Ryan would have to fire him if he wished for him to leave his role.

Conroy said Ryan’s chief of staff had asked him to resign, commenting on a prayer that he had offered several months earlier, which was perceived as critical of the Republicans’ tax bill.

Ryan said that some House members had concerns about Conroy, and that he was not able to adequately tend to the spiritual needs of some Congressmen.

The Jesuit priest objected that he had never faced disciplinary measures or received any complaints about his ministry during his then-nearly seven years as House chaplain.

Ryan then said that he had decided to allow Conroy to “remain in his position as Chaplain of the House.”

[…]

1 Comment

  1. A Child’s Lament

    Does someone keep track of my sorrow,
    Count my tears today and tomorrow?
    Does it matter what I do,
    Does anybody really care,
    Pierced through and through,
    I see my heart start to tear?
    A life never allowed to live,
    Never an opportunity to give.
    Not permitted to have a say,
    Oh, if only I could pray.
    Mother, how can it be,
    You’ll never allow me to see?
    What crime requires my execution,
    There is always another solution?
    Adoption a viable alternative,
    Let me be, let me live.
    The gift of life give to another,
    I could be a sister or a brother.
    Your chance for peace and rest,
    I might just be America’s best.

    Americans for Sale

    Body parts everywhere,
    Planned Parenthood doesn’t care.
    A killing machine beyond measure,
    Desecrating America’s treasure.
    “Every child a wanted child”,
    Code for truth that drives me wild.
    “Every unwanted child a dead child”,
    America needs to get riled.
    “Follow the money”, an old cliché,
    Preborn children continue to pay.
    Planned Parenthood fills it purse,
    All I see is a long, black hearse.
    Rivers of innocent blood tell the tale,
    American children are for sale.
    Planned Parenthood, the American scourge
    Beyond time for our nation to purge.
    The worst kind of evil is hidden in truth,
    Millions of children denied their youth.
    Planned Parenthood, a national disgrace,
    Sometimes God has a child’s face.

    Reply

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