Urgent Need for Action on the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA)

Dear friends and colleagues:
You have received many requests for action from the Pro-Life Secretariat in the past. This one is especially urgent.

For years we have asked Congress to reform current federal laws on conscience rights, especially to protect individual and institutional health care providers who object to abortion. Current laws like the Weldon amendment are legally vulnerable and seldom enforced; they have been found to have loopholes limiting their effectiveness, and they lack a “right of action” allowing victims of discrimination to defend their rights in court.

For many years our flagship proposal for solving these problems has been the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA). Recently it has been combined with provisions on the HHS contraceptive mandate, to create the “Health Care Conscience Rights Act” (HCCRA) (HR 940, S. 1919). HCCRA is now part of the House of Representatives’ Labor/HHS appropriations bill for the coming year.

HCCRA has strong support in the House, but its provisions on contraception have been strongly opposed in the Senate and by the White House. The Supreme Court has also partly addressed the HHS mandate in its Hobby Lobby case, and takes up seven new cases about it in its new term.

Therefore, as we approach the December 11 deadline for Congress to agree on a “must pass” year-end spending bill, we have decided to focus at present on ANDA. Americans’ right to object to involvement in abortion has long enjoyed broad support, and President Obama has said several times that he supports federal laws protecting this right.

We have made good progress in a short time. Recently two dozen pro-life groups, religious and secular, wrote jointly to congressional leadership to say that they support a number of other pro-life bills but they all agree that ANDA is a top priority, the one proposal with a decent chance of being enacted this year as part of that spending legislation. Catholic lay groups such as the Knights of Columbus and National Council of Catholic Women have offered their help. In the next two to three weeks, we need as many Catholics as possible around the country to send e-mail messages to their elected representatives urging them to make ANDA part of that final legislation.

1. New “Stand with Cathy for Conscience Rights” video on YouTube

To view on Youtube visit: https://youtu.be/uknxrMI61WI

Featuring nurse Cathy DeCarlo, who was forced by her employer to assist at a late-term abortion – then found she had no right to go to court to keep this from happening to others. Points people to our www.usccb.org/conscience page for more information and an alert.

2. NCHLA alert making it easy to send e-mails to Congress

http://www.nchla.org/actiondisplay.asp?ID=292
The National Committee for a Human Life Amendment (NCHLA), our partner organization mobilizing grassroots support for the bishops’ pro-life agenda, has an alert to help constituents write to their elected representatives. There is a pre-written text but each person can add personal messages before and after it – for example, pro-life health professionals can say how they have experienced or witnessed threats to conscience rights on abortion. Live links to this can be shared on web sites and social media; the PDF version can be inserted into Church bulletins and diocesan publications.

3. Brief article explaining the need for ANDA

Attached to this message in Word, and also posted on USCCB’s web site here:
http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/time-to-speak-up-for-conscience-rights.cfm

A brief article explaining the need for this law — for web sites, newsletters, church bulletins, diocesan papers, etc. Provides links to the video and the alert. (To put this in someone else’s name or make changes please notify the author at rdoerflinger@usccb.org.)

 

Thanks you for all your efforts on behalf of human life and rights of conscience!

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