WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped a case initiated by the Trump Administration which held that the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) had broken federal law by forcing a nurse to help commit an abortion against her will.
In 2018 the UVMMC had assigned the nurse to an abortion despite knowing she had been on a list of conscientious objectors for many years. She had been told she was going to help a patient who had suffered a miscarriage and, when she discovered that she was actually going to be participating in an elective abortion, was pressured to go through with aiding the procedure despite the presence of others who could have taken her place.
During the course of its investigation, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights determined that UVMMC maintains a policy that “admits to circumstances where UVMMC can and will force staff—on pain of adverse action or discipline—to participate in abortions against their moral or religious objections.”
Despite the DOJ having completed its investigation showing a clear violation of the nurse’s conscience rights, which are protected under federal law, on Friday the DOJ abruptly ditched the case, as directed by the Biden Administration’s Health & Human Services Secretary, Xavier Becerra.
Open season on pro-life doctors and nurses
“Biden / Becerra’s HHS directs DOJ to abandon lawsuit against Vermont hospital (UVMMC) that forced a nurse to assist in abortion against federal conscience laws,” tweeted Roger Severino, former Director of the Office of Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services who initiated the case.
“Such a politically motivated backstab means it’s open season on pro-life doctors and nurses,” he declared.
Biden / Becerra's HHS directs DOJ to abandon lawsuit against Vermont hospital (UVMMC) that forced a nurse to assist in abortion against federal conscience laws. Such a politically motivated backstab means it's open season on pro-life doctors and nurses. https://t.co/ksO8qNyRCH
— Roger Severino (@RogerSeverino_) August 3, 2021
In a statement to Fox News, Severino characterized the move by HHS and the DOJ as “a dereliction of duty.”
The fox is running the hen house
In a searing critique of the Biden Administration’s abandonment of the case published in National Review, Severino explained that “Big Abortion is desperate to eliminate conscience protections for medical professionals that have been in place for decades because it helps their bottom line to have more people complicit in their sordid business. And now with President Biden and HHS secretary Xavier Becerra in power, the abortion industry is getting its wish.”
Severino described the man now charged with protecting conscience rights as having long been one of the nation’s greatest opponents of those rights:
Becerra may be the most notorious violator of conscience laws in recent years. He even lost a Supreme Court case with his name on it, NIFLA v. Becerra, after he tried to coerce pro-life pregnancy-resource centers into violating their consciences by forcing them to refer mothers in search of life-affirming alternatives to free abortion services. Becerra was twice found in violation of conscience-protection laws by HHS’s Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, but now he is in charge of the entire agency. The fox is running the hen house.
Dropping what was an open and shut case “was a clear favor to abortion special interests and a spit in the face of not only the victim in the case, but the many medical professionals who have suffered conscience violations through the years and will continue to suffer, but now with little hope of recourse from their government,” wrote Severino.
“We now know, if there was ever any doubt, that Biden and Becerra’s first loyalty is not to their proclaimed Catholic faith or to the law, but to abortion, abortion, and more abortion,” he concluded.
Federal conscience laws: More essential than ever
“We now face the threat of a pro-abortion White House and a Cabinet stacked with radicals like Xavier Becerra, who has spent his career going after health professionals, charities, churches, and nuns who refuse to promote abortion on demand,” warned Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, just days before the start of the Biden Administration.
“Federal conscience laws are more essential than ever at a time when pro-abortion Democrat-led states have tried to force health care professionals and entities, like nurses and insurance providers, to participate in abortion. Abortion is not health care; it is the destruction of innocent human life,” said Dannenfelser.
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