As Catholic colleges in California fight back against a new mandate that they pay for elective abortion coverage on the grounds that all abortions are “medically necessary health care,” a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights has come to their defense.
Commissioner Peter Kirsanow authored a letter to state health officials informing them that their mandate is both an offense against religious liberty and a violation of federal law, and may put the state at risk of losing federal funding.
“The American political system has reached a widely-acknowledged compromise on elective abortion,” Kirsanow wrote in a letter to Shelley Rouillard of California’s Department of Managed Health Care. “This compromise is that women are free to procure elective abortions, but their fellow citizens will not be required to pay for their abortions.”
“If a state wishes to force those within its borders to violate their fundamental religious beliefs by facilitating or paying for abortions, it arguably may do so,” Kirsanow added. “But through the Weldon Amendment, the people of the other states have said that in that case, they will not allow their tax dollars to subsidize a state that displays such disregard for religious liberty.”
Click “like” if you are PRO-LIFE!
Kirsanow said that California’s mandate seemed especially targeted to force Christians to act against their belief in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.
“The difficulty in analogizing the infringement on religious liberty posed by mandates such as this one lies in abortion’s unique position in our political life. It is simultaneously morally abhorrent to many religious people and a purported fundamental right to which many other people are fiercely devoted,” wrote Kirsanow.
“The Hasidic Jew is not required, under pain of government sanction, to offer bacon and ham in the company cafeteria for his employees’ benefit. The devout Muslim is not required to provide alcoholic beverages for his employees,” he continued. “And yet when an employer complies with the law and provides health insurance for their employees, California requires that all health plans cover elective abortions, thereby requiring employers to financially contribute to their employees’ abortions.”
“It is disingenuous to claim that the employer is not paying for the abortion when every health plan in the state of California must include elective abortion coverage,” he added. “The employer is paying for the abortion. This is what the Weldon Amendment is intended to prevent. People may procure abortions, but they may not dragoon other people into engaging in what they consider morally objectionable behavior.”
Kirsanow, the lone Republican serving on the Commission, was careful to clarify that he wrote the letter on his own, and not on behalf of the other six commissioners. But his advocacy was welcomed by Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal aid group devoted to defending the 1st Amendment rights of religious believers.
“No American should be forced by the government to pay for other peoples’ abortions,” said ADF Senior Counsel Casey Mattox. “Commissioner Kirsanow is right when he says that California … show[s] ‘contempt’ and ‘disregard’ for religious freedom and conscience protections. We agree with the commissioner that these ‘absurd’ mandates are ‘directly at odds’ with federal law.”
