Conscience Protection Act of 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. FLEMING. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record the testimony from Honorable Dr. Dave Weldon, author of the Weldon amendment, on this very bill and a few letters I received from obstetricians and gynecologists from across the country. Statement by the Hon. Dave Weldon, MD, Retired FL-15 Congressional Forum on Conscience Rights, July 8, 2016
Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. The stories shared today by the people around this table underscore the very reason I authored the Weldon amendment.
You can imagine my outrage to learn that this administration has gutted my amendment and is allowing ongoing discrimination in California.
Over a decade ago, I became aware of the Maryland NARAL Hospital Provider Project. This disturbing initiative was designed to force abortion into every hospital in Maryland.
In response to this and similar threats, I drafted my appropriations amendment. It is intended to bring a stop to the abortion industry crusade to force this gruesome procedure into every aspect of society.
Recognizing that the abortion lobby's relentless campaign knows no limits, we drafted the amendment to cover a wide universe of entities. Nurses, doctors, hospitals, even health plans themselves are covered entities under my amendment.
Covering individual health plans ensures that insurance companies that are ambivalent about abortion can still offer plans that exclude abortion to meet the needs of purchasers.
We never limited the protection to those with religious, moral or conscience objections. In fact, in my experience as a physician the majority of health professionals who claim to support Roe v Wade always say to me that they would never want to be affiliated with doing an abortion. They too would be protected if the administration would do their duty to enforce the law.
I authored this amendment to protect FREEDOM for people to provide health care free from abortion and FREEDOM for people to access health care and coverage free from the scourge of abortion.
FREEDOM for people like the pastors here today to purchase insurance plans that exclude abortion--a freedom the existed just two years ago before California took the draconian step of mandating abortion in ALL plans under the authority of the California Department of Managed Health Care.
The origins of the directive are as insidious as the directive itself. When the abortion lobby found out that Catholic Universities in California did not cover abortion in their insurance plans, they sprang to action, initiating a meeting with the Department of Managed Health Care.
Less than a year later, the Department did the bidding of Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. They unilaterally inserted abortion into each and every insurance plan under their authority--even plans purchased by CHURCHES and Catholic Universities.
My amendment anticipated this very scenario by defining a health insurance plan as a protected health care entity. This allows an insurance company to offer multiple insurance plans--some with abortion coverage and some without to meet the conscience needs of their clients.
After the Department of Managed Health Care issued their directive, the plans excluding abortion were changed to include abortion. This is clear discrimination against the plan that excluded abortion, since such plan was no longer permitted to exist
As I explained in my floor statement in 2004, ``This is a continuation of the Hyde policy of conscience protection . . . The right of conscience is fundamental to our American freedoms. We should guarantee this freedom by protecting all health care providers from being forced to perform, refer or pay for elective abortions.'' Unfortunately, the current administration has even twisted this statement to suit their political agenda.
They take this reference to conscience protection and argue that it must mean that I meant to include a religious or moral test in my amendment. This is far from the truth.
There is no reasonable way to read my statement as an excuse to airdrop a religious or moral test into my amendment. The Hyde amendment stops ALL federal funding for elective abortion. Similarly, my amendment stops ALL discrimination against entities that do not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortion.
Both amendments protect conscience broadly by protecting the freedom of Americans to offer and access health care that does not include abortion. Neither limits its protections to cases where someone raises a religious or moral objection.
In the June 21, 2016 letter announcing their gutting of the Weldon amendment, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) also feebly attempted to twist several more of my comments in their effort to ignore the plain reading of the text.
One begins to wonder, what's next. How far will the abortion lobby and their allies in the administration go to force abortion into our health care system?
I am deeply concerned that this administration added words to my amendment where they do not exist and ignored other words clearly articulated in the text.
We simply can no longer rely on the administration to enforce the law and must offer a private right of action that allows the Weldon protections to be enforced by the Courts. ____ Robert C. Byrd, Health Sciences Center, Charleston, WV, 12 July 16. Representative John Fleming and Representative Vicky
Hartzler, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Representatives Fleming and Hartzler: I am writing in support of the Conscience Protection Act, HR. 4828, that provides federal legal protection of conscience regarding abortion for those who care for pregnant women. My clinical experiences spans 25 plus years of clinical care, research, publication, and instruction as a Board certified Obstetrician & Gynecologist and Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist. I daily provide care for women and babies who have medically complicated, life- threatening, and uncommon/rare pregnancy complications. Further, as the originator of ``perinatal hospice'', I have cared for (and still do) dozens of women with babies who have terminal prenatal diagnoses who will die at, or shortly after, birth.
No one in my entire 25 plus years of clinical experience has ever been denied appropriate care because of the exercise of the rights of conscience in the provision of abortion. Women and babies may die in spite of our best medical efforts, but this unrelated to abortion availability or provision.
In my understanding of this new federal statute, conscience will now be formally and legally protected. There is no need for additional exceptions, or amendments, to this law as it is presently written.
I am more than happy to discuss this issue with either of you or with one of your colleagues. Sincerely, Byron C. Calhoun, MD, FACOG, FACS, FASAM, MBA,
Professor & Vice-Chair, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, West Virginia University-Charleston, Charleston, WV. ____ University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus, School of Public Health, July 6, 2016. Representatives John Fleming, MD and Vicky Hartzler, House of Representatives, Washington DC.
Dear Representatives Fleming and Hartzler: I am a board certified specialist in Obstetrics/Gynecology and Maternal/ Fetal Medicine with 36 years of experience in practice, teaching and research. During that time I have cared for hundreds of women and babies with life-threatening, complicated, and rare pregnancy conditions. In some of those situations mothers and babies have lost their lives despite undergoing the best available treatment including induced delivery at the margins of viability. I care deeply about the effects that public policy and legislation can have on the care of mothers and babies.
During my years of practice I have worked under informal and formal conscience rights protections that permit me to provide the best pregnancy care without being forced to perform abortions. I have read the Conscience Protection Act, H.R. 4828, and I agree with the federal formalization of these protections. In my years of practice I have never seen a woman denied appropriate care because of the exercise of rights of conscience in this regard. There is no need for additional exceptions or amendments to this law as it is written.
I am happy to discuss this with you or with your colleagues.
Sincerely, Steve Calvin, MD
Clinical Associate Professor of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Women's Health, Co-chair Program in Human Rights and Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN. ____ Anthony P. Levatino, MD, JD, Las Cruces, NM, July 7, 2016.
Dear Reps. Fleming and Hartzler: I understand you are seeking congressional approval of the Conscience Protection Act (H.R. 4828), to prevent government discrimination against health care providers who do not practice abortion. I am writing in support of your efforts. I am a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist. I received my medical degree from Albany Medical College in 1976 and completed my OB-GYN residency training at Albany Medical Center in 1980. In my 36-year career, I have been privileged to practice obstetrics and gynecology in both private and university settings, serving as associate professor of OB-GYN at Albany Medical College, medical student director, and residency program director. I currently serve as Clinical Professor and Chair of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine. I have also dedicated many years to private practice and currently operate a solo gynecology practice in Las Cruces, NM. I would like to comment on the claim that government must require involvement in abortion in order to save women's lives, because of life threatening conditions that can and do arise in pregnancy. I can speak to this issue from experience. I no longer perform abortions, but during my first five years of private practice I performed approximately 1,200 abortions including over 100 second trimester Suction D&E procedures up to 24 weeks gestation.
At Albany Medical Center in the 1990s, I personally treated hundreds of women with life threatening conditions that can arise or worsen during the second and third trimester of pregnancy. In all of those cases, ``terminating'' the pregnancy--that is, delivering the child--can be life saving. In all such cases I treated, abortion was never a viable treatment option. By their nature, late-term abortion procedures require days of preparation of the cervix in order to be successful. Any attempt to perform an abortion in such cases--that is, to take the extra steps needed to ensure that the unborn child does not survive--entails undue and dangerous delay in providing appropriate, truly life-saving care for women.
As an illustration, a patient arrived at Albany Medical Center one night at 28 weeks gestation with severe pre- eclampsia or toxemia. Her blood pressure on admission was 220/160 and was so dangerously high that she was likely minutes or hours away from a major stroke. This case was managed successfully by rapidly stabilizing the patient's blood pressure, then ``terminating'' her pregnancy by Cesarean section. She and her baby did well. This is a typical case in the world of high-risk obstetrics. During my time at Albany Medical Center I managed hundreds of such cases by ``terminating'' pregnancies to save mother's lives. In all those hundreds of cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.
Attempting to treat women with truly life-threatening conditions in the late 2nd and 3rd trimester with an abortion entails serious delay of care that is not appropriate in the vast majority of cases. I welcome your efforts to ensure that health professionals can provide optimal medical care for pregnant women, without having to fear outside legal pressure to perform abortions instead. Very truly yours, Anthony Levatino, MD, JD. ____ The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, July 13, 2016. Rep. John Fleming, Rep. Vicky Hartzler, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Representatives Fleming and Hartzler: I am a board certified specialist in Obstetrics and Gynecology with a sub- specialty certification in Maternal-Fetal Medicine. I have over thirty-two years of experience in practice, teaching and research at a major academic health center. During my career I have cared for numerous women and babies with complications that increase the risk of maternal death. In some of these situations, both a mother and her baby have lost their lives. I care deeply about the effects that public policy and legislation can have on both those of us who provide perinatal care and on our patients.
My personal conscience directs me to provide the best of care to pregnant women and their unborn children and I am able to do so without performing abortions, as are several of my colleagues and a proportion of the residents we train each year. I have not seen a situation where an emergent or even urgent abortion was needed to prevent a maternal death. I am aware of, and have read, the Conscience Protection Act, and I am writing to provide my opinion that I support the formalization of these protections. No woman at UNC hospitals has ever been denied care due to her conscience or beliefs; nor does any physician ever feel obliged to direct or change the standard of care for any woman due to race, ethnicity, religion, or conscience. I see no need for any exceptions or amendments to the law as written.
I am available for question or comment or for further discussion on this matter. Sincerely, John Thorp, MD,
Hugh McAllister Distinguished Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Professor, Maternal & Child Health, School of Public Health, Director, Women's Primary Healthcare.
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Mr. FLEMING. Madam Speaker, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, those words are inscribed in the Declaration of Independence among our inalienable rights, but the most important is life itself.
As a physician who has delivered hundreds of babies, a father of four and a grandfather of three, I think I know something about preborn life and about the beginning of life itself.
This is much more important than just our day-to-day work that we do here. So a decision in order for a healthcare worker or nonhealthcare worker to participate with an abortion, whether paying for it or actually performing it, is an immensely important debate that we should have here.
It is not just religious grounds, as what is suggested on the other side, but also moral grounds. You see, even an atheist can find it against his or her conscience to participate in any way with an abortion.
Now, the Conscience Protection Act, what is it, and why do we need it? Well, I would say, first of all, that it gives a private right of action to any American who disagrees with being required to pay insurance that would cover elective abortions. Certainly, a healthcare provider that may have to participate in any way--a physician, a nurse, anyone--should not be required to do that against his or her will. And it protects for that. It gives a private right of action.
Now, why do we need a private right of action? Because in the recent example, in California, Secretary Burwell has failed, has deliberately avoided enforcing the very law itself, the Weldon amendment, that has been in law for 12 years. She has failed to enforce that law. And, therefore, the people of California, millions of people, do not have an access to court. They can't complain. They can't do anything and get relief.
What this bill does is allow them to open that courtroom door and to get that relief and not be required any longer to participate with abortions, spending or otherwise.
Now, the other side might say: What is the need for this? Is anyone being harmed?
Of course, they are. You have heard of the DeCarlo case, where the nurse had to participate with putting dismembered body parts back together of a 22-week-old fetus. We have the nurses of Nassau University Medical Center. In 2010, nine of them were suspended for refusing to assist in abortions. And we have many, many other cases.
I would just say to you, in conclusion today, this is the land of the free. This is, again, life and the pursuit of happiness. Certainly, it is important that what we do here today, in passing this bill, that we protect the conscience rights--not just the religious rights but the moral rights--of our fellow citizens of America. We do the right thing, and we go on, and we work from there.
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