Conscience rights debate reignited by abortion funds bill

A bill designed to ensure that the healthcare reform law does not fund
abortion services is reigniting a debate over a healthcare provider’s
right to refuse abortion services.

The “Protect Life Act,” sponsored by Reps. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and Dan
Lipinski (D-Ill.), would specify that healthcare reform funding could
not be used for abortion services. Included in the new bill is a
provision that says the federal government could not withhold funding
from a healthcare entity that refuses to perform, participate in,
provide coverage of, or pay for induced abortions.

{mosads}NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, says the provision
would allow hospitals to deny abortion care in situations when the
mother’s life may be in danger.

“This new Congress, in just its first month of work, has taken perhaps
some of the most radical positions against abortion that I have ever
seen,” said NARAL policy director Donna Crane.

However, a Pitts spokesman said the bill’s language is similar to
“conscience rights” protections provided by other abortion
legislation, including the 1976 Hyde Amendment and the 2004
Hyde-Weldon Amendment. The Hyde Amendment, which must be approved by
Congress each year, bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortion.
The Hyde-Weldon Amendment, passed by a Republican-controlled Congress
in 2004, ensures that the federal government could not withhold funds
from caregivers opposed to providing abortions.

“NARAL and other abortion rights groups have vigorously opposed any
conscience protection legislation,” Pitts spokesman Andrew Wimer told
The Hill. “It is no surprise that they would attack the Protect Life
Act with the same old talking points.”

NARAL said that the bill doesn’t clarify whether healthcare entities
must provide abortion care for women in life-threatening situations in
accordance with the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor
Act (EMTALA).

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“Is it truly Rep. Pitts’ position that a woman should die at the
entrance of a hospital that refuses to provide abortion care necessary
to save her life?” Crane said.

Conscience rights grabbed headlines in December after an Arizona
hospital lost its Catholic status because it provided an emergency
abortion procedure to save a woman’s life. At the time, the American
Civil Liberties Union called on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services to ensure that Catholic hospitals comply with EMTALA.

“The diocese cannot be permitted to dictate who lives and who dies in
Catholic-owned hospitals,” the ACLU wrote in a letter to CMS.

Some politicians have called for cooled rhetoric in light of the
Arizona shooting that left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
(D-Ariz.) seriously wounded, but the debate over conscience rights
will put that call for civility to the test. A House subpanel is
scheduled to hold the new Congress’s first hearing on the
Pitts-Lipinski bill Wednesday.

Abortion-rights groups earlier this week objected to language in other
abortion legislation that seemingly made a distinction between
“forcible rape” and “rape.” That sparked an outcry from women’s groups
until the language was eventually removed.