US bishops commend Supreme Court’s 2020 census decision

CNA Staff, Mar 15, 2021 / 05:37 pm (CNA).- The Easter Vigil, which takes place Holy Saturday night, “is the greatest and most noble of all solemnities and it is to be unique in every single Church,” the rubrics of the Missale Romanum proclaim.The … […]

Washington D.C., Feb 25, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- The Senate on Tuesday failed to pass two pro-life bills to protect unborn babies who can feel pain, and babies who survive abortion attempts.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) would ban abortions after 20 weeks gestation, around the time babies in utero can feel pain.

Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-Neb.) Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act would require that babies surviving a botched abortion be given the same standard of care as other infants born of the same gestational age.

With votes of 53-44 and 56-41 on Tuesday, the respective bills failed to receive the 60 votes necessary for consideration on the Senate Floor. “Pain-capable” bills that had previously passed the House similarly failed in the Senate in 2015 and 2017, and Graham’s legislation failed in 2018, nine votes short of the 60-vote mark needed to overcome a filibuster and force a final vote on the bill.

Graham’s bill is also named “Micah’s Law,” after seven year-old Micah Pickering who was born prematurely at 22 weeks.

“It gives a face to a name. ‘Micah’s Law’ is not just [about] Micah, but is every little baby that could ever be born,” said Danielle Pickering, Micah’s mother, in an interview with CNA outside the Senate Gallery before the vote.

To the senators voting against the bill, “I would just like to tell them to really think about their grandkids,” she said, “and every little baby that they see out there.”

“For everyone that’s out there, there’s multiple that are just gone, but they’re not forgotten,” Pickering said. “Every single baby has the ability to someday be a person that’s just here like them.”

Sasse’s bill, S. 311, received the support of only three Democrats: Sens. Bob Casey (Pa.), Doug Jones (Ala.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.).

“If the Senate says that it’s ok to ignore born-alive babies what we’re really saying is we are okay with a society where some people count more than other people,” said Sasse during the debate Tuesday.

“We’d be saying we want a society where some people can be pushed aside if other people decide those folks are inconvenient. A society where we can dispose of you, if you happened to come into the world a certain way.”

“Even if you are unwilling to defend unborn babies, I hope that my colleagues would at least consider joining with us in voting to protect babies that have already been born,” Sasse said.

In a statement to CNA on Tuesday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that “protecting the life of a newborn who survived a botched abortion should not be a partisan issue, yet it speaks volumes about how extremism has become mainstream in today’s Democratic Party.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), between 2003 and 2014 there were 143 infant deaths in the U.S. that occurred following a botched abortion. The CDC noted that “it is possible” the actual number is higher.

While the 2002 Born-Alive Infants Protection Act—passed into law with bipartisan support—legally defined babies who survive abortions as persons, Sasse’s 2020 legislation provides enforcement mechanisms against abortionists who fail to provide necessary care to abortion survivors.

The 2002 bill was just a “definitions bill” without penalties, Jill Stanek, national campaign chair of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, explained to CNA.

While notorious Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted in 2013 on three counts of first-degree murder for cutting the spines of infants, federal law is currently a “gray area” for abortionists who passively allow abortion survivors to die by providing them no care, Stanek said.

The legislation that failed in the Senate on Tuesday provides an enforcement mechanism and is really the “bookend” to the original bill, she said.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement in reaction to the Senate votes, calling the nation’s abortion laws a “license to kill” and noting that the Born Alive bill offered to do nothing more than “prohibit infanticide.”

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, said that the Senate “failed to advance two critical human rights reforms that most Americans strongly support.” 

“The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would ban abortions after 20 weeks post-fertilization when a child can certainly feel pain and has a reasonable chance of survival. And the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act helps ensure that Roe v. Wade’s license to kill unborn children does not extend to killing the newborn babies who survive abortion,” Naumann said. 

“It is appalling that even one senator, let alone more than 40, voted to continue the brutal dismemberment of nearly full-grown infants, and voted against protecting babies who survive abortion. Our nation is better than this, and the majority of Americans who support these bills must make their voices heard.”

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Washington D.C., Oct 31, 2018 / 03:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Trump administration is modifying religious exemptions and accommodations against mandatory employer health care coverage of contraception, after federal judges blocked the administrations rules in December.

“The United States has a long history of providing conscience protections in the regulation of health care for entities and individuals with objections based on religious beliefs and moral convictions,” the Office of Management and Budget said. “These final rules expand exemptions to protect religious beliefs for certain entities and individuals whose health plans are subject to a mandate of contraceptive coverage through guidance issued pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”

It added that the rules “leave the accommodation process in place as an optional process for certain exempt entities that wish to use it voluntarily.”

The New York Times reported Oct. 30 that the revised rules will be issued by the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury.

Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s initial rules Dec. 15, 2017.

She said Pennsylvania could suffer “serious and irreparable harm” from the rules, because a lack of cost-effective contraception would mean that women would either forgo contraception or choose less effective methods and result in “individual choices which will result in an increase in unintended pregnancies.” This would create economic harm for the state because “unintended pregnancies are more likely to impose additional costs on Pennsylvania’s state-funded health programs.”

Shortly after Beetlestone’s ruling, Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. of the Federal District Court in Oakland also blocked the Trump administration’s rules, saying they would “transform contraceptive coverage from a legal entitlement to an essentially gratuitous benefit wholly subject to their employer’s discretion.”

Under Trump, the Justice Department has argued that “a woman who loses coverage of her chosen contraceptive method through her employer may still have access to such coverage through a spouse’s plan … or she may otherwise be able to pay out of pocket for contraceptive services.”

The 2010 Affordable Care Act, and resulting rules issued by the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services mandated that employer health plans cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that can cause abortion. The mandate drew opposition from Catholics and others.

The Trump administration established new rules in October 2017 allowing companies with religious or moral objections to contraception to opt out of the mandate.

The administration has appealed the rulings by Beetlestone and Gilliam, and other judges have issued rulings favorable to exemptions and accommodations to the contraception mandate.

In April, District Court Judge David Russell issued a permanent injunction and declaratory relief against the mandate for members of the Catholic Benefits Association.

Russell also ruled that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by attempting to force employers to provide contraception and sterilization in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs.

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