Trenton, N.J., Feb 23, 2021 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- An alleged abuse victim who last year went public with allegations against the Bishop of Brooklyn has now filed a lawsuit in a New Jersey court, claiming that the bishop abused him repeatedly in the late 1… […]
CNA Staff, Feb 23, 2021 / 04:35 pm (CNA).- The nomination of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary has been opposed by Democrats For Life of America, which has called for his nomination to be withdrawn… […]
CNA Staff, Feb 23, 2021 / 03:16 pm (CNA).- The world’s largest pregnancy help organization is preparing for its 50th annual training conference, with both virtual and in-person options.The Heartbeat International Conference will take place in Columbus,… […]
Washington D.C., Feb 23, 2021 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) on Tuesday announced its annual “Dirty Dozen” ranking of the top mainstream contributors to sexual exploitation.
Some entities on t… […]
Washington D.C., Feb 23, 2021 / 11:00 am (CNA).- President Biden’s nominee for health secretary on Tuesday would not commit to preventing federal funding of abortions, and would not say why he once opposed a partial-birth abortion ban.
Appearing before members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Tuesday, California’s attorney general Xavier Becerra would not answer why he voted against a partial-birth abortion ban in 2003, while a U.S. congressman.
If confirmed as health secretary, Becerra said he would try to find “common ground” with those whom he disagreed with on the issue.
“I think we can find some common ground on these issues, because everyone wants to make sure that, if you have an opportunity, you’re going to live a healthy life,” Becerra said in response to a question by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.); the senator had asked why Becerra, as a congressman, voted against a partial-birth abortion ban.
“I think we can reach common ground on many issues. But on partial-birth abortion, it sounds like we’re not going to reach common ground there,” Romney said in response.
Becerra, President Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), also said on Tuesday that he would “follow the law” on federal funding of abortion, as health secretary.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) noted Becerra’s “very extreme” record on abortion, and asked him to commit “to not using taxpayer money to fund abortions and abortion providers.”
Becerra did not commit to that, but simply made a promise to “definitely follow the law when it comes to the use of federal resources,” and noted that “we probably will not agree on all the issues.”
Although the Hyde Amendment has traditionally banned the use of federal dollars for elective abortions, President Biden has supported the repeal of the policy, and the White House has not guaranteed that an upcoming COVID relief bill would not include abortion funding.
Other Democratic congressional leaders have also said they intend to not include the policy in appropriations bills this year; the Hyde Amendment is enacted each year as a rider to budget bills, specifying that the appropriations cannot be used for elective abortions.
Pro-life groups criticized Becerra for his answers on abortion.
His answer on partial-birth abortion should “disqualify” him from the position, tweeted Democrats for Life of America. “He is far too radical to run this department. There are better choices,” the group stated.
The pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List tweeted “Mr. Becerra, you’re applying for the top health job in the nation. You don’t get to make up imaginary terms like ‘future baby’.”
Other pro-life groups have criticized Becerra’s record on abortion, noting that as California attorney general, he prosecuted pro-life activist David Daleiden and enforced a state universal abortion coverage mandate; the mandate affected even Catholic religious, forcing them to provide abortion coverage for employees. Becerra also defended a state law that required crisis pregnancy centers to advertise for abortions.
The HHS Office for Civil Rights twice found Becerra and California in violation of federal conscience laws; when the office gave Becerra 30 days to comply with conscience laws back in Jan., 2020, Becerra refused. The agency eventually said it would withhold $200 million in Medicaid funds to California, as a result of the state’s violation of federal law.
When the Trump administration granted broad religious and moral exemptions to the HHS contraceptive mandate in 2017, Becerra sued; the lawsuit pushed the Little Sisters of the Poor to go back to court to defend their religious exemption to the mandate.
During the pandemic, Becerra pushed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to liberalize its regulations of the abortion pill regimen.
Becerra was asked on Tuesday about his efforts to push the FDA to allow for remote prescription of the abortion pill regimen during COVID.
In response to Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Becerra said that his letter to the FDA “was to make sure that all Americans had access to the care they needed without needing to worry about COVID becoming a danger.”
He led other state attorneys general in pushing for coverage of “gender-affirming treatment,” in October.
Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2021 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- President Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) received the praise of pro-euthanasia organizations during his time as attorney general of California.
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Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2021 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Virginia is expected to become the first southern state to abolish the death penalty, after its general assembly voted on Monday to end the practice.
The state senate voted 22 to 16 to approve H… […]
Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2021 / 02:23 pm (CNA).- As President Joe Biden re-established a key White House faith-based office last week, former political liaisons to religious groups commended the move—but warned that the office might be misused.
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Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2021 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The Supreme Court will consider a case involving federal funding of domestic pro-abortion groups.
The court on Monday morning granted petition to review a case about the Trump administration’s Protect Life Rule. The Baltimore mayor and city council challenged the rule, supported by a number of states and pro-abortion groups.
According to SCOTUSBlog, the case will be argued in the fall of 2021.
The 2019 rule of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) prohibited grant recipients in the federal Title X family planning program from referring for abortions, or being co-located with abortion facilities. The rule was meant to implement the program’s original stated purpose that funds would not be used for abortion as a method of family planning.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, withdrew from the program rather than comply with the rule, forfeiting an estimated $60 million in annual Title X funding.
In September, the Fourth Circuit court ruled 8-6 against the rule, in the case of Cochran v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. The majority ruled that HHS “failed to recognize and address the ethical concerns of literally every major medical organization in the country” by implementing the rule.
In a separate challenge to the Protect Life Rule, the Ninth Circuit court upheld the rule in Feb., 2020.
In November, a group of pro-life obstetricians and gynecologists and a Christian medical association had asked the Supreme Court to take up the case. The group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed the amicus brief on their behalf.
“The Supreme Court has already recognized that the federal government has the authority to prevent Title X funds from being used for abortion,” stated John Bursch, senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy for ADF.
The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists, which claims 4,000 OB-GYN members and associates, and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, which claims 20,000 members and 329 chapters in the United States, had petitioned the court to take the case.
The court, Bursch said, needs to “make clear that any administration, including future ones, can enforce a rule like this one if it so chooses, and that the courts can’t interfere with that.”
On Jan. 28, President Biden took the first step toward repealing the Protect Life Rule by instructing HHS to review the rule “and any other regulations governing the Title X program that impose undue restrictions on the use of Federal funds or women’s access to complete medical information.”
A COVID relief bill under consideration in Congress would increase funding for Title X by $50 million. Some House Republicans have warned that the funding increase, coupled with the Biden administration eventually repealing the Protect Life Rule, would benefit abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.
According to the group’s latest annual report, it performed nearly 355,000 abortions in the 2020 fiscal year and received more than $618 million in government funding—both figures representing an increase from the year before.
Denver Newsroom, Feb 20, 2021 / 02:39 am (CNA).- Ahead of a significant Supreme Court case that could determine whether Catholic adoption agencies can stay open in the U.S., a religious freedom attorney has criticized an article arguing against religio… […]
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