Choice Readings

Michigan Senate Health Committee votes to re-restrict stem cell research

In 2008, Michigan voters approved legalizing stem cell research. Senator George introduced SB 647 which would impose unnecessary restrictions on efforts to improve the health and lives of people living with diseases such as cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimers. People of faith support research efforts that offer hope to so many people in our lives. This bill passed the Senate Health Committee.

Health Care Reform
The Senate's party-line vote for health care reform in the early hours of Monday, December 21, is deeply disturbing to millions of people of faith who have spoken clearly about the moral imperative of health care reform that includes comprehensive reproductive health services.
The Nelson language in the manager's amendment to health care legislation jeopardizes women's comprehensive health care and tramples on the rights of those who believe that abortion is a moral choice. The bill reinforces the two-tier system of health care that discriminates against those who are poor and low-income and at the same time creates a new barrier for women who already have coverage for abortion services. This is a burden that will be shouldered by women.  
Respected mainstream religious leaders have repeatedly asked Congress to ensure that health care reform respects diverse religious beliefs and excludes restrictions that will prevent women from making their own reproductive health care choices. It is appalling that one medical service - abortion - has been singled out for onerous restrictions, at the demand of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Nelson language is essentially an abortion rider. It creates an unworkable system whereby individuals are required to write two separate checks each month, one for abortion care and one for everything else. There is no reason to require women to pay separately for their abortion coverage other than to try to shame them and make it more difficult to decide to end a pregnancy. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that insurance companies will be willing to follow such an administratively cumbersome system, leaving tens of millions of women without abortion coverage.The House version contains the Stupak-Pitts amendment which would mean millions of women would lose private coverage for abortion services and millions more would be prohibited from buying it even with their own money. This legislation is more restrictive than anything passed under the 8 years of President George W. Bush.

There are diverse opinions when it comes to health care. People of faith agree that access to health care is important. The principle of religious liberty should not cause harm. One person’s conscience ends where another person’s conscience begins.

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Women's Health and Pregnancy Prevention Package includes:

Contraceptive Equity - expands prescription coverage include certain contraceptives.As people of faith, we believe we should do all we can to expand, not hinder, access to health care so people can take care of themselves and their families

Abstinence-Plus Sex Education - requires that age-appropriate, medically accurate, and objective sexuality education be taught in public schools. We have a responsibility to ensure youth have information and tools to make responsible and moral decisions so they may be stewards of their bodies and loved ones and protect themselves and their partners.

EC in the ER - requires all health facilities or agencies that provide emergency or urgent care to promptly offer emergency contraception (EC) to survivors of sexual assault. To withhold from a rape victim information necessary to her medical care and future well-being is a moral and ethical travesty.

Duty to Dispense - prohibits pharmacists from refusing to dispense or transfer a prescription based solely on an ethical, moral, or religious belief. Pharmacists have rights and religious freedoms but patients have rights and are entitled to protection of their religious and ideological freedom too. In matters of faith, one person’s conscience ends where another’s begins. Individual religious liberty is important but society has a responsibility to ensure that exercise of this liberty does not harm others.

Pap Smear Coverage - requires insurance coverage to include annual pap smear screening.

Crisis Pregnancy Center Regulation - requires CPCs to obtain informed consent from the women they serve and to notify women that they do not provide information on how to obtain an abortion, abortion services, or birth control information. Manipulating and deceiving women is morally bereft.

Infertility Treatment Coverage - requires insurance coverage for infertility treatments if pregnancy-related benefits are provided.

President Obama's Budget
The proposed budget for 2010 eliminates funding for abstinence-only programs, provides funding for proven teen pregnancy prevention programs, allows states to expand eligibility for Medicaid family planning services, and increases funding for international family planning and reproductive health care by $46 million. While we are disappointed that unfair government restrictions on funding abortion for poor women continue (Hyde Amendment), these budget measures are hopeful signs of better days to come for all the nation's women and youth.  
 
President Obama is proposing to increase funding for the Title X family planning program to $317 million. This is a very modest increase of $10 million, which is troubling considering the president's focus on preventing unintended pregnancy and reducing the need for abortion. The Title X program has effectively addressed these issues for nearly 40 years yet is seriously under funded.
 
President Obama proposes to spend $110 million ($99 million from the old Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program with an added allocation of $11 million) under a new rubric of teen pregnancy prevention programs. Although the budget fails to include comprehensive sex education, the hope is that such programs will be found eligible for these funds.
 
The Adolescent Family Life program will be funded at $13 million, the same level as in FY09. The abstinence-only language has been rewritten to allow funding for programs that have been proven through rigorous evaluation to delay sexual activity, increase contraceptive use (without increasing sexual activity), or reduce teenage pregnancy.
 
As the budget goes through the congressional appropriations process, RCRC will work to ensure that the beliefs of diverse faith traditions are respected and universal access to reproductive health care - including for poor and vulnerable populations - is furthered.   

Justice Souter retires
With an opening on the Supreme Court, an opportunity to protect reproductive justice opens. click to read more

Step cell research offers hope
President Obama lifts restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research. click for more

MIRCRC hails FDA decision
The FDA, acting after a court ruling, agreed to make emergency contraception available to women 17 years and older. This is an important step to put science ahead of ideology and do all we can to prevent unintended pregnancies.

click here for NPR Morning Edition Story on pregnancy prevention

Support, don't harass
The Lansing State Journal had an article on Feb. 28 th about a group holding vigils outside of abortion clinics during the Christian season of Lent. Their goal is to use the power of prayer and fasting to end abortions. Lent is a time of self-reflection. It’s a time to examine what we do and the decisions we make. It’s a time to further a relationship with God. God entrusted people with the ability to make moral decisions, such as what to do about an unintended pregnancy. In this time of reflection, let us think about how we can improve things. How we can help prevent unintended pregnancies by improving access to family planning services and health care. How we can help young people make decisions that protect them and their partners by having comprehensive sexuality education in schools. How we can not make people feel ashamed when they choose to be responsible about taking care of their bodies when they seek health care services. How we should support, not harass, women who have made a moral decision after much thought, and often times, prayer.

Family Planning cut from Economic Stimulus
(Click for more)

Senators Jacobs and Switalski introduce contraceptive equity (click for more)

Michigan accepts Abstinence-Only grants (click for more)

Prevention First expands access to health care and makes sense (click for more)

President-elect Obama urged to repeal new Bush regulations that infringe on religious liberty and women's heatlh care decisions. (click for more)

Family Planning Cut from Economic Stimulus

Yesterday, Democrats in the House of Representatives - under pressure from the Republicans and at the request of President Obama - dropped a provision in the Economic Stimulus package that would expand Medicaid eligibility for family planning services to 2.3 million additional low-income, uninsured women.

This decision is very disappointing. Reproductive health care is not extraneous to the economic well-being of poor women and their families. A woman living in poverty is four times as likely to have an unintended pregnancy and five times as likely to have an unintended birth as her higher-income counterpart.

Access to reproductive health information and services allows women to continue their education, thereby improving their economic status and the well-being of their families and their communities. By denying these realities and failing to address issues so central to the health and well-being of women, their families and their communities, we are perpetuating an intolerable cycle of poverty.

Not only is this provision critical to vulnerable women, it is a cost-saver for taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this Medicaid provision would have saved the government $200 million over five years by decreasing costs related to pregnancies and post-natal care. click here to take action

Michigan State Senators Jacobs and Switalski introduce Contraceptive Equity Bill

Senate Bill 64 was assigned to the Senate Health Policy Committee. Click here for the text of the bill.

Religious groups are deeply concerned about the impact of unintended pregnancies. We believe that every effort to assist women in making responsible choices around the timing of when to have children is of great importance.

Prices for birth control are skyrocketing and women who are trying to do the right thing, trying to act responsibly, are struggling to afford their birth control. These women should be encouraged and assisted not be penalized with unnecessary barriers than can easily be fixed by making them a part of health insurance prescription coverage.

The legislation does not compel any employers-religious or otherwise-to provide contraceptive coverage. But it does mandate that if an employer chooses to provide prescription coverage for its employees such policies cannot exclude prescription contraceptives. Contraception is a basic health need for women. When employers exclude contraception from otherwise comprehensive prescription drug plans they discriminate against women. Studies show that women pay 68 percent more than men in out-of-pocket expenses for health care, and the primary reason for the discrepancy is reproductive health care costs. 

Women need more than prayers to prevent unintended pregnancy.

Click to read more

Michigan Accepts Abstinence-Only Grants

Michigan accepted $1.4 million to provide abstinence only education in schools even though studies have repeatedly demonstrated this approach is not effective in preventing teen pregnancy.
As faith communities, we take seriously our duty to instill in young people a set of religious and moral values that will help guide them to responsible life choices.  Just as this is our mission, it is the role of the government to ensure that our children receive the facts - unblemished by ideology - that will protect them from disease and unintended pregnancy.  

In recent years, hundreds of millions of federal dollars have been poured into abstinence-only education programs which are ineffective at reducing sexual activity.  More importantly, these programs can be dishonest and scientifically inaccurate.  We believe there is no justification for endangering the health and well-being of the young people of our nation for the sake of a very parochial moral vision.  There is very strong and extensive religious opposition to these abstinence programs and in support of comprehensive sexuality education. 

Click for more

Bush Approves HHS Regulation Changes that Distort Religious Liberty
These regulations:

• PERMIT institutions as well as individuals to refuse to provide women access to contraceptive services and information.

• PERMIT health care providers to refuse to perform any service they deem morally objectionable - which raises critical questions about access to all health care services.

• REDEFINE pregnancy as beginning with fertilization of the egg - counter to the government's own longstanding policy, as well as that of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which state that pregnancy begins with the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.

 • REDEFINE abortion to include common methods of contraception which may work by interfering with implantation. Birth control pills and IUDs could be disallowed.

• CONFLICT with requirements of the Title X family planning program to ensure that women have access to a broad range of contraceptive options and that pregnant women receive non-directive counseling upon request.

• TRUMPS state laws that protect women's access to reproductive health care, including those requiring health insurance plans that provide drug benefits to include coverage of contraception; laws that require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape survivors; and laws that require pharmacies to fill patients' valid medical prescriptions.

• WASTES tax payers' money by allowing crisis-pregnancy centers to receive public money to fund their deceptive scare tactics to steer women away from contraception and abortion.

There is no single “religious” view on health care issues. Timely and dignified access to health care is a broad moral and religious issue among many faiths.

In matters of faith, one person’s conscience ends where another’s begins. We believe strongly in individual religious liberty; at the same time, we believe that society has a responsibility to ensure that exercise of this liberty does not harm others. We wish to correct the implication that only one religious view is at stake in the regulation of health care and the dispensation of medial treatment, and to correct the implication that religion and religious organizations broadly oppose any and all regulations or standards that touch the exercise of religious beliefs. Religious liberty and government regulation cannot always be mutually exclusive.

Health care providers have rights and religious freedoms but patients have rights and are entitled to protection of their religious and ideological freedom too. Inevitably, beliefs will diverge. Protection of religious freedom for all is especially vital in health care because religious and personal beliefs regarding health care matters are widely diverse. Some providers argue for their own protection but not the same protection for the convictions of other members of the population, most notably patients. The tremendous disparity in beliefs regarding health care also supports government regulation that accommodates all religious and personal views and practices to the greatest extent possible while preventing harm to others.

RCRC is committed to universal quality health care, respect for persons as moral agents, respect for evidence-based medicine free of sectarian influence and respect for separation of church and state.

Global Gag Rule Harms Women

First instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, this policy was created in the name of reducing abortions around the world. However, in practice this policy has hindered many women from recieving health care. The policy restricts non-governmental organizations who provide health care services from providing, referring, or discussion abortion with women. Violating this condition means forfeiting U.S. funds for family planning services. This policy ties the hands of doctors and nurses from discussing all available options with women who have unintended pregnancies. Furthermore, abortions still occur. The World Health Organization estimates that 20 million abortions are obtained illegally around the world. When abortion is illegal, women die. IT is morally unconscionalbe to allow women to die when there is a safe alternative.

President Clinton overturned the Global Gag Rule his first day of office. President George W. Bush returned the restrictions on January 22, 2001. With the repeal of the Global Gag Rule, President Obama offers hope to women around the world.

For current Michigan legislative news, please see Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan's excellent summary, here

For current events in the US court system, in Congress, in other states, and in the executive branch, see the Call to Justice index page on the National RCRC site, here.