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U.S. Senate Shockingly Defeats Conscience Rights

The U.S. Senate voted yesterday 51-48 to support the Obama Administration in forcing religiously affiliated organizations to cover contraception and sterilization in their health insurance plans, even in cases where the institution opposes it on moral or conscience grounds. This reinforces that these organizations have no conscience clause protections under the ObamaCare health care law. (The Administration’s dictate gave churches some limited conscience clause protections, but religiously affiliated organizations, such as church schools, hospitals, and charities, will have none).

Fifty Democrats and one Republican voted to deny conscience rights and 45 Republicans and three Democrats voted in favor of recognizing the conscience rights of such organizations. For Wisconsin, Senator Johnson voted for conscience rights and Senator Kohl against.

One possible effect of this in the near-term is that with no conscience clause protection, the Obama Administration is now free to order insurance plans to also cover abortion itself, if it decides to do so. If Obama does this, it would likely be after the November elections when he doesn’t have to answer to the voting public again.

The National Right to Life Committee and Wisconsin Right to Life have long advocated against the Obama healthcare “reform” and continue to work to repeal it. We will continue to report abuses inherent in the law, and any denials of care that ensue from it, and we will fight bureaucracies and panels that arise from the bill whose purpose it is to expand abortion or to deny life-saving medical care. We will work in the House of Representatives and in the courts to establish conscience rights. We cannot allow this unprecedented affront to religious liberty stand and the sweeping ObamaCare law to remain in force.

Your support for these efforts is critical in the weeks and months ahead. Much education and public persuasion needs to be done if we are to repeal ObamaCare and preserve the lives it threatens, and to establish conscience rights. Please support the critical work of National Right to Life and Wisconsin Right to Life with a generous gift today, and please help spread the word about the abuses of ObamaCare and the need to repeal it!

National Right to Life and Wisconsin Right to Life

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