Healthcare Reform Violates First Amendment: Forces Abortion Insurance Mandate

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"The ACT has nestled within it a hidden 'abortion health insurance premium mandate'," said Dana Cody, Executive Director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. "The ACT includes inescapable requirements that all individuals who are enrolled in a health plan -- either on their own or by their employer -- include abortion services in the coverage. This will encumber the conscience and free exercise rights of millions of Americans by imposing an unconstitutional burden." Today's filing with the Supreme Court argues:

• The ACT and its individual mandate violate the Free Exercise Clause by imposing an "Abortion Premium Mandate" without regard to religious objection.
• The ACT contains an "Abortion Premium Mandate" that compels enrollees in certain health plans to pay a separate abortion premium from their own pocket, while denying enrollees the ability to decline abortion coverage based on moral objection.
• Our nation has a long and deeply-rooted history of respecting and protecting the conscience rights of individuals to not be forced into the practice or funding of elective abortions.
• Our founders' protection of individual liberty, including religious liberty, is directly undermined by the ACT's transgression of the constitutional limits on congressional power.

"This ACT and President Obama want citizens to have their choices impermissibly limited by being forced to choose between their conscience and a health insurance plan that requires an abortion premium," said Cody. "How could Congress allow for this ACT to make pro-life individuals pay for a pro-abortion agenda?" The brief can be read here. About the Life Legal Defense Foundation Life Legal Defense Foundation is a non-profit organization composed of attorneys and other concerned citizens, committed to giving helpless and innocent human beings of any age, and their advocates, a trained and committed voice in the courtrooms of our nation. For more information, go to www.lldf.org.

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