Resistance to HHS Mandate Grows: 7 States File Lawsuits, National Rallies Announced

We need a massive resistance on every front opposing the HHS mandate

The HHS Mandate violates the Free Exercise of Religion secured in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Religious Freedom is a fundamental Human Right. It cannot be taken away by either the State or the Federal government.The HHS mandate is an unjust law. It has given rise to a tide of resistance which holds great promise.Citizens are standing together against an unjust mandate, working to protect and preserve the fundamental human right to the first freedom, Religious Freedom.

P>TACOMA, WA. (Catholic Online) - In a case of significance - particularly given the unconstitutional mandate of the Health and Human Services - the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty won an important federal court victory this week. In  Stormans Incorporated v Mary Selecky, Secretary of the Washington State Department of Health a Federal Court struck down a law in the State of Washington which required pharmacists to dispense the "Plan B" pill in violation of their religious conviction and conscience or face punitive measures. 

Here is a portion of the Court's summary of the case:  "This case presents a novel question: can the State compel licensed pharmacies and pharmacists to dispense lawfully prescribed emergency contraceptives over their sincere religious belief that doing so terminates a human life? In 2007, under pressure from the Governor, Planned   Parenthood, and the Northwest Women's Law Center, the Washington State Board of Pharmacy enacted regulations designed to do just that."

"The rule primarily at issue, commonly known as the "delivery rule," requires pharmacies to timely deliver all lawfully prescribed medications, including the emergency contraceptives Plan B and ella. Under the delivery rule, a pharmacy's refusal to deliver is grounds for discipline, up to and including revocation of its license. In operation, the delivery rule bars a pharmacy from referring patients seeking Plan B to other pharmacies, meaning they must dispense the drugs."

"In violation of the regulations, but in conformity with their religious beliefs, the Plaintiffs refused to dispense Plan B to Planned Parenthood test shoppers and others. The Board launched a series of investigations, and this suit was the result. Based on the evidence presented at trial, the Board's regulations, while facially acceptable, are in practice unconstitutional. Plaintiffs are two individual pharmacists and a corporate pharmacy. Each holds the sincere religious belief that life begins at conception, when an egg from the female is fertilized by the sperm from the male." 

The Plaintiffs were represented by lawyers from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions. It was founded by one of my heroes, Kevin J. "Seamus" Hasson. They recently won the 9-0 victory at the Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC which I wrote about here. They are also representing the Eternal Word television Network in their case challenging the constitutionality of the HHS mandate.

We need a massive resistance on every front opposing the HHS mandate. We also need a resistance against any similar efforts at the State level. The HHS mandate will require all employers, including Catholic and other religious employers, to cover sterilization, abortifacients, and contraception in their health care plans. The exemption provided for religious employers did not cover hospitals, universities, soup kitchens, outreaches to the poor and many other vital expressions of our Catholic faith and mission. The purported accommodation was a fraud, a shell game, which accomplished nothing.

The HHS Mandate violates the Free Exercise of Religion secured in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Religious Freedom is a fundamental Human Right. It cannot be taken away by either the State or the Federal government.  The Federal Government of the United States is trying to force the Catholic Church to act against deeply held religious convictions and to violate conscience. Failure to do so will bring punitive measures. They would have the practical result of closing many of the Church's outreaches, ministries and institutions of care and compassion.  This not only injures the Church it injures American society.

The HHS mandate is an unjust law. The claim that such an edict is an unjust law is rooted in the western understanding of the nature of law. It is the same firm foundation upon which the American founders grounded their insistence that there are inalienable rights, endowed upon us all by a Creator, which cannot be taken away by any civil government. Positive law must reflect the Natural Law or it is unjust.

Saint Augustine said of an unjust law, "For it seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all." Saint Thomas Aquinas explained, "Human law is law only in virtue of its accordance with right reason: and thus it is manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of violence." In doing so, they echoed Cicero, Aristotle and Plato and the entire Natural Law Tradition.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, gave this explanation of how one determines whether a law is unjust, "How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law."

This Edict from Secretary Sebelius came one day after Pope Benedict XVI addressed a group of US Bishops during their ad limina visit. He warned them of the growth of radical secularism in the United States and the accompanying threats to the fundamental Right to Religious Freedom so integral to the American experiment.  The Pope has repeatedly warned of the growth of a "Dictatorship of Relativism". Relativism is a philosophy which denies the existence of any objective truths to guide human behavior.

There has been a sustained effort to paint all the moral positions we hold as Catholics as "religious". The, to try to compel us to keep them "to ourselves", behind the walls of our chuch buildings. This is a strategy of intolerant radical secularism. Those who employ this effort use an errant interpretation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment in an effort to force us to stay behind our Church doors.

They do not want us to take our place in the public square serving the common good by infusing the public conversation with the eternal values so essential to a good society. We will resist them. The Christian faith may be personal, at least in the sense that it invites a personal response. However, it is not private - it is profoundly public.

Also, we must remember that the Right to Life and the Right to Religious Freedom are not only "religious" positions. They are rooted in our conviction of the existence of a Natural Law which must inform truly just positive laws. That Natural Law can be known by all men and women through the exercise of reason.It is increasingly apparent that President Obama and his administration do not respect fundamental human rights, including the Right to life and the Right to Religious Freedom. 

The HHS Edict has given rise to a tide of resistance which holds great promise. This Federal case out of Washington State is an asset to be used in this resistance. We need to use the Courts. We commend the Becket Fund and all of the other lawyers and law firms doing just that. On Thursday, February 23, 2012, the attorneys general from Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Florida and Texas also filed lawsuits opposing the unconstitutional mandate.

The lawsuit was filed against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; and the U.S. Department of Labor and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis as defendants. It alleges that the mandate is a violation of the First Amendment and of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

There is a legislative response underway. The Respect for Rights of Conscience Act was introduced in Congress (H.R. 1179, S. 1467).  It would ensure that all who participate in the health care system "retain the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions."

Finally, massive rallies will soon begin. Monica Migliorino Miller  of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and Eric Scheidler of the Pro-life Action League announced on Thursday the "Stand Up for Religious Freedom Nationwide Rallies" which will be held on March 23, 2012. There are already rallies planned in 40 cities. This is only the beginning of what will be a massive display of resistance. Citizens are standing together against an unjust mandate. We are protecting and preserving the fundamental human right to the first freedom, Religious Freedom.

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