Is Conscience Partisan? A Look at the Clinton, Moynihan, and Kennedy Records

The Public Discourse ^ | April 30, 2012 | Richard M. Doerflinger

[rhema]

On March 1, the U.S. Senate voted 51 to 48 to table the “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act,” introduced by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) to protect conscience rights in the face of the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

This conscience proposal would forbid the use of new mandated benefits lists under PPACA to force those who offer, sponsor, or purchase health plans to cover specific items or services that violate their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” The immediate threat is the Obama administration’s mandate for almost all health plans to include female sterilization, all FDA-approved “contraceptive” drugs (including those that can act as early abortifacients), and related education and counseling, without co-pays or out-of-pocket expenses.

The contraceptive mandate debate is far from over. Among other things, the House of Representatives—where more than half the members have co-sponsored the Fortenberry/Blunt bill—has yet to act on this issue. But efforts to resume the debate will run up against at least two charges. One is the claim that the bill would allow employers on “moral” grounds to deny health coverage to black Americans, or pregnant women, or people with disabilities—but that claim is clearly false, since such discriminatory decisions have long been forbidden by other federal laws that the new bill does not alter. The other major charge, which continues to be made, is that such a conscience proposal is an unprecedented attack on “women’s health,” in fact part of what Vice President Biden has called a Republican “war on women.”

What is the truth about this charge? For an answer, we need look no farther than the most recent non-Republican presidency, that of Bill Clinton.

[rhema]

How did respect for religious beliefs and moral convictions in health care and health coverage, until recently a common bipartisan consensus, become “dangerous and wrong” (as HHS Secretary Sebelius said of the Blunt/Fortenberry bill on March 1)? How did a position held even a few years ago by so many celebrated Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House suddenly become a “Republican war on women”? If this radical shift does not signal a new animosity toward freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, what does it signify?

[Chode]

RATS have NO conscience, honor, shame, morals, dignity or self respect.

that... is what makes them RATS

[Chgogal]

This post will make you proud. Do find time, if at all possible, to watch the video. Congressman Gowdy from SC is very impressive.

Enjoy!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2877868/posts
HHS Sebelius Forced to Admit Total Constitutional Ignorance of Health Mandate Legal Issues