(Photo: Reuters/Larry Downing)

Protester Julia Mitchell holds a sign at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court as arguments began to challenge the Affordable Care Act's requirement that employers pay for contraception and abortion-inducing drugs as part of an employee's healthcare, in Washington, March 25, 2014.

March 26, 2014|10:45 am

What if the federal government ordered you to act against your conscience - to take part in something you believed to be objectively wrong - or else be punished with huge fines?

This is no idle question. It describes exactly what is happening in America today: The Obama administration is ordering businesses and other organizations with 50 or more employees to have their insurance plans cover drugs and devices which can cause early abortions. To many business owners, that means either cooperating in grave evil, dropping insurance they have always provided their workers, or being forced out of business.

Just ask David and Barbara Green, owners of the giant chain of Hobby Lobby stores. Just ask the Hahn family, Mennonites who own Conestoga Wood Specialties. These courageous Americans are defending not only their own rights but also those of all Americans who wish to live their lives and run their businesses in accord with their free consciences and their deepest beliefs.

That is why the public policy groups and the women's coalition that we represent signed an amici curiae ("friends of the court") that was filed with the Supreme Court of the United States in two lawsuits against Obama Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. While we do not take a position on contraception, we do assert fiercely our freedom of conscience and religious liberty.

The cases center on ObamaCare's Health and Human Services mandate, which uses the threat of ruinous fines to coerce private individuals and organizations into becoming complicit in abortions - to, as our brief says, "violate religious beliefs by covering in health insurance plans devices and drugs that can prevent an embryo from implanting in the womb." In doing so, the Mandate directly attacks the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. It also contradicts several federal laws that protect the people's conscience rights concerning abortion, such as the Church Amendment of 1973.

The mandate's departure from respect for conscience rights is deepening our nation's social and political divisions. It plainly creates a national conflict over religious freedom by trampling upon the conscience rights of the many Americans who oppose abortion. Those Americans, it should not even be necessary to point out, include millions of women such as ourselves who cherish and champion the right to life and who prize and defend Americans' rights of conscience and religious liberty.

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Freedom of Conscience and Religious Liberty