New Bill Would Protect Medical Professionals’ Rights of Conscience

Rights of Conscience
Rep. Brandt Smith (R – Jonesboro)

Yesterday Rep. Brandt Smith (R – Jonesboro) filed the Medical Conscience Protection Act, H.B. 1289, protecting healthcare professionals’ rights of conscience.

This is a good bill that Family Council supports.

The bill protects healthcare workers and companies from being forced to take part in activities that violate their beliefs — like abortion.

H.B. 1289 clearly states that conscience is a fundamental right, and it protects healthcare professionals and companies from being penalized for following their beliefs.

The bill also contains reasonable safeguards to ensure conscience protections cannot be used to deny a person emergency medical care.

Arkansas law already offers good protections to doctors and nurses — especially when it comes to abortion — but does not give those same protections to social workers, CNAs, and others who work in the healthcare industry.

H.B. 1289 helps ensure no one can be forced to perform, pay for, or participate in a medical procedure that violates their beliefs.

You can thank Rep. Brandt Smith for sponsoring this bill by calling 870-351-7459 or emailing brandt.smith@arkansashouse.org.

You can leave a message asking your state representative to support H.B. 1289 by calling the Arkansas House of Representatives at (501) 682-6211.

You can read the Medical Conscience Protection Act here.

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New York Celebrates Most Radical Pro-Abortion Law in Recent History

Abortion, ,

On the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Roe v. Wade abortion decision, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed arguably the most radically pro-abortion law in recent history.

The law effectively legalizes abortion on demand all the way up until birth.

Supporters of the law point out that the law restricts many abortions to those performed to save the “life or health” of the mother, but as we have seen over the past four decades, health exceptions in abortion laws are so broad that in the court’s mind practically anything — including stress, depression, anxiety, the woman’s age, her family status — can warrant a “health” exception for an abortion. In other words, this law permits abortion on demand.

But perhaps even more radical than the law itself is the way legislators rose to their feet applauding the governor and celebrating its passage.

Just a few years ago, many of abortion’s supporters treated abortion like some sort of necessary evil that should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Today, however, we have groups cheering for legislation that lets doctors, nurse practitioners, and midwives poison and dismember unborn children in utero on demand and at any stage of development.

Legislatively, New York’s radical law is an anomaly. Most states — including Arkansas — actually are tightening restrictions on abortion and are working to eliminate the practice altogether.

We’ve seen record numbers of pro-life laws filed and passed in Arkansas in recent years, and those laws have saved hundreds of lives from abortion.

New York’s law also is wildly out of step with the rest of the country. Most Americans believe abortion should be either completely illegal or legal only in certain circumstances. A recent poll shows 75% of Americans want abortion restricted to the first three months of pregnancy.

New York’s legislature might be moving the other direction, but across the country and here at home, we are winning the fight not only to make abortion illegal, but perhaps even more importantly to make abortion unthinkable.

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