Is the Obama Administration Forcing Arkansas to Fund Abortifacients?

Abortion, , ,

A few days ago, we learned that Arkansas Works, a proposed Arkansas health insurance plan for poor people, must include coverage for contraceptives that in rare cases cause abortions.  The legislature is debating this proposal that would go into effect in addition to our current Medicaid program.

Arkansas Works is a proposed continuation of the Private Option which was passed in 2013 and is set expire at the end of 2016.  Under the Private Option, over 267,000 Arkansans have signed up to receive tax-funded health insurance purchased from private insurance companies with public funds.

Last year, the Obama administration began requiring health insurance plans to pay for all eighteen types of FDA-approved contraception in order to comply with Obamacare.  The Obama administration has put Arkansas and other states in a very difficult position.  Arkansas has two primary choices. If Arkansas refuses to pay for contraceptives that cause abortions the federal government will withhold funding for the Private Option and 267,000 Arkansans will lose their health insurance coverage.  If Arkansas approves Arkansas Works and accepts the federal funds, we will have to pay for contraceptives that can cause abortions.

Family Council has been on record for quite some time as opposing emergency contraceptives—also known as “Plan B,” and “the morning after pill,”—which can cause an abortion by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. These are the types of contraceptives being funded.

I met with Governor Hutchinson yesterday, and he read me a letter he has drafted in which he has promised to seek a waiver from the federal government exempting Arkansas from the contraceptive requirement.   This is a positive move that previous governors would never have taken, and we deeply appreciate the Governor’s intent and effort. However, the Obama administration’s commitment to the pro-abortion agenda makes a waiver much less likely now than it will be if a more pro-life president takes office in January. If passed, Arkansas Works will replace the current Private Option and take effect in July of this year.

Our lawmakers are faced with some very difficult choices. They can end funding of abortion-causing contraceptives through the Private Option by letting the entire program expire at the end of 2016.  This would leave 267,000 people without health care, and under the Affordable Care Act those people would be forced to buy insurance out of their own pockets or find it elsewhere.

Another possibility would be that the Legislature could offer amendments or alternatives to Arkansas Works that might result in no public funds paying for abortion-causing contraceptives and still maintain health coverage for the 267,000 Arkansans who were on the Private Option.   Achieving this would be difficult since Arkansas might have to pay for it all and the Affordable Care Act still might apply the contraceptive mandate to insurance plans bought solely with other funds.

Finally, the Legislature could approve Arkansas Works and hope for a waiver if not now, maybe in January when a new presidential administration takes over.

Lawmakers I have spoken to are not pleased with any of the alternatives.  Please pray that every member of the legislature, the governor, and all who are concerned will vote their consciences—as they can best see what is right—on this issue.

Below is some additional information on this issue. (more…)

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Victims of “Happiness”

Homosexuality, Marriage, ,

About a year and a half ago our friends at Breakpoint and Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview ran an excellent commentary on the unseen pain behind same-sex marriage.

John Stonestreet writes of one woman whose husband left her for his gay partner, saying,

For instance, USA Today, in its cheerleading for same-sex marriage, ran a photo section on her ex-husband, his partner, and her children without her consent or even notice to her. Darnelle wrote, ‘Commenters exclaimed at how beautiful this gay family was and congratulated my ex-husband and his new partner on the family that they “created” . . .,’ even though, she continued, ‘there is a significant person missing from those pictures: the mother and abandoned wife. That “gay family” could not exist without me.’

Stonestreet continues,

In an essay entitled “We Have No Right to Happiness,” [C.S. Lewis] told the story of two neighbors each of whom had divorced their spouses and then married each other.  Another neighbor, with whom he was discussing the situation, replied ‘they have a right to happiness.’

Lewis noted that this neighbor would not say the same thing of a ruthless businessman who was happy when he made money by means fair or foul. Nor would she say the same thing about an alcoholic who was happy when he drank.

The happiness his neighbor was referring to was a right to ‘sexual happiness,’ which, according to Lewis, meant the freedom to act on our sexual impulses without restraint. And it doesn’t matter if such restraint is good for us or for the society as a whole.

You can read Stonestreet’s entire commentary here or listen to it below.

[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2014/100114_BP.mp3|titles=The Unseen Pain Behind Gay Marriage]

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What This Judge’s Ruling in Nebraska Means for Religious Liberty

Religious Freedom,

Pasta_(1)On Tuesday a judge in Nebraska correctly dismissed a lawsuit by a prisoner who claimed his religious beliefs as a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster were not being honored.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is generally viewed as a parody religion. It began in 2005 as a satiric response to a decision in Kansas to teach intelligent design in public schools.

The inmate who filed the lawsuit claimed that as a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, he ought to be afforded the right to wear religious clothing and pendants, meet for weekly worship, take communion, and so on.

If you are curious what “religious attire,” a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster might want to wear, here’s an article about one member who filed an appeal against the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles in order to wear a colander on her head for her driver’s license photo. Judge Gerrard also notes in his ruling that the “Flying Spaghetti Monster Gospel” encourages adherents to wear pirate costumes and take communion in the form of “a large portion of spaghetti and meatballs.”

On Tuesday Judge Gerrard in Nebraska wrote,

“The Court finds that [the Flying Spaghetti Monster movement] is not a ‘religion’ within the meaning of the relevant federal statutes and constitutional jurisprudence. It is, rather, a parody, intended to advance an argument about science, the evolution of life, and the place of religion in public education. Those are important issues, and [the Flying Spaghetti Monster movement] contains a serious argument, but that does not mean that the trappings of the satire used to make that argument are entitled to protection as a ‘religion.’ Nor, the Court finds, has Cavanaugh [the inmate who filed the suit] sufficiently alleged how the exercise of his ‘religion’ has been substantially burdened.”

The lawsuit is significant, because the inmate who filed it invoked the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as Nebraska’s constitutional provisions protecting religious liberty and the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.

In spite of all this, the judge still dismissed the suit.

The dismissal highlights the simple fact that it is incredibly difficult to misuse or abuse the free exercise of religion. Lately when states consider religious freedom legislation–like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law in Arkansas last year–many people immediately raise concerns about possible ways the legislation might be abused. This case in Nebraska highlights the fact it is extremely difficult for a person to do so.

You cannot chalk any behavior up to “the free exercise of religion” and get away with it, plain and simple.

You can read the judge’s full ruling here.

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