President Biden has delivered proof that he’s “at war” with conscience rights of Christians across America with a decision by his Department of Justice to simply walk away from a case against a hospital that coerced a nurse into participating in an abortion, according to the American Center for Law and Justice.
The ACLJ has been monitoring and working on the case involving the nurse identified as “Rachel” for an extended period. She was ordered by the University of Vermont Medical Center to help with an abortion, even though she was on a list of nurses exempt from that duty.
The ACLJ now is reporting, “At the time this lawsuit was filed, we were pleased to report that – at long last – the Church Amendments finally had teeth, and we anxiously awaited the vindication of Rachel and her pro-life colleagues’ rights.”
But, the report said, “This week, the Biden Administration has taken the unprecedented step of having the Department of Justice voluntarily dismiss its own case without obtaining anything in return. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. The DOJ basically told UVMMC: ‘Yes, we spent two years investigating you, interviewed a dozen witnesses, found you in flagrant violation of federal law, threatened you with all manner of legal mayhem, sued you with great fanfare, and now – oh, never mind. Have a nice day!'”
The ACLJ reported, “Of course, we all know what really happened here. The previous administration took seriously its role to protect conscience rights. But the Biden Administration is so beholden to its extreme ‘abortion-is-awesome!’ wing that they can’t even bring themselves to recognize that conscience rights exist when it comes to abortion. Remember when the Department of Justice, under Bill Barr, was being daily lambasted for allowing itself to be ‘politicized?’ That was, what, about six months ago? Yet here we have a Department of Justice willing to completely abandon a lawsuit that it filed only eight months ago (!) without getting any concession whatsoever from the party it sued, and for no other reason than that there’s a new name at the top of the Department’s letterhead? ‘Politicized’ much?”
The report noted the “perverse nature” of the Biden actions in the case came about because the DOJ and HHS decided that some lower court interpretations about the amendments “called into question” the basis for the notice of violation, which now has been withdrawn.
“The Biden administration has sent a clear message to all health care professionals who call themselves pro-life: ‘Your rights don’t matter. We won’t enforce them,'” the report said.
The case involved an operating room nurse who was listed among those who had moral and religious objections to abortion, and so were exempt from those duties.
However, Rachel reported being assigned to the duty, and refused when she asked for permission to opt out.
She ended up dropping her nursing career there and moving to another part of the country.
“She told us about how she had been lied to by her supervisor (who was aware of Rachel’s religious objections to abortion) about the nature of a scheduled elective surgical procedure. Only after Rachel had ‘scrubbed in’ to the operation and been met by the surgeon (who was also aware of her objection) with the words ‘Don’t hate me,’ did Rachel realize that she had been deceived into participating in the legal killing of an innocent human being – an abortion. She immediately begged the charge nurse to relieve her. Her plea was denied even though the charge nurse could easily have swapped with Rachel,” the ACLJ said.
Eventually a complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights, and an investigation that the hospital officials had inflicted similar damage on other nurses, the OCR’s Notice of Violation was issued.
Then came a DOJ lawsuit.
But all that work to protect conscience rights now has been lost, the ACLJ said, pointing to the oddity of a lower court’s decision being used as a precedent of any sort.
“The upshot of this remarkable turn of events is that pro-life health care workers need to know that this administration has thrown them to the wolves. The Biden administration has sent a message. ‘We don’t care if you have a sincere religious belief about abortion (like the president says he does) that forbids you killing babies. We don’t care if there’s been a law on the books for half a century that’s supposed to prevent health care employers from forcing you to get involved in abortions. We don’t care if our own Department of Justice argued eight months ago that that law fully protected you. We’ve got a powerful and wealthy ‘abortion-is-awesome!’ lobby that we need to pander to; and pander we shall, no matter the cost to you.”
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