{"id":38,"date":"2008-09-06T09:04:21","date_gmt":"2008-09-06T09:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/proposed-hhs-regs-bad-law-bad.html"},"modified":"2008-09-06T09:04:21","modified_gmt":"2008-09-06T09:04:21","slug":"proposed-hhs-regs-bad-law-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/proposed-hhs-regs-bad-law-bad.html","title":{"rendered":"Proposed HHS Regs: Bad Law, Bad Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta name=\"ProgId\" content=\"Word.Document\"><meta name=\"Generator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><meta name=\"Originator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><link rel=\"File-List\" href=\"file:\/\/\/C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Cbathija%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C04%5Cclip_filelist.xml\"><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" name=\"PlaceName\"><\/o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" name=\"PlaceType\"><\/o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" name=\"State\"><\/o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" name=\"place\"><\/o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument>  <w:View>Normal<\/w:View>  <w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>  <w:PunctuationKerning\/>  <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>  <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>  <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>  <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>  <w:Compatibility>   <w:BreakWrappedTables\/>   <w:SnapToGridInCell\/>   <w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>   <w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>   <w:DontGrowAutofit\/>  <\/w:Compatibility>  <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel> <\/w:WordDocument><\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\"> <\/w:LatentStyles><\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid=\"clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D\" id=\"ieooui\"><\/object>\n\n<style>st1\\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }<\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<style><!-- \/* Style Definitions *\/ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal\t{mso-style-parent:\"\";\tmargin:0in;\tmargin-bottom:.0001pt;\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\tfont-size:12.0pt;\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\tmso-fareast-font-family:\"Times New Roman\";}a:link, span.MsoHyperlink\t{color:blue;\ttext-decoration:underline;\ttext-underline:single;}a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed\t{color:purple;\ttext-decoration:underline;\ttext-underline:single;}@page Section1\t{size:8.5in 11.0in;\tmargin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;\tmso-header-margin:.5in;\tmso-footer-margin:.5in;\tmso-paper-source:0;}div.Section1\t{page:Section1;}--><\/style>\n<p><!--[if gte mso 10]>\n\n<style> \/* Style Definitions *\/ table.MsoNormalTable\t{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\tmso-style-noshow:yes;\tmso-style-parent:\"\";\tmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\tmso-para-margin:0in;\tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\tfont-size:10.0pt;\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\tmso-ansi-language:#0400;\tmso-fareast-language:#0400;\tmso-bidi-language:#0400;}<\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"\"><\/span>A proposed regulationfrom the Department of Health and Human Services regarding health care workers&#8217;religious &#8220;rights&#8221; is already causing considerable controversy&#8211;and it should!<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>The Department placed the rule on displayAug. 21 for a 30-day public comment period. The comments will be reviewedbefore the Department puts forth a final regulation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The regulation never should have been released for publiccomment and ought to be discarded in a circular repository for badconstitutional law and bad medical science. <span style=\"\">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The regulation is, to quote the draft, based on claims thathealth care workers are now &#8220;required to violate their conscience by promotingor assisting in the provision of controversial medicine or procedures.&#8221;<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>To stop this, the regulation would prohibitany funds going to institutions or even states that don&#8217;t grant this sweepingexemption from duty. Now, abortion is a &#8220;procedure,&#8221; so what is a &#8220;controversialmedicine&#8221;?<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>It seems clear to me that itis any drug that the Religious Right and its allies considers an&#8221;abortifacient&#8221;&#8211;an abortion inducing substance. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"\"><\/span>But wait. You don&#8217;thave to accept my characterization.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>Anearlier draft leaked to the press actually defined &#8220;abortion&#8221; to include &#8220;theprescription, dispensing and administration of any drug&#8230;that results in thetermination of life of a human being in utero between conception and naturalbirth, whether before or after implantation.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As noted by Representative TomAllen on<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.thehill.com\/2008\/08\/22\/hhs-proposed-regulation-could-harm-women%E2%80%99s-health-rep-tom-allen\/\"> The Hill Congress Blog<\/a>, nothing in the published regulation contradicts this broaddefinition. In addition, as per Jay&#8217;s previous comments on this matter in ourdiscussion of a <st1:state w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">California<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>case, this is intended to cover even workers requested to refer a patient,train a physician or other health worker, or arrange for the distribution ofsomething like Plan B or an IUD.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">As Jill Morrison over at the National Womens&#8217; <st1:place w:st=\"on\"><st1:placename w:st=\"on\">Law<\/st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st=\"on\">Center<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>commented to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/07\/30\/AR2008073003238_pf.html\"><i style=\"\">Washington Post<\/i><\/a>:&#8221;You could imagine a group of people with less than honorable intentionsseeking to get hired at a family planning clinic with the specific objective ofobstructing access.&#8221;<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Sadly, I don&#8217;tthink we&#8217;d be imagining this for long&#8211;it is likely the intent of the draftersto make this happen.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A proposed regulationfrom the Department of Health and Human Services regarding health care workers&#8217;religious &#8220;rights&#8221; is already causing considerable controversy&#8211;and it should!&nbsp; The Department placed the rule on displayAug. 21 for a 30-day public comment period. The comments will be reviewedbefore the Department puts forth a final regulation. &nbsp; The regulation never should have been&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[384,16,15],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","tag-abortion","tag-contraceptives","tag-womens-rights"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Proposed HHS Regs: Bad Law, Bad Science - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/proposed-hhs-regs-bad-law-bad.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Proposed HHS Regs: Bad Law, Bad Science - Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A proposed regulationfrom the Department of Health and Human Services regarding health care workers&#8217;religious &#8220;rights&#8221; is already causing considerable controversy&#8211;and it should!&nbsp; The Department placed the rule on displayAug. 21 for a 30-day public comment period. The comments will be reviewedbefore the Department puts forth a final regulation. &nbsp; The regulation never should have been&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/proposed-hhs-regs-bad-law-bad.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-06T09:04:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rev. Barry W. Lynn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Proposed HHS Regs: Bad Law, Bad Science - Lynn v. Sekulow","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/proposed-hhs-regs-bad-law-bad.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Proposed HHS Regs: Bad Law, Bad Science - Lynn v. Sekulow","og_description":"A proposed regulationfrom the Department of Health and Human Services regarding health care workers&#8217;religious &#8220;rights&#8221; is already causing considerable controversy&#8211;and it should!&nbsp; The Department placed the rule on displayAug. 21 for a 30-day public comment period. The comments will be reviewedbefore the Department puts forth a final regulation. &nbsp; The regulation never should have been&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/09\/proposed-hhs-regs-bad-law-bad.html","og_site_name":"Lynn v. 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Sekulow","description":"A debate blog about church, state, faith and politics with Jay Sekulow and Barry W. Lynn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/98ebaf547801cce8ce6fff4c27f51fc8","name":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}