{"id":1179,"date":"2009-01-16T17:05:07","date_gmt":"2009-01-16T17:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont.php"},"modified":"2009-01-16T17:05:07","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T17:05:07","slug":"seven-states-sue-to-block-cont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont","title":{"rendered":"Seven States Sue to Block Controversial HHS Rule Involving Abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) Seven states have sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying a new regulation that permits health care workers to abstain from providing abortions is illegal.<br \/>\nThe suit, filed Thursday (Jan. 15) by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, seeks to block the rule that is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 20, the day President-elect Barack Obama is sworn into office.<br \/>\nThe rule permits health care workers to abstain from any service or activity that they object to based on moral or religious convictions.<br \/>\n&#8220;On its way out, the Bush administration has left a ticking legal time bomb set to explode literally the day of the inaugural and blow apart vital constitutional rights and women&#8217;s health care,&#8221; Blumenthal said.<br \/>\n&#8220;The federal government is impermissibly interfering with constitutional rights and carefully crafted and balanced state measures protecting patients and women, particularly rape victims who may require immediate access to emergency contraception.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe suit charges that HHS exceeded its authority by creating a regulation that fails to define abortion and &#8220;essentially delegating that crucial function&#8221; to individuals and health care providers.<br \/>\nThe states joining Connecticut in the suit are California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island.<br \/>\nThe 127-page regulation, which was introduced on Dec. 18, was praised by religious conservatives who had sought relief from being punished for not performing abortions. Liberal groups have said the rule will place doctors&#8217; views above patients and undermine religious diversity.<br \/>\nAn HHS spokesperson could not be reached for comment on Friday.<br \/>\n<em>Adelle M. Banks<br \/>\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) Seven states have sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying a new regulation that permits health care workers to abstain from providing abortions is illegal. The suit, filed Thursday (Jan. 15) by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, seeks to block the rule that is scheduled to take effect on Jan.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Seven States Sue to Block Controversial HHS Rule Involving Abortion<\/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\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seven States Sue to Block Controversial HHS Rule Involving Abortion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON (RNS) Seven states have sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying a new regulation that permits health care workers to abstain from providing abortions is illegal. The suit, filed Thursday (Jan. 15) by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, seeks to block the rule that is scheduled to take effect on Jan.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-16T17:05:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Seven States Sue to Block Controversial HHS Rule Involving Abortion","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\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Seven States Sue to Block Controversial HHS Rule Involving Abortion","og_description":"WASHINGTON (RNS) Seven states have sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying a new regulation that permits health care workers to abstain from providing abortions is illegal. The suit, filed Thursday (Jan. 15) by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, seeks to block the rule that is scheduled to take effect on Jan.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-01-16T17:05:07+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont","name":"Seven States Sue to Block Controversial HHS Rule Involving Abortion","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-01-16T17:05:07+00:00","dateModified":"2009-01-16T17:05:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/01\/seven-states-sue-to-block-cont#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Seven States Sue to Block Controversial HHS Rule Involving Abortion"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?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\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}