Council of Europe Resolution Will Regulate Right to Conscientious Objection

The Council of Europe is currently debating a new draft resolution that would make a women’s right to abortion legally superior to a doctor or health care provider’s conscientious or religious objection to such procedures. The new resolution, entitled “”Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection,” would regulate the freedom of doctors and health care providers to refuse to provide abortion, emergency contraception and other anti-life procedures due to conscientious objections.

According to LifeSiteNews.com, the resolution has two main objectives:

“[T]he first – to push for further access to abortion as a “Human Right” – the second: to limit the possibility for individual health care providers and institutions “to refuse to provide certain health services based on religious, moral or philosophical objections.”

The document states:

“While recognising the right of an individual to conscientiously object to performing a certain medical procedure, the Parliamentary Assembly is deeply concerned about the increasing and largely unregulated occurrence of this practice, especially in the field of reproductive health care.

“The Parliamentary Assembly emphasizes the need to balance the right of conscientious objection with the responsibility of the profession and the right of each patient to receive lawful treatment and expresses its concern about the severe consequences that the occurrence of this practice has on women’s access to lawful health care services.”

The resolution is a drastic step in the development of the abortion debate. Under the resolution, not only must abortion be legal, but health care providers are legally required to provide such services. This goes well beyond the typical arguments in support of abortion and places a women’s right to abortion above a health care provider’s religious liberty and right to the free exercise of his or her own skills and property.

Furthermore, the resolution specifically removes the right to “institutional objection,” stating that member states must “rule out the right of institutional conscientious objection, preventing public hospitals or clinics as a whole to invoke conscientious objection.” This means religious institutions, such as Catholic hospitals, will be forced to provide such services or they will be driven from the health care industry as a whole.

An international non-profit law firm, The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), is currently preparing to oppose the resolution in support of conscience rights.

You can view a draft of the resolution here.

Austria Legalizes Same-Sex Civil Unions

Beginning in 2010, traditionally conservative Austria will provide state recognition to same-sex civil unions. The new legislation was approved last week in a compromise between the two leading parties and provides same-sex couples with most of the rights of married couples, including financial benefits such as tax, pension and maintenance. There are 37 points of distinction, however, between the civil unions and married couples, the most important of which are limitations on adoption and artificial insemination.

The law has received heavy criticism from conservatives, while many LGBT activists see it merely as a temporary stepping-stone to state recognized same-sex marriage. “I think this is something we will keep under discussion,” said the leading party’s chancellor Werner Faymann. For more information, you can read the full article at the Irish Times.

Corporate Equality Index Let’s Your Money Do the Talking

When we have posted on corporate support or opposition to important family and life issues in the past, there has always been an impressive response from our readership, the most frequent response being, “What can I do?” This has been most readily the case with corporations supporting the LGBT agenda.

Well, for those of you interested in supporting those companies that support the family and opposing those companies that advance the anti-family LGBT agenda, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has offered you an opportunity to let your money speak for you.

HRC recently released its annual Corporate Equality Index (CEI). The index rates companies according to adherence to and support of LGBT ‘rights’ policies. Corporations fill out a voluntary survey that HRC then scores and publishes. Although the survey is voluntary, it covers a wide variety of companies with a wide variety of scores.

The CEI is used by HRC and other organizations to pressure corporations into supporting the LGBT agenda through public shaming and the incentives or disincentives through consumer action.  If you would like to counter such efforts, you can do so by taking a look at the index and supporting those companies with a low rating.

The CEI actually provides a very clear sense of where a company stands on LGBT issues and how it uses its public position and money to advance such issues, if in fact it does. The scores are calculated according to a 6 point scoring criteria:

1. Equal employment opportunity policy and diversity training for sexual orientation
2. Equal employment opportunity policy and diversity training for gender identity or expression, including insurance coverage, counseling and guidelines for gender transition.
3. Domestic partner benefits including health insurance, vision and dental.
4. LGBT employee resource group or diversity counseling
5. Advertising, marketing and sponsorship of LGBT events or organizations
6. Behavior toward LGBT community, including actions “that would undermine LGBT equality.”

If you have the time or inclination, take a look at the index and find those companies that you would most like to support in defending the family.  The U.S. News & World Report article on the index even identifies the contrasting scores of companies within the same industry, providing you an easy choice when making your next purchase:

General Mills (100% CEI score) vs. Kellogg’s (65% CEI score)

Visa, MasterCard, American Express (100% CEI scores) vs. Discover Card (58% CEI score)

Orbitz (100% CEI score) vs. Expedia (65% CEI score)

Dell (100% CEI score) vs.Acer/Gateway Computers (50% CEI score)

Best Buy (100% CEI score) vs. Radio Shack (40% CEI score)

Staples (93% CEI score) & OfficeMax (90%) vs. Office Depot (45% CEI score)

Mattel (95% CEI score) vs. Hasbro (50% CEI score)

UFI Meets Facebook Goal!

Just last week we posted a plea for your help in building our Facebook network. Our initial goal was to have a simple but respectable 1,000 fans by the first of next year. Well thanks to you, we managed to blow past that goal in a single week!! We now have an outstanding 1,085 fans.

Thank you so much for your amazing support!!!

But we aren’t ready to give up yet. We have set a new goal to have 2,000 fans by January 1.

Please continue to encourage your friends and family to join our Facebook network by clicking on the “Suggest to Friends” link underneath the profile picture and adding a UFI fan badge to your own website or blog.

With your help, UFI will be able to educate and assist more and more individuals invested in protecting the family. Together we can make a difference for the future of families everywhere.

Thank you again for you all do! Please keep it up.

Baltimore City Council Passes Legislation to Attack Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers

On Monday, the Baltimore City Council passed new legislation that requires all crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to display a sign informing patients they do not provide abortion or contraception services. The bill passed by a 12-3 vote and is now awaiting a signature from the Mayor. If signed into effect, the bill will fine pregnancy centers $150 a day until a sign is properly posted.

The new bill comes in response to accusations from pro-abortion lobbies that such centers provide inaccurate information and “coerce” young girls into not seeking abortions. According to Ms. Magazine:

“CPCs pose as legitimate health centers and offer “free” pregnancy tests and counseling. Some CPCs coerce and intimidate women out of considering abortion as an option, and prevent women from receiving neutral and comprehensive medical advice. Many disseminate false information about both abortion and contraception, and they are typically run by anti-abortion volunteers who are not licensed medical professionals.”

However, there is no evidence to suggest that such accusations are accurate and the new legislation seems nothing more than an attack on pregnancy centers that encourage life. According to Jeffrey D. Meister, legislative director of Maryland Right to Life, the bill targets CPCs for wanting to provide women with better alternatives. “This is the first time in the United States that any elected body has chosen to vote to condemn pregnancy centers. Baltimore City has just said, ‘We recognize you do great work, but politically we’re going to regulate you anyway.’” Meister said.

Similar legislation that would have required abortion facilities to also post a sign describing services was defeated by the same City Council earlier this month by a 10-5 vote.

Montgomery County, Maryland is currently considering a similar bill sponsored by County Councilwoman Duchy Trachtenbery.

EU Forces British Government to Remove Church Exemptions from Employing Homosexuals

According to a recent report from The Guardian, the European Union is forcing the British government to remove legal protections that allow religious groups and organizations to refuse to employ homosexuals.

Apparently the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, sent a letter to the British government last week informing them that the current legal exemptions for religious organizations violate the EU directive against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The letter was sent in response to a formal complaint from the National Secular Society, which argued that the exemptions created “illegal discrimination against homosexuals.” Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was quoted saying, “It is a big embarrassment for the British government, which has consistently sought to appease religious homophobes by granting them opt-outs from key equality laws. The European commission has ruled these opt-outs are excessive.”

The exemptions currently apply to the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations of 2003, under which religious groups are allowed to refuse to employ a homosexual employee “so as to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religion’s followers.”

However, the letter from the EU leaves the British government no choice but to amend its current discrimination legislation. As Archbishop Cranmer puts it, “Her Majesty’s Government is forced to amend a sovereign Act of Parliament in order that it might conform to a higher-sovereign EU directive.

Vladimir Špidla, the EU’s equal opportunities commissioner, has called on the government to make the requisite changes as soon as possible.

Homosexual Rights Witch-Hunt Begins on Website to Expose Homosexual Priests

ChurchOuting.org, a new website launched last Wednesday, hopes to add momentum to the homosexual rights movement in Washington by means of a good old-fashioned witch-hunt. The website gathers and publicly displays anonymous accusations of homosexuality against Catholic priests within the Archdiocese of Washington. It lovingly invites you to share your own unfounded accusation of a priest’s homosexuality, in order “to help [Catholic Priests] make the difficult choice to stand up against the hateful and harmful new direction the Church hierarchy is taking the Holy Mother Church.”

The site provides a convenient form for you to share “a detailed account of how you know the priest in question is being hypocritical through his silence,” then reassures you that your personal account “will help stop the spiritual and psychological abuse being afflicted, not only on these good men of God, but on their congregations and the local LGBT community.” For according to ChurchOuting.org, vocal religious opposition to homosexual behavior is the equivalent of physical or sexual abuse of a child.

So what is the purpose of this compassionate and loving witch-hunt?

“The goal of this site is not to force Catholic priests out of the closet against their will.  The goal of this campaign is to aggregate reports on every gay priest in the Archdiocese, so that we can work with them, one on one, helping them stand up to the church hierarchy’s stand on this important issue.”

In other words, the goal is to gather enough hearsay and gossip to coerce priests, and the Archdiocese of Washington in general, into changing their official position on same-sex marriage.

The campaign apparently comes in response to the resistance of the Archdiocese of Washington to pro-homosexual legislation currently going through the D.C. legislature and to a 57 page Pastoral Letter issued last week by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops restating church opposition to same-sex marriage.

The new site has higher aspirations. It provides the media and social networking tools necessary to make this a full-fledged cultural movement and that is the direction Phil Attey, founder of ChurchOuting.org, sees the campaign going.

“I expect community response to this campaign to be overwhelming,” says Attey. “The Church hierarchy has crossed the line in diverting the mission of the church from helping the poor and caring for the sick to waging political campaigns to strip LGBT citizens of civil rights protections.  We can no longer remain silent while this happens.  Nor can our parish priests.”

U.S. Christian Leaders Issue Declaration: “No power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

Friday, October 20, a group of more than 125 Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders gathered in Washington, D.C. to issue a statement proclaiming they will not stop defending what they view to be three essential truths:

1. The sanctity of life
2. The dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. The rights of conscience and religious liberty

The statement, the “Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” also vehemently declares that that they will not be silenced or bullied into adopting policies and positions that violate these foundational beliefs.

Here is an excerpt that best summarizes the declaration:

“While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity, and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation to speak and act in defense of these truths, the declaration continues. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

The 4,700 word declaration addresses the issues of life, marriage and religious liberty separately and at length, giving leveled and reasoned validation for the declaration’s position and the need to unyieldingly defend it. You can read the full text of the statement here or an executive summary of the piece here.

Those most critical of the declaration view it as a call to civil disobedience, but given the uncompromising language of the declaration, it is not surprising. The summary provided by the drafters of the declaration concludes:

“Therefore, let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that violates the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family.

Further, let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality, marriage, and the family.

Further, let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.

We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

Whether you agree or disagree with the religious roots of the statement, it is reassuring to hear such an unyielding voice in support of life and the family. As attacks against the family heighten and religious liberty is increasingly threatened by the radical agenda of a vocal minority, it is wonderful to know that there are still many who will stand up for the family.

If you support with the Manhattan Declaration and would like to add your name, you can do so here.

Senate Health Care Bill Removes Stupak Amendment and Funds Abortion

Saturday the Senate voted 60-39 to move the U.S. Senate Health Care Bill sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid to the floor for open debate. This newest rendition of the health care bill has removed the Stupak Amendment, which prohibits all public funding for abortion, and replaced it with a thinly veiled rewording of the Capps Amendment, once included in the House bill.

In our alert two weeks ago, we informed you of the dangers of the Capps amendment and its concealed mandate for publicly funded abortions. The new health care bill from the Senate includes the same mandate and the same misleading accounting scheme.

According to Douglas Johnson, National Right to Life legislative director, Sen. Reid’s new bill authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to require abortion coverage throughout the newly established public option.

“This would be federal government funding of abortion, no matter how hard they try to disguise it,” he says.

Similarly, affordability credits—federal subsidies for purchasing private health care plans—can be used to purchase private plans that include abortion coverage.

The Senate is expected to begin debating the bill November 30. UFI will keep you updated as the bill progresses.

Mexico Abortion Fight Moves to Federal Level

This week Veracruz, Mexico became the 17^th state in Mexico to write into legislation that life begins at conception. Now over half of the nation’s 32 states have written similar restrictions on abortion into their constitutions and lawmakers in Veracruz have adopted a measure to require congress to consider a similar amendment to the nation’s constitution.

After Mexico City legalized abortion last year for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, most states responded by writing protections against abortion into their constitution. Now that the majority of states have shown a consensus on the issue, it is moving to the federal level.

Due to the current composition of Congress, most seem confident the abortion ban will pass. The new amendment would most likely include exceptions for cases of rape, congenital deformity, and threat to the mother’s life—exceptions already included in most of state constitutions. For more information you can read the full AP article here.