In May of 2018, a nurse at the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVMMC) was called into the operating room to assist with a “surgery.” Upon arrival, she discovered that the “surgery” she had been called in to help with was in fact an abortion and that she had been lied to. Although she was on the hospital’s list of conscientious objectors who had made clear to the hospital that they were morally opposed to abortion and there were other nurses available who were not on the list, UVMMC staff refused to call in a replacement and she was faced with losing her job and possibly her license if she refused to participate.  

In response to this clear violation of conscience rights, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in 2019 against the hospital, signaling their support for the religious freedom of healthcare workers. That changed in late July when the Biden administration quietly dropped the lawsuit, leaving the nurse with no further recourse.

84 pro-life lawmakers responded with a letter calling out Attorney General Merrick Garland and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra for their failure to defend the right to refuse to participate in an abortion and demanding a full explanation for the decision to drop the case. In their letter they write,

Your handling of this case is a profound miscarriage of justice and a rejection of your commitment to enforce federal conscience laws for Americans of all religious beliefs and creeds—and especially for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who object to abortion. Your actions signal to employers all around the country that they don’t need to comply with the law because your agencies will not enforce it. They also signal that this administration would rather allow consciences to be violated at the behest of the abortion lobby rather enforce the law and protect religious liberty.

It is not only at the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services that this disregard for conscience rights is taking place. In New York, a coalition of religious groups has asked the Supreme Court to block a mandate requiring employers to cover abortions in their health insurance plans. The mandate’s exemption is so narrow that in order to qualify for relief, ministries and churches would have to stop hiring or offering services to anyone who does not share their religious beliefs. For many religious organizations, this would mean stopping ministry almost entirely. Under this mandate, they must choose to close their doors to all but a few, agree to pay for abortions, or face crippling fines from the state.

No one should be forced to be complicit in abortion. Not healthcare workers, not employers, and not taxpayers. But this is what the abortion industry is demanding. From the Biden administration’s unwillingness to defend the conscience rights of a nurse in Vermont to New York’s abortion mandate, to the ongoing attack on the Hyde Amendment, the abortion lobby is insistent upon making everyone complicit in abortion. The demands of “my body, my choice” have morphed into “my choice that you must pay for and help commit.”

It is unacceptable that the abortion lobby is demanding that people of faith pay for and participate in abortion. But even more than that, it is unacceptable that abortion is not acknowledged for what it is — the wrongful and intentional taking of an innocent human life. Abortion is not a “choice.” It is murder, and no one should ever be required to participate in or fund murder. And yet, from the Department of Justice’s dismissal of the Vermont nurse’s case to the New York mandate demanding that employers provide coverage for abortion, to the push to force American taxpayers to fund abortions, the abortion industry and its allies have replaced “my body my choice” with “my choice that you must be complicit in.” This attack on life, conscience rights, and religious freedom must stop.

(Image: Flickr, The All-Nite Images, CC BY-SA 2.0)