Budget bill bans bias on abortion A $388-billion spending bill approved by Congress over the weekend has some questionable expenditures, like up to $2 million for a naval museum's purchases of a former presidential yacht and a quarter-million to Nashville's Country Music Hall of Fame. Then there are items that religious conservatives won't be happy about. For example, expenditures are lower than requested for programs promoting sexual abstinence and helping ex-offenders get jobs. But some items they've got to be thrilled about: like banning federal funds for the creation or destruction of human embryos for research purposes, and barring schools from using federal funds "to prevent the implementation of programs of voluntary prayer and meditation in the public schools."
Nevertheless, one provision is getting all the attention:
None of the funds made available in this Act may be made available to a Federal agency or program, or to a State or local government, if such agency, program, or government subjects any institutional or individual health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.
Rep. David Weldon (R-Fla.), who sponsored the addition to the bill, explains, "This policy simply states that health care entities should not be forced to provide elective abortions, a practice to which a majority of health care providers object and which they will not perform as a matter of conscience. … This provision is meant to protect health care entities from discrimination."
Individual doctors (Weldon's one, by the way) have the freedom not to perform abortions, but this now extends protection to hospitals, clinics, HMOs, insurers, and other such groups.
Some Democrats say discrimination should be mandatory, and that health care providers should not have the right to choose.
"They should not be doing this," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.) told The New York Times. "On a huge spending bill they're writing law, and they're taking away rights from women."
Taking away rights from women? That would be what, the right not to have the right to choose whether to support abortion? Doesn't Boxer liked to consider herself "pro-choice"? Apparently choice is only a freedom granted to those who don't have a problem with killing the unborn.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) gets even crazier. "The Weldon amendment is essentially a domestic gag rule, restricting access to abortion counseling, referral and information," she told the Associated Press. In Pelosi's world, prohibiting prolifers from opposing abortion is freedom of speech.
Boxer and Pelosi are consistent, but what they're consistency cheering isn't "choice." Pro-abortion is the only moniker that fits.
By the way, the bill got passed because Senate leaders promised a vote next year on repealing the measure. Prolifers should welcome the opportunity to expose those who are both anti-choice and anti-life.
Hate crimes in America The FBI just released its annual report of hate crime statistics for the U.S. Here's the breakdown for religiously motivated attacks. Any crime against someone's religious liberty is terrible, but these numbers are worth comparing to the U.S. State Department annual report on international religious freedom.
Launched in 1999, Christianity Today’s Weblog was not just one of the first religion-oriented weblogs, but one of the first published by a media organization. (Hence its rather bland title.) Mostly compiled by then-online editor Ted Olsen, Weblog rounded up religion news and opinion pieces from publications around the world. As Christianity Today’s website grew, it launched other blogs. Olsen took on management responsibilities, and the Weblog feature as such was mothballed. But CT’s efforts to round up important news and opinion from around the web continues, especially on our Gleanings feature.
Ted Olsen is Christianity Today's executive editor. He wrote the magazine's Weblog—a collection of news and opinion articles from mainstream news sources around the world—from 1999 to 2006. In 2004, the magazine launched Weblog in Print, which looks for unexpected connections and trends in articles appearing in the mainstream press. The column was later renamed "Tidings" and ran until 2007.
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
We’ve got little information on Jesus’ appearance and personality. But that’s the way God designed it.españolFrançais
NIL deals in college athletics present new challenges—and opportunities—for colleges and students.
