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Suits Filed To Challenge HHS Conscience Rules

By Howard M. Friedman

Today's Washington Post reports that three separate lawsuits were filed yesterday in federal district court in Connecticut challenging the "conscience rules" recently promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services. (See prior posting.) The rules, which protect health care providers who have moral or religious objections to performing or furnishing particular services, are scheduled to take effect January 20, the day Barack Obama comes into office. One suit was filed by Planned Parenthood (Press release). A second was filed by the ACLU on behalf of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association. The third was filed by a group of seven states, led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who issued a press release discussing the challenge. Blumenthal's suit challenges the regulations as being inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution's spending clause. It also says that the regulation infringes a woman's constitutionally protected right to be free from government interference with access to contraception and other reproductive health services. Finally the suit argues that the rules require states to surrender their sovereign police powers. [Thanks to Alliance Alert for the lead.]

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 16, 2009 (boomark / email).