ADF to 10th Circuit: Protect life-affirming health care

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Chris Schandevel regarding a friend-of-the-court brief ADF attorneys filed on behalf of several pro-life and religious medical associations Friday in State of Oklahoma v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. The case involves a Biden administration rule that requires recipients of federal Title X family-planning funds to counsel and refer women for abortions, even though multiple federal laws protect healthcare providers from being forced to participate in abortion if it violates their conscience and religious beliefs:

“Doctors and nurses should not be forced to violate their consciences and their religious beliefs as the price of practicing medicine—especially when those are the very beliefs that lead so many people to enter the healing profession. Healthcare professionals’ oath to ‘do no harm’ directly conflicts with abortion, which ends the life of the unborn child and harms the child’s mother. The Biden administration’s Title X rule tries to force doctors and nurses to violate their professional duty to heal and provide life-affirming care to patients. We are urging the 10th Circuit to require the administration to restore Oklahoma’s critical Title X funding without unlawfully mandating that healthcare professionals violate their life-affirming beliefs.”

• Pronunciation guide: Schandevel (SHAN’-deh-vell)

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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