Freedom of Conscience

Dr. Charmaine Yoest & the AUL Legal Team.

On Monday, February 4,Americans United for Life filed our third amicus curiae brief supporting legal challenges to the Obama Administration’s unconstitutional “HHS mandate.” AUL’s Dr. Charmaine Yoest noted “The Obama Administration is violating the American freedom of conscience by forcing private businesses to either pay for abortion-inducing drugs or risk going out of business. This is an unconstitutional overreach which tramples on the American Dream.”

AUL filed the brief before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Cyril Korte v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on behalf of Drury Development Corporation, Drury Southwest, Inc., and Drury Hotels Company, LLC, and six national medical associations including the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons and the Catholic Medical Association.* The Drury family of companies employs over 3,400 full-time employees. Read more.

On February 1 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a new notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) governing its mandate that employers provide insurance that covers (without a co-pay) life-ending drugs and devices such as ella. In response, AUL President and CEO, Dr. Charmaine Yoest called NPRM a “phony compromise.”* AUL Staff Counsel, Anna Franzonello also noted in her legal analysis that the “NPRM is even narrower than the protections it had previously entertained.”* She explains that the proposed “accommodation” fails to consider for-profits and non-religiously-affiliated organizations as worthy of the accommodation or an exemption. AUL continues to defend freedom of conscience, planning to file at least six more amicus curiae briefs in support of on-going challenges to the HHS mandate this spring.