The Department of Managed Health Care is imposing employers, including churches and other religious organizations, to provide elective abortions in their insurance policies.
In response to the mandate, Life Legal Defense Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom have filed a complaint on behalf of seven California churches, according to Charisma Magazine.
Objecting to offering their employees insurance which includes abortion coverage, Skyline Church in La Mesa, Foothill Church and Foothill Christian School in Glendora, Alpine Christian Fellowship in El Cajon, The Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch, City View Church in San Diego, Faith Baptist Church in Santa Barbara, and Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Chino, have signed onto the complaint.
“Forcing a church to be party to elective abortion is one of the utmost-imaginable assaults on our most fundamental American freedoms,” said ADF Senior Counsel Casey Mattox. “California is flagrantly violating the federal law that protects employers from being forced into having abortion in their health insurance plans. No state can blatantly ignore federal law and think that it should continue to receive taxpayer money.”
The complaint explains, “DMHC is an arm of the State of California and purports to be interpreting and applying the law of California, a state that receives billions of taxpayer dollars…California accepted those funds with full knowledge of the requirements of the Weldon Amendment, but it has chosen to ignore this law. The need to remedy this discrimination is urgent because it is immediately depriving Complainants of a health plan that omits elective abortions.”
A formal complaint was filed Thursday with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Publication date: October 13, 2014