The Catholic Medical Association joined six other medical organizations in a friend of the court brief filed on Feb. 13 in the U.S. Supreme Court by lead counsel Bioethics Defense Fund (BDF), challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, (“Obamacare”).
BDF’s filing presents a novel argument based on Obamacare’s lack of conscience protections, arguing that the individual mandate not only forces individuals into private purchases, it also effectively mandates personal payments for surgical abortion coverage, without exemption for individual’s religious or moral objections. BDF president and general counsel Nikolas T. Nikas described the argument using visual imagery: “Like a Russian nesting doll, the individual mandate has nestled within it a hidden, but equally unconstitutional scheme that effectively imposes an ‘abortion premium mandate’ that violates the free exercise rights of millions of Americans who have religious objections to abortion.”
The organizations joining the Catholic Medical Association are the American College of Pediatricians, the Christian Medical and Dental Association, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Physicians for Life, the National Association of Prolife Nurses, and Medical Students for Life of America.
To read more about the Bioethics Fund amicus brief, click here.
