WASHINGTON, D.C., July 21, 2011—Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, comments on the recent recommendation by the “Institute of Medicine”:http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Clinical-Preventive-Services-for-Women-Closing-the-Gaps.aspx that would require health insurance plans to provide free coverage under last year’s health care reform law for contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives that are abortifacients, such as the “Plan B” and “ella.”
“Yet another untruth about Obamacare has been uncovered. President Obama promised the new health-care program would not cover abortions. Now, we see that a panel solicited for input by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has recommended mandatory coverage for ‘emergency contraception,’ which is a euphemism for the morning-after pill, which often kills a newly conceived child by not allowing the embryo to implant on the wall of the mother’s womb.
“The Washington Post reported that Adam Sonfield of the Guttmacher Institute objected to this characterization of the morning-after pill by saying that ‘the medical field defines pregnancy as beginning with the implantation, not the fertilization, of an egg.’
“The ‘medical field’ is attempting to define something far above its pay grade. God has already made it clear in Holy Scripture that human life begins at conception, or fertilization, and all of the unique, biological characteristics of that particular child are determined at the moment of conception, not implantation (Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13-16, Psalm 51:5). The use of taxpayers’ money to fund killing such babies is an abomination.”
The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 16.2 million members in over 44,000 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn. and Washington, D.C.
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