{"id":96621,"date":"2016-06-24T12:52:41","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T16:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=96621"},"modified":"2016-06-24T12:52:41","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T16:52:41","slug":"hhs-secretary-meets-with-republicans-over-ca-forced-abortion-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/hhs-secretary-meets-with-republicans-over-ca-forced-abortion-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"HHS Secretary meets with Republicans over California’s forced abortion coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell met<\/a> with a group of House Republicans to discuss the Obama Administration\u2019s decision to allow California to force churches and other religious organizations to cover abortion in their insurance plans.<\/p>\n

As Live Action News covered<\/a> this week, HHS\u2019s Office of Civil Rights determined California\u2019s policy did not violate the federal Weldon Amendment, which forbids discrimination on the basis of an entity\u2019s refusal to offer abortion.<\/p>\n

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Casey Mattox blasted the Obama administration for \u201conce again making a mockery of the law, and this time in the most unimaginable way,\u201d in this case \u201cinventing new interpretations of [the amendment] out of whole cloth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) was among those who blasted the announcement as a politicized distortion of the law, and was also present for Wednesday\u2019s hour-long meeting. He says Burwell and OCR head Jocelyn Samuels did not sufficiently answer their concerns.<\/p>\n

\"levatino-ad-LAN\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In particular, Smith noted that he asked them why their decision took nearly two years, but did not get an answer after asking five times when the conclusion was reached. He also notes that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) originally requested the meeting to take place before the ruling. However, Smith says, \u201cunexpectedly, because we were all ready to go, Secretary Burwell cancelled it, and then two weeks later comes, \u2018Oh, they don\u2019t have standing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

HHS has not commented on the scheduling, but maintains it \u201ccarefully considered the application of the Weldon Amendment to the facts we discovered\u201d while acknowledging the lawmakers were \u201cnot satisfied with our speed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell met with a group of House Republicans to discuss the Obama Administration\u2019s decision to allow California to force churches and other religious organizations to cover abortion in their insurance plans. As Live Action News covered this week, HHS\u2019s Office of Civil Rights determined California\u2019s policy did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":69790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[3473],"tags":[19,455,7135,87,6525,131,4561,9252,278,615,4427],"yoast_head":"\nHHS Secretary meets with Republicans over California's forced abortion coverage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"HHS determined CA\u2019s policy did not violate the federal Weldon Amendment, which forbids discrimination on the basis of an entity\u2019s refusal to offer abortion.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/hhs-secretary-meets-with-republicans-over-ca-forced-abortion-coverage\/\" \/>\n<meta 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