Joe Pitts: “in America we believe in rights. We believe in the right of free speech. We believe in the right to choose our religion…”

“in America we believe in rights. We believe in the right of free speech. We believe in the right to choose our religion, right to peaceably assemble, other rights that are enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and every American's right to act according to the dictates of his conscience. Historically, this right to conscience has applied to individuals and to private organizations as well. In 1996, Congress enacted a law to protect the right of a health care entity to decline to participate in abortion and if they had a conscience against killing unborn children, to decline to participate in this. However, some have read the 1996 law very narrowly to say that it protects only residents and residency programs and only in a training context, and we have had court decisions saying that this health care entity language does not include the full range of participants in providing health care, such as hospitals and health plans and professionals of the facilities. So this bill, ANDA, the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, would clarify existing law, strengthen existing law by providing that health care entities should not be forced by the government to pay for abortions or be penalized or discriminated against by government agencies for choosing not to provide or to perform abortions which 86 percent of our hospitals presently choose.”