Court Rejects California’s Challenge to Healthcare Conscience Rights
California Can’t Take Federal Funds While Prosecuting Pro-Life Medical Professionals

San Francisco, Calif. — A California federal court judge rejected California’s challenge to the Weldon Amendment,  a federal statute that forbids state and local governments that receive federal funds from discriminating against healthcare providers because they refuse to perform or refer patients for abortions.  The Court sided with three groups of Pro-Life medical professionals as well as other intervenors and the federal government in rejecting California’s challenge.

Bill Lockyer, the former attorney general of California, filed suit against the U.S. government in 2005, claiming the amendment is unconstitutional because it interferes with California’s enforcement of a state law providing for criminal and civil penalties against healthcare workers if they do not perform or refer for abortions in some circumstances.

“This ruling means that California will remain prohibited from fining and criminally prosecuting pro-life doctors because they refuse to perform abortions,” said Litigation Counsel M. Casey Mattox of CLS’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom. “As California’s own arguments in this case prove, the Weldon Amendment remains a critical protection for the rights of conscience of pro-life healthcare workers.”

Attorneys with CLS and the Alliance Defense Fund represented members of the Christian Medical Association, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Fellowship of Christian Physician Assistants. The groups intervened in the case because of its effects on their right to refuse to provide abortions and abortion referrals.  The judge’s decision can be found at: http://www.clsnet.org/clrfPages/litigation/2008-03-18_Opinion.pdf

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