Life

HHS Investigates 13 States for Requiring Health Care Providers to Cover Abortion

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it is investigating thirteen states for “allegedly coercing health care entities to provide coverage of, or pay for, abortion contrary to conscience.”

The HHS Office for Civil Rights argues such state requirements violate the Weldon Amendment, a 2004 law that protects the religious and conscience rights of physicians and health care professionals, hospitals, health insurance plans and other health care organizations that do not support abortion. 

The amendment prohibits federal funds from going to programs or state or local governments that discriminate against these individuals and groups. 

Director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights Paula Stannard explained: 

OCR launches these investigations to address certain states’ alleged disregard of, or confusion about, compliance with the Weldon Amendment. 

Under the Weldon Amendment, health care entities, such as health insurance issuers and health plans, are protected from state discrimination for not paying for, or providing coverage of, abortion contrary to conscience. Period.

HHS is putting these states on notice for violating religious freedom with their abortion coverage mandates: California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

Many of them have already faced lawsuits from Chrisian organizations fighting their unconstitutional abortion mandates, including: 

• In 2017 New York created a statewide abortion mandate requiring employers to cover abortifacients and even surgical abortions in their health plans. Becket, a religious freedom legal firm, fought on behalf of ministries’ religious freedom, as the state attempted to force nuns and other religious organizations to cover the cost of abortionsbefore the state finally backed down. 

• A Washington state law, SB 6219, the “Reproductive Parity Act,” forces churches to cover elective abortions in health insurance plans. Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit on behalf of Cedar Park Assembly of God of Kirkland and has been battling for the church’s conscience protections for six years now. 

• Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit challenging an Illinois law “requiring all health insurance policies sold in the state to provide coverage for chemical and surgical abortions, with no exemptions, even for churches.” 

Scripture is clear that God created humans in His image: 

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. … 

So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. (Genesis 1:26-28)

Every individual ever conceived bears that image; in some mysterious way, each one of us is a “copy” or “graphic image” of the Creator. Christians have always believed that humans are unique in all creation, a visible representation of God. 

From its very beginning, the church condemned abortion as murder. The government should not attempt to force Christians to participate in grievous sin, and it shouldn’t take Christian groups thousands of dollars, countless hours and great effort to fight infringements of our First Amendment right to religious freedom. 

We’re grateful that the Department of Health and Human Services is pushing back against states that advocate the destruction of human life and trample on religious freedom. 

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Biden Administration Endangered Women With Abortion Pill Change, Research Finds

The Biden administration endangered and harmed thousands of women by canceling the requirement to visit a doctor in person before having the dangerous abortion pill prescribed or dispensed, new research has found.

The Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) released research on March 10 showing the Biden administration’s relaxing of the “in-person dispensing requirement” increased the rate of serious adverse events from 10.15% to 11.50%. This is a “statistically significant difference of 1.35 percentage points and an increase of 13%,” the EPPC notes.

The report was written by EPPC President Ryan T. Anderson and Director of Data Analysis Jamie Bryan Hall.

“Without requiring an in-person doctor visit, anyone can go online and get mail-order abortion pills,” said Anderson, adding,

There is no way to ensure that the unborn baby hasn’t grown so large that chemical abortion is unsafe for the mother, no way to ensure that the unborn baby isn’t implanted outside of the uterus where using chemical abortion drugs could prove deadly to the mother, and no way to ensure that it’s the mother who is voluntarily requesting the chemical abortion drugs and not a boyfriend seeking the pills to secretly and coercively poison her.

Tragically, exactly that happened in the case of Rosalie Markezich, a Louisiana woman coerced into taking abortion drugs by her boyfriend, who obtained them from a doctor in California via mail.

The Biden administration suspended the “in-person dispensing requirement” in 2021, making the change permanent in 2023. The requirement had been in effect since 2000, when the FDA first approved mifepristone, mandating the drug – the first in the two-drug abortion regimen – be dispensed and administered only in a clinic, medical office or hospital.

The 2021 changed allowed the drug to be obtained through the mail – allowing women to abort their baby without ever talking to another person – rather than from a licensed physician in an office setting.

Credit: EPPC

The new findings follow the EPPC’s release of a study last year finding the rate of serious adverse events from the abortion pill is far higher than the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had previously acknowledged.

According to that study, “nearly 11% of all women who abort their child with mifepristone suffer from life-threatening conditions, including sepsis, infection or hemorrhaging” – a rate 22 times higher than the FDA had claimed.

The FDA is currently reviewing the abortion pill’s safety profile at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s direction. Pro-life supporters, however, have raised concerns that the study is being delayed.

The EPPC’s latest findings provide new urgency for the FDA to crack down on the abortion pill and reinstate its safety guardrails – if not outright ban mifepristone – to protect women.

“Making America Healthy Again” demands nothing less.

At Focus on the Family, we have been working to turn the cultural tide and save mothers and babies from abortion for years. Since beginning the Option Ultrasound Program in 2004, Focus has helped save over half a million lives. Just $60 will help save a life through Option Ultrasound. Will you partner with us to save lives from abortion?

If you are experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and want to learn more about your options, you can visit My Choice Network.

Related articles and resources:

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I’m Pregnant, Now What?

Dealing With Unplanned Pregnancy

Become an Option Ultrasound Life Advocate

New Insights on the Dangers of the Abortion Pill

Overcoming Abortion and Becoming a Force for Life

Photo from Getty Images.

Pop Star Jokes About Fan’s Abortion, Encourages Others to do the Same

A rising pop star unapologetically joked about a fan killing her preborn baby last week — the sobering result of the decades-long devaluation of life in the West.

“I didn’t know I was pregnant here but at least my baby got to hear ‘Midnight Sun’ before I aborted it,” a fan of songstress Zara Larsson commented under a TikTok video of Larsson performing the song.

“I killed the performance and then you killed it after the performance purrrrrr,” Larsson replied, using a slang term meant to indicate strong approval or celebration.

The singer remained unapologetic — even gleeful — in the face of pro-life censure.

“Like, sorry, that’s funny,” Larsson said of her (mediocre) wordplay in a video responding Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins, who called the singer’s comments “sick.”

“Like, I don’t know what to say. That’s funny,” Larsson repeated.

The singer encouraged her followers to further trivialize abortion.

“Let’s make more jokes,” she said. “Like, abortion is healthcare.”

Hawkins’ responded to Larsson’s video on X, writing:

This is the culture of death the pro-abortion movement has created. We must end it.

Hawkins’ response refers to the systematic devaluation of life in American culture, evidenced by the legalization, normalization and celebration of killing preborn babies.

Larsson’s reprehensible comments illustrate a grim new iteration of the culture of death — the trivialization of murder.

Larsson and her fan reduced the death of a preborn child to a pithy exchange on social media. Even more disturbing, the duo joked about the baby’s death after humanizing him or her. The child’s mother admitted he or she could hear music. Larsson freely used the word “kill” to describe the child’s death.

You don’t kill “a clump of cells.” You kill a living being. But, in a culture of death, life ceases to matter.

I’m reminded of a line from C.S. Lewis’ eminently relevant The Screwtape Letters, in which Screwtape, a demon, describes humor as “an invaluable means of destroying shame.”

People continue toward damnation, Screwtape contends, when they discover “almost anything [they] want to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of [their] fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a joke.”

Larsson’s utter detachment from the gravity of murder illustrates how much influence the culture of death wields over hearts and minds.

It is vital, then, for pro-lifers to not only pursue legal protections for preborn children, but also to remind those who have forgotten that human life is intrinsically valuable.

Only when Americans reclaim the cultural value of life will abortion become unthinkable — and jokes like Larsson’s utterly unacceptable.

At Focus on the Family, we have been working to turn the cultural tide and save mothers and babies from abortion for years. Since beginning the Option Ultrasound Program in 2004, Focus has helped save over half a million lives. Just $60 will help save a life through Option Ultrasound. Will you partner with us to save lives from abortion?

If you are experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and want to learn more about your options, you can visit My Choice Network.

Related Articles and Resources:

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Resources for those considering abortion.

Resources for those recovering from abortion.

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I’m Pregnant, Now What?

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Become an Option Ultrasound Life Advocate

New Insights on the Dangers of the Abortion Pill

Overcoming Abortion and Becoming a Force for Life

Appeals Court Upholds Defunding of Big Abortion Businesses

Photo credit: TikTok/@honeyhazelwood, TikTok/@zaralarsson, Getty

Planned Parenthood Drops Suit After Trying to Force Taxpayers to Fund Abortions

Planned Parenthood has dropped its lawsuit attempting to block a provision of the One Big Beautiful Bill which prohibits taxpayer dollars from going to abortion providers for one year. The abortion giant dismissed its case Planned Parenthood v. Kennedy.

Last year, congressional Republicans utilized the reconciliation process to enact the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which President Donald J. Trump signed into law on July 4.

The bill contained a provision (Section 71113) defunding abortion providers – including Planned Parenthood – of Medicaid reimbursements to the tune of roughly $850 million.

Before the OBBBA’s enactment, while federal taxpayer dollars couldn’t directly pay for abortions, Medicaid dollars could be used for other services, which indirectly subsidized the abortion business. In its 2024 report, Planned Parenthood reported over $2 billion in income.

Thankfully, 50 Planned Parenthood clinics closed last year as a result of the OBBBA.

Within days of the law’s enactment, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit arguing Section 71113 was unconstitutional. Within hours, a federal district judge sided with the abortion giant and issued a temporary restraining order blocking the provision’s enforcement.

The Trump administration promptly appealed the ruling, and a three-judge panel on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the decision, agreeing that Congress has the constitutional authority to defund Big Abortion organizations.

When Congress utilizes its tax and spending power, it has “‘broad discretion’ to place ‘limits on the use of such funds to ensure they are used in the manner [it] intends,’” the court explained.

As a result, Planned Parenthood agreed to voluntarily dismiss the case rather than appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Planned Parenthood originally filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, knowing any appeal would be heard by the 1st Circuit – a notoriously liberal appeals court. But the abortion giant’s strategy didn’t pan out.

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement, calling the development a “key legal win for the pro-life cause.”

“The American people do not want their tax dollars propping up the abortion industry,” said Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel Erik Baptist, director of the ADF Center for Life, in a statement.

“This legal action should never have happened in the first place, and now we are assured that Planned Parenthood will not bypass the people’s choice to protect taxpayer funding.”

He added,

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed last year that states have the right to fund real care and exclude organizations like Planned Parenthood that profit off abortion, and we are glad to see the federal government following suit.

Since Section 71113 expires later this year, the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative House lawmakers, has proposed a second reconciliation bill which would extend the defunding provision.

Let’s hope and pray Section 71113 is extended so more babies lives can be saved from the tragedy of abortion.

The case is Planned Parenthood v. Kennedy.

At Focus on the Family, we have been working to turn the cultural tide and save mothers and babies from abortion for years. Since beginning the Option Ultrasound Program in 2004, Focus has helped save over half a million lives. Just $60 will help save a life through Option Ultrasound. Will you partner with us to save lives from abortion?

If you are experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and want to learn more about your options, you can visit My Choice Network.

Related articles and resources:

My Choice Network

I’m Pregnant, Now What?

Dealing With Unplanned Pregnancy

Become an Option Ultrasound Life Advocate

New Insights on the Dangers of the Abortion Pill

Overcoming Abortion and Becoming a Force for Life

Appeals Court Upholds Defunding of Big Abortion Businesses

Photo from Getty Images.

Why We March: Standing for Life with Hope and Resilience

Every January, tens of thousands of Americans gather in Washington, D.C. for the March for Life. They come from different backgrounds, ages, and walks of life, but they are united by the shared belief that every human life has value and deserves protection.

The March for Life is known for its young people, joyfulness, and an unmistakable sense of purpose. 

Families march together. Grandparents return year after year. High school and college studentstravel in large groups to attend. If you’ve ever been to a march, then you know that you’ll see more young people than any other demographic. The crowd is diverse, but the message is unified and clear — all human life matters, and it is worth defending.

What sets the March for Life apart from so many other public demonstrations is its tone. Even in the dead cold of January, the gathering is full of optimism. This is a movement rooted in the belief that truth still has the power to shape culture for good.

At today’s rally, President Trump addressed the crowd via video and was unmistakably clear in his message. He told the crowd that his administration is fully supportive of the pro-life movement because he recognizes that human life is inherently valuable and deserves protection.

Vice President Vance spoke in person to attendees and assured them that they have an ally in the White House. He shared that the Trump Administration will be expanding the Mexico City Policy to cover not just abortions abroad, but also DEI and radical gender ideology. Vice President Vance said the U.S. will block every international NGO that performs abortion abroad from receiving even a dollar of U.S. funding. 

Focus on the Family’s Vice President of Advocacy for Children, Robyn Chambers told the Daily Citizen that she’s often asked why the pro-life movement keeps marching even after Roe has been overturned. She says, “I march because women are still being harmed, lives are lost, and the culture tells us abortion is healthcare and two little pills can ‘fix’ the problem. As long as those lies continue to hurt women and their children, I’ll march, protect and stand for life!”

One of the most encouraging sights each year is the strong presence of young people. High school and college students make up a significant portion of the crowd, bringing energy and clarity to the cause. They reject the premise that abortion is inevitable or necessary. Many see it instead as a challenge their generation is determined to confront with compassion and creativity. Generational commitment matters. Cultural change is slow, and it requires persistence. 

Being pro-life means caring and acting in practical, tangible ways. According to a Charlotte Lozier Institute report, in 2024, pregnancy resource centers nationwide provided over $452 million in care, education, and material support.

The pro-life movement should be proud of how they are stepping up and serving women and babies. It’s making a difference.

The March for Life is a public witness to the world that the most vulnerable in our society deserve protection. We march because life has inherent value regardless of age, location, ability or dependency.

We will continue to march, year after year, until every life is recognized as valuable, every mother is supported, and our laws and culture reflect the fundamental truth that every human life is a gift.