Weakening Conscience Protection: A Direct Attack on the Bible
President Obama has announced that he will rescind the conscience protection for medical workers that currently provides them legal protection for refusing to violate their conscience by participating in abortions.
Significantly, the Bible makes the rights of conscience a repeated subject of emphasis, with thirty references in the New Testament alone. The warning is even issued that if an individual "wounds a weak conscience of another, you have sinned" (I Corinthians 8:12). Christians were therefore instructed to respect the differing rights of conscience (v. 13). (See also I Corinthians 10:27-29.)
The rights of conscience have long been a cherished characteristic of the American civil fabric, and America's Framers openly praised these protections:
- No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience. THOMAS JEFFERSON, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION
- Consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation. WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION
- Security under our Constitution is given to the rights of conscience. JOHN JAY, ORIGINAL CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE U. S. SUPREME COURT
- Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . . [and] conscience is the most sacred of all property. JAMES MADISON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION
Today, the safeguards for the rights of conscience now appear in forty-seven state constitutions. The President's decision to rescind these protections places him in direct opposition to four centuries of America's civic and religious leaders.
We have just finished a piece that addresses conscience protection from a Biblical and historic perspective.
You can read this piece online, or download it .Please share this information with friends and encourage them to contact their elected officials, urging them to preserve conscience protection for medical workers.Protection for the rights of conscience is just one more reason that Biblical Christianity is so beneficial to a culture and why its principles must be preserved in public policy
