Americans United for Life joined forces with other pro-life legal organizations to file the leading pro-life amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Obama Administration’s healthcare law, violates the Constitution by forcing Americans to pay for abortion.

AUL President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest stated, “President Obama’s healthcare overhaul includes an ‘abortion premium mandate’ that blatantly violates the conscience rights and First Amendment religious rights of millions of Americans. Nowhere in the Constitution does it require Americans to violate their beliefs and pay for abortions.”

Yoest noted that courts agreed with her assessment. “The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Affordable Care Act, including the ‘abortion premium mandate’, was ‘an unprecedented exercise of congressional power.’ Today’s amicus brief demonstrates to the Supreme Court that the Eleventh Circuit was correct in their analysis,” she said.

Nestled within the “individual mandate” in the Act—that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government-approved insurance or pay a penalty—is an “abortion premium mandate.”

This mandate requires all persons enrolled in insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage to pay a separate premium from their own pockets to fund abortion. As a result, pro-life Americans will have to decide between a plan that violates their consciences by funding abortion, or a plan that may not meet their health needs.

“Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a clear abortion agenda hidden in the pages of the healthcare law through the controversy surrounding the abortion-inducing drug mandate,” said Dr.Yoest.

“Forcing either companies or individuals to pay for abortion-inducing drugs against their consciences is a clear violation of the rights of individuals under the First Amendment. This case is further evidence that abortion is included throughout the healthcare law.

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