Democrats ‘Are Coming for Your Rights, Especially Christians’: Congressman

Under the guise of protecting access to contraception, Democratic leaders in Congress have introduced “a Trojan Horse” that protects abortion on demand while denying Christians the religious freedom to opt out of chemical abortions. 

“Believe me, they are coming for your rights — especially Christians. Especially,” warned Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) on Friday.

The House of Representatives passed the “Right to Contraception Act” (H.R. 8373) Thursday morning, 228-195, with eight Republican votes. While congressional sponsors say the bill merely assures women’s right to access birth control in case the Supreme Court overturns the 1965 opinion that undergirded Roe v. Wade, a close analysis shows it could stop states from banning chemical abortions, prevent regulation of abortionists’ offices, and override religious freedom protections.

“It’s a Trojan Horse in a number of respects,” Rep. Bishop told “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm.

The bill “defines contraceptives so broadly so as to likely include abortion pills such as RU-486, which can be taken weeks and months into pregnancy to cause abortions,” states the National Right to Life Committee. For that reason, NRLC, which does not oppose contraception, opposes this bill. Numerous drugs the government deems “contraception” do, or may potentially, act as abortfacients, as Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life demonstrated in a recent video.

Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry hope the bill will let them “facilitate abortion by other means,” said Bishop, and using contraception “as a back door to forcing abortion even on those states that may decide to limit or ban it.”

This bill could prevent pro-life legislators, or presidents, from denying revenue streams to abortion facilities. It bars any law that a judge might rule “singles out … facilities in which” contraception “is provided.” Nearly every Planned Parenthood office distributes birth control, and many perform abortions under the same roof. The bill then allows “health care providers” (i.e., abortionists) to sue any state restricting “contraception” for damages. SBA Pro-Life America calls the bill the “Payouts for Planned Parenthood Act.”

Ending policies that forced pro-life Americans to fund abortionists guided recent presidents. Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump both enacted the Protect Life Rule banning federal funding from going to such institutions, but Joe Biden reversed the order last October — and awarded an additional $10 million to a dozen Planned Parenthood affiliates.

“A future pro-life president should not be precluded … from reestablishing the Protect Life Rule or any similar policy,” said Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), founder and chairman of the House Pro-life Caucus. “Title X was intended to be about family planning — prevention — not the hideous dismemberment, beheading, chemical poisoning, or deliberate starvation and forced expulsion of a defenseless unborn baby.”

Most distressingly, H.R.8373 threatens the religious liberty of pro-life Christians and members of other religions by overriding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). That removes the most effective legal believers have to live out their faith, obey their conscience, and decline participating in a medical abortion — and its spiritual consequences. “A pharmacist should have the right to deny filling a prescription if they know that it’s going to be used for an abortion and if they morally object to that,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.)told Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, last week.

Limiting the free exercise of religion lies behind a multitude of social problems, well beyond this bill’s potential to encourage sexual promiscuity and abortion. “Almost everything that plagues our culture is a failure to follow God’s design for marriage, God’s design for morality, and God’s design for the family,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) told Backholm Friday. “And you see this relentless assault for these last 60 years on the foundations that uphold who we are as a nation.”

Bishop agreed that Democrats “despise your right under the First Amendment to worship, just like they despise your right to keep and bear arms in Second Amendment. They really don’t like conservatives having the right to speak under the First Amendment.” 

“It’s a constant attack on rights,” he said.

The eight Republicans voted for H.R. 8373 are: Liz Cheney (Wyoming), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), John Katko (New York), Adam Kinzinger (Illinois), Nancy Mace (South Carolina), Maria Salazar (Florida), and Fred Upton (Michigan).