With just three hours left in the 2012 session of the Missouri General Assembly, legislators passed a bill upholding religious liberties and protecting rights of conscience for the citizens of Missouri. Sen. John Lamping (R-Clayton) sponsored SB 749, which passed by supermajorities in both chambers. Twenty-eight out of 34 senators and 105 out of 163 [...]

It’s rare these days that a piece of legislation receives overwhelming bipartisan support in the Missouri General Assembly. But that’s what happened this week when the House and Senate gave final approval to HB 1525, known as the Justice Reinvestment Act. Sponsored by Rep. Gary Fuhr (R-St. Louis), this bill modifies provisions relating to probation, [...]

The Health Insurance Committee of the Missouri House is set to act on SB 749 next Tuesday, May 8. Committee Chair Chris Molendorp (R-Raymore) plans to present a House Committee Substitute (HCS) for the bill that will require health insurance carriers to write policies, upon request, that exclude coverage for abortion drugs, contraceptives and sterilization [...]

Bishop John Gaydos of the Diocese of Jefferson City asked members of the Missouri House Health Insurance Committee to support a bill that would defend conscience rights in health plans by ensuring that insurance companies will, upon request, write policies that exclude abortion drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures. “To put it simply, no person should [...]

The 18th-century British statesman Edmund Burke once astutely observed: “The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.” The delusion offered by the Obama Administration is that you can get something (in this case contraceptives) for free, with no cost to yourself. In fact, the cost is very high: we are asked to [...]

By Tyler McClay, general counsel for the MCC President Obama’s so-called “accommodation” on the HHS contraceptive mandate changes nothing. Catholic-affiliated hospitals, charities, universities and schools are still going to be required to provide contraception, sterilization and potentially abortion-inducing emergency contraception in their health plans. Saying that the institution’s insurance company will pay for the offending [...]

In 1948, Britain’s National Health Insurance (NHS) went into operation. It provided free and universal health care to all Britons. Today, Britain’s per person spending on health care is one of the lowest among industrialized nations. Such a single-payer system is the Holy Grail of many American progressives, who are critical of the new Patient [...]

By Mike Hoey, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference After the Rally for Religious Liberty on March 27, I was making my way through a sea of red on the second floor of the Missouri State Capitol when an angry man accosted me and bitterly denounced the bishops for caving in to Obama. I [...]

The Senate General Laws Committee heard testimony this week on HB 1541, sponsored by Rep. Tim Jones (R-Eureka), which would allow health care workers to opt out of participating in certain medical procedures that violate their conscience. The procedures include abortion, provision of abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, sterilization, assisted reproduction, human cloning, human embryonic research, human [...]