Pro-Life Legal Group May File Lawsuit Against Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 4, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Pro-Life Legal Group May File Lawsuit Against Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 4
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Should Congress approve and President Barack Obama sign the pro-abortion health care bill pending in Congress, a pro-life legal group says it would likely file a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Liberty Council would file a legal challenge against the measure over abortion and other political issues.

"The current healthcare bills pending in the Senate and the House are unconstitutional, because Congress lacks the authority to mandate insurance coverage for individuals or private businesses," the group said in a statement today that LifeNews.com obtained.

"Congress clearly lacks the constitutional authority to force individuals to have, or private businesses to provide, health insurance. Congress’s attempt to force health insurance coverage on the nation is a stunning example of what Congress cannot do," the group continued.

"If a bill passes that mandates individual coverage or requires private employers to provide coverage, Liberty Counsel will file suit challenging the constitutionality of the bill," the organization promised.

Liberty University, a Christian Virginia-based college with over 50,000 students, would be one of the plaintiffs in such a legal challenge. The pro-life legal group is affiliated with it.

Mathew Staver, the head of Liberty Counsel and dean of the of Liberty University School of Law, talked more about a potential lawsuit.

"The Taxing and Spending Clause and the Commerce Clause are the two primary provisions of the Constitution that enable Congress to act. The healthcare bills do not fall under the Taxing and Spending Clause. Moreover, unlike some other laws Congress passes which impose requirements on states that accept federal funds, the healthcare bills impose requirements on individuals and private employers who refuse to accept the government mandate," he explained.

"In order to regulate under the Commerce Clause, the activity must affect interstate commerce. Individual decisions about health insurance do not, in most cases, affect interstate commerce. Yet, the proposed bills force coverage on individuals and private employers, no matter how far removed their activities are from interstate commerce," he added.

Staver expressed confidence about winning such a lawsuit, saying the Supreme Court has cut back on Congress’s authority to regulate private or local matters of concern.

“If Congress had the power to force each person to have health insurance, then individual liberty would be meaningless," he said.

"No matter the desires of some elected officials, there are some things Congress cannot do. No one wants the federal government or a pencil-pushing bureaucrat in Washington policing private medical decisions," Staver said.

He concluded: "The threat to liberty posed by the healthcare bills goes beyond healthcare. If Congress can get away with this expansive power grab, then individual liberty and state sovereignty will vanish. The healthcare bills are patently unconstitutional.”

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