Pre born lives matter

Pre-born Lives Matter Wavering like a piano metronome my emotions swing from despair to hope regarding the pending presidential election. For me, the number one issue is federal and state mandated elective abortion coverage requiring health plans to cover the cost of killing innocent human life that has no voice.

Hillary Clinton said that Obamacare was called Hillarycare before Obama became president. In recent presidential debates, if elected, she promises to fix and improve the Affordable Care Act, passed by Obama, now known as Obamacare and is facing rising premium costs and cancellations nationwide.

Donald Trump promises to repeal it in his first 100 days in office.

As a pro-life Christian business owner in California, employing over 600 persons, I am challenged to find a health care plan that I can, in good conscience, offer to my employees that doesn’t include elective abortion or abortion inducing drugs, or makes allowances for abortion in cases of rape or incest at company expense. I do believe in some cases in order to preserve the life of the mother, the life of the child must come secondary to the mother’s life.

God’s word, Psalm 139 declares, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.”

The days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God.” God knows us, has a plan for our days, and thinks about us from the moment of conception. We are His design, and He has a purpose for us. Who are we to kill it? Yet we have allowed more than 60 million children to be killed in the womb before they had a chance to be born- a staggering number since 1973 (Roe v. Wade).

The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (emphasis added).

Each human life is unique, is beautiful, is precious, and has infinite value because we bear God’s image (the Imago Dei). Because life is precious God’s word forbids the intentional killing of another human being (Exodus 20:13).

Hillary says she thinks government should stay out of this highly personal decision. That statement is inconsistent with what is happening in the marketplace and the Democratic Party Platform.

Through tactics that hide information or slow down the flow of information (lack of transparency), my choices are unclear concerning this issue. What I do know is that government is not out of the decisions concerning health care. The same dollars my companies produce to pay taxes are now being mandated by state and federal governments to fund abortions.

The California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC), and its director Michelle Rouillard, issued a mandate in August 2014 requiring group health insurance plans issued in California to “provide coverage for all legal abortions, including voluntary and elective ones.” The DMHC based this requirement on its

interpretation of the Knox-Keen Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, a California law that requires employer health plans to cover “basic health-care services.” Abortion is a basic health care service?

Really?

And it’s not just state government intruding on our religious right of conscience, the federal government is going the same way. In fact, Hillary, as president, will usher in the 2016 platform that will for the first time carry an explicit call to repeal the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment is a legislative provision barring the use of certain federal funds (taxes) to pay for abortion except to save the life of the mother, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape.

The Obama Administration is hiding the massive taxpayer funding for abortion that is in Obamacare.

Obamacare contains subsidies/funds for plans with elective abortion coverage.

I am appalled that recent laws and insurance regulations have put pressure on me unethically to fund healthcare coverage that includes elective abortions. Because of my biblically informed worldview, I believe that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life or murder. So why should I be forced by the government to violate my conscience and pay for abortions?

I may have some options in 2017. There are still some questions to ask concerning the eligibility of my company to apply for Multi-State Plans (MSP) or find a self-funding plan for my company to offer its employees. There are four Multi-State Plans (MSP) that are a health insurance plans issued by a private carrier that is under contract to the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that do not include elective abortion coverage. This is up from two last year. More research is needed to understand if and how this can apply to my company.

However, these options are not agreeable to everyone. Attorneys from the conservative legal advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in February 2016 filed a lawsuit in California state court charging that the state’s health department is unlawfully forcing churches to pay for elective abortion coverage in health insurance plans. ADF filed the lawsuit on behalf of Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa. The DMHC and Rouillard have not yet responded to this latest lawsuit.

It gets worse. California is the first state to petition the federal government for the right to provide abortion coverage to illegal aliens.

The American people should not be forced to subsidize others’ abortions. Pro-choice isn’t so pro-choice when it forcibly robs one’s tax dollars and insurance premium payments to pay for others’ abortions.

Choice doesn’t just apply to the women making a choice about her pregnancy, it also applies to the business owner that doesn’t want to fund another’s choice to abort their child. Where there is liberty there is Christ. Any decision that doesn’t factor in God’s heart in the matter is unwise. We are risking God’s protections and blessings.

A Trump presidency will allow all people to truly make a personal decision regarding abortion and will keep the government out of funding these decisions by other’s opposed to doing so.

As we vote tomorrow, I implore Christians and people of good will everywhere to carefully consider the impact of this election on pre-born lives and our right of conscience. Hillary Clinton, who was given planned parenthood’s Margaret Sanger award twice, has made it clear that she will appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who will uphold abortion on demand, including horrific late-term partial birth

abortions (through the ninth month of pregnancy). A Hillary Clinton Presidency promises to sustain and accelerate abortions across the board, allow the grotesque illegal trafficking in baby body parts, and continue to sanction the pressuring of Christian employers like me to pay for abortions in Violation of the Hyde Amendment and my conscience.

In addition to other recent examples of corruption and lawlessness, including her antipathy towards the U.S. Constitution, I submit if Hillary Clinton is unwilling to defend the lives of weak and helpless babies in the womb, how can she be entrusted to steward our other precious civil rights and civil liberties while in office, including religious freedom?

This is why serious Christian voters should steadfastly refuse to support candidates who fail to protect the most innocent of their citizen constituents- the pre-born. Their lives matter.

However the election turns out, I know my God is in charge. He is where our true hope is found. I just want all to know now about the coercive and intrusive nature of our government and the need to stand firm in beliefs that honor our Lord. May His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Judy Jones-Cone Owner of several automotive companies in North County, San Diego Judycone1@hotmail.com