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Urgent: Block the Blunt Amendment

Laura W. Murphy, ACLU

It's hard to believe, but it's true. Within hours, the U.S. Senate could vote on a measure that could give any insurer or employer the right to refuse people coverage for any health care service required under the Affordable Care Act. All they'd have to do is cite undefined "religious beliefs or moral convictions."

Please contact your Senators immediately. (Do not forward: This link will open a page with your information already filled in.)

The radically broad Blunt Amendment — which they are trying to attach to the highway funding bill — would roll back access to birth control. But that's not all. Coverage for maternity care, testing for HIV, mental health services, screening for cervical cancer — any or all of these services could be denied to people if this dangerous measure were to become the law of the land.

The Blunt Amendment is just the first of what we expect to be many similar attacks. We have to recognize these attacks for what they are — blatant attempts to redefine religious liberty as the ability to impose one's religious beliefs and convictions on other people.

Tell your Senators that's not religious freedom. Urge them to actively oppose the Blunt Amendment's efforts to let employers and insurers impose their beliefs on the rest of us.

Let's be clear. The Blunt Amendment is nothing more than a license to discriminate. A restaurant owner could deny its unmarried employees coverage for screenings for infections that cause cervical cancer out of religious opposition to premarital sex.

An insurance company could refuse to provide coverage for HIV testing, or preventive health care related to obesity out of a moral objection. The potential consequences of this outrageous measure know no limits.

Urge your Senators to stand up for true religious freedom and stand against laws that would permit people to impose their beliefs on the rest of us.

The Blunt Amendment and other bills with the license to discriminate would deprive millions of people access to essential health care services. We can't let that happen. We can't let people use the law as a bludgeon to impose their moral beliefs on the rest of us.

Please tell your Senators you've had enough. Urge them to soundly defeat the Blunt Amendment today and hold the line against all other assaults.