One thing that would most likely happen if House Bill 2409 or its sister-bill, Senate Bill 6219, passes this legislative session in Olympia is St. Louise School, along with the hundred other Catholic schools in our state, would have abortion coverage in our health insurance plans. A few years ago, when the insurance industry was changed with "The Affordable Care Act/Obamacare," religious businesses and religious institutions such as our Seattle Archdiocese were exempt from having to include in their insurance plans coverage for their employees' abortions. Both the House bill and Senate bill are trying to get the Archdiocese (among other religious businesses) to now also begin paying for abortions for their Catholic school faculty and parish staff. I'm not sure if you would call that "incompatible," or simply "abhorrent."

If you want to add to the WSCC's efforts in working at making sure this newly proposed legislation does not pass, you need to first identify which legislators in Olympia represent you. You may look them up  HERE  by typing in your home address. Once you find the names of the two House Representatives in your Legislative District and your one Senator, please contact all three of them via phone or email and leave a polite message telling the two Representatives that HB 2409 needs to be defeated, and telling the Senator that SB 6219 needs to be defeated. Here are some talking points you could use:

1. The Bill promotes the destruction of human life;
2. The Bill violates the fundamental right of conscience, guaranteed by our state and national Constitutions, which allows Americans to refuse on the grounds that a particular activity would be contrary to their religious beliefs or moral convictions;
3. The Bill violates the Free Exercise Clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof") by not granting exemptions for churches/religious employers who have religious objections to abortion.

A faster way to contact your Senator in Olympia is to use the Washington State Catholic Conference's auto-generated emails, where you simply add you name and address, and a "don't pass the bill" email is automatically sent to your Senator. You can use the WSCC's auto-generated system HERE to let Olympia know you don't approve of the Senate Bill. (There was no similar auto-feature created for the House Bill.)

 

If you would like to receive email alerts from the WSCC on these bills, or when a future proposed bill is being debated in Olympia which is either going against Catholic values, or is endorsed by Catholic values, you may sign up to receive these alerts HERE.

Thanks for your concern for the unborn and for the rights of Catholic institutions. As I said, this Parent Bulletin will rarely include "political messages," but the one fundamental issue I am adamant about is protecting life and opposing abortion. My passion for "life" was ignited when my wife and I adopted our two children. We realized that kids like ours are "loved twice" - once by the birthmother who chose to have the child and then chose the gift of adoption, and once by the adoptive parents who accepted the child and loves him/her for the rest of the child's life. Our children's birthmothers could have chosen abortion, but they chose life, and my wife and I are forever grateful. ...Of course, our two kids are also grateful of the choices their birthmothers made! ;-)

Besides myself, others in the St. Louise School community know personally the blessings of adoption in their families and cherish the fact that the children's birthmothers chose life. We encourage you to join us in helping portray the goodness of adoption and its message of life and love, as contrasted with the destruction and pain that abortion brings.

	Last year, the Wilkens attended the March for Life at our state capitol, and they plan to be there again this Monday. You may email Amy Wilken if you have questions about the 'how/what/where' of attending this event on the 22nd.

The "March for Life" is both a national event  and local event occurring annually at this time of year. Pro-life groups and concerned individuals unite and strategize to communicate their pro-life message to the government and to the media in a powerful and life affirming way.  Whereas the national March for Life is tomorrow in Washington D.C., the local march is in the other-Washington - i.e. Olympia - this Monday, January 22.

 

St. Louise Parish's "Gospel of Life" group will be providing transportation to Olympia leaving St. Louise at 10AM this Monday, and returning around 3PM. You may reserve your seat by calling George Lorr at 425-497-1715. Also, there is a Mass for Life at St. Martin's University in Lacey at 9:30 on Monday, and many Catholics attend that first, and then head to Olympia afterward.

Thanks for reading,

Mr. Fitz