Rep. Carlos Bilbao, R-Emmett, is pushing emergency legislation to permit any insurance policy in Idaho to exclude coverage for contraception, sterilization or abortion-inducing drugs, along with a memorial to Congress, HJM 10, backing legislation to amend the national health care reform law to allow insurers and employers to decline to offer coverage they object to on religious or moral grounds. The bill, HB 530, came up for a hearing in the House Health & Welfare Committee this afternoon, but the committee's agenda hadn't been properly posted, so Chair Janice McGeachin, R-Idaho Falls, said she'd take testimony today but then take both measures up again on Monday.

"It is an attack on my rights of conscience," said Bilbao, a Catholic, reports Dan Popkey of the Idaho Statesman newspaper. "It is an affront to my religious freedoms...It is not right that we have to bow down and take something that is against our moral beliefs." You can read Popkey's full post here.

Monica Hopkins, executive director of the Idaho ACLU, testified against the memorial, saying it backs "radical" legislation in Congress under which "the religious beliefs of some are forced on the lives of others." She said the approach also would constitute sex discrimination, by denying essential health care only to women. She noted that birth control drugs and sterilization often are prescribed for health purposes other than contraception.

Rep. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, said, "I don't think the issue here is if contraception is valuable or not. The issue here is should some people be required to buy insurance that covers it if they don't want to." Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston, a retired physician and former health insurance executive, noted that most Americans get health care plans that are provided by their employers, so the bill addresses the employer's or insurer's decision, not the employee's.