While legislators on Capitol Hill are tinkering over a national health care bill, Catholics anxiously watch to see what form the legislation might take. Though Catholics, including the U.S. Conference of Bishops, call for a reform, there is apprehension over whether the bill will be genuinely concerned with providing health care, or instead used as an opportunity to fund abortions and undermine conscience protection practices.
These concerns are grounded on the fact that amendments to the bill such as the Caps and Ellsworth Amendments seek to re-write present policy practices on federal funding of abortions. As such, health reform is being used by pro abortion groups and individuals to change long standing practices. Members of Congress, in particular Speaker Pelosi, are not even permitting amendments geared to introduce language into the bill which will assure present abortion funding policies from being brought to the floor for debate or vote. One such amendment is the Stupak-Pitt Amendment, a bi-partisan attempt to assure that longstanding policy on abortion funding be maintained. Instead, what is being pushed is the Ellsworth Amendment, which merely disguises abortion funding, thus only giving the appearance of abortion funding prohibition. Instead of seeking genuine health reform, what is being sought is the expansion of abortions. Add this latest development to the earlier actions of President Obama, who shortly after taking office reversed the Mexico City Policy (thus permitting U.S. foreign aid to be used to support abortions abroad), indicated he may rescind the Conscience Protection practices signed by President Bush, and appointed Kathleen Sebelius (considered a strong pro-choice activist) as head of Health and Human Services, trying to make an abortion-free health care bill seems unlikely.
The bi-partisan Stupak-Pitt Amendment being an exception, much of the debate on Capitol Hill is political, with sides for or against reform being drawn along party lines. The Stupak-Pitt Amendment however is primarily grounded on a moral principle-protection of life.
For Catholics, too, the issue is more than just political. Following the bishops’ lead, many Catholics consider health care a “basic human right” and as such see health reform as a moral issue. Thus, genuine reform has to be harmonious with the moral principle that all human life, regardless of its stage of development and social standing, is sacred and deserving of protection. With this as the moral background, the bishops stated in their September letter to the Senate that health coverage has to be for “all people and protect the life, dignity, and health of all.” Genuine health reform needs to “uphold longstanding laws that restrict abortion funding and protect conscience rights, and... safeguard the health of immigrants, their children and all of society.”
We could argue that proper health care should not be defined by providing for abortions, but instead aim at assuring that both the woman and the newly conceived receive proper health coverage. As such, health care reform should aim to simultaneously provide care to both the mother and the newly conceived. Unfortunately, many pro-abortion proponents, among them Planned Parenthood, insist that abortions be covered, either directly or indirectly in the bill. Such insistence, along with Speaker Pelosi preventing a legitimate debate and vote on the floor on the issue, is threatening the bill. Presently, due to the lack of language in the bill supporting the moral concerns of conscientious pro-life communities, including the Catholic community, the White House and Capitol Hill are making it difficult for Catholics, and sincere members of the pro-life community to wholeheartedly support any health care bill coming out of Washington D.C.
The Catholic bishops are speaking not as legislators but as moral leaders. As such, the moral guidelines they provide need to be transformed into practical legislative language. Regardless of who is espousing a moral principle, it is often difficult to translate morality into a piece of legislation. Though morally we may all agree that we should `love our neighbor,’ we may disagree on what is the legal equivalent of a neighbor, and on how in particular, in our daily actions, we are to express the legal definition of love. Though laws should be grounded on moral principles, it is very difficult to consistently give a concrete expression of a moral principle in a broad and comprehensive piece of legislation such as the one we are presently attempting to form. Add party politics into the mix and the task becomes ever more challenging.
That being said, though we may not figure out how we are to legally define `loving our neighbor,’ we may at least define actions which seem counterintuitive to the principle. For example, though we may not define love, or specify how to legally express it, we can at least say that we should not kill innocent members of our community. The law cannot force me to be kind to the person who cut me off in traffic, but it can demand that I do not run him off the road.
Health care reform, whatever shape it takes, should at least be abortion free. We should not permit an issue that has been used as a political tool to divide communities, now be used to endanger much-needed health care reform. It seems to me that one simple way to unite people behind the bill, and to simultaneously weaken the conservative detractors from health care reform (individuals who may be using the abortion issue as merely a political tool), is for our political leaders to insert language into the bill that clearly states that abortions will not funded by this legislation.
Health care reform is too important to be sabotaged by pro-abortion proponents, or by party conservatives who have used the issue as a tool for division. For the sake of all those individuals and families who are suffering due to lack of proper health care coverage, let us not lose this opportunity for change by insisting that abortions be covered in the bill.
Call your Federal representative now and tell them to focus on health reform and not on the promotion of abortion.
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Comments
Hope your article and the voices of many others will help! Thanks!
Ramon, I think you are right on. This huge bill seems to be a pay back to special interests groups (Planned Parenthood....)and isn't focusing on true reform.
I knew health care reform would not be allowed to survive. It will be denied on basis of religious beliefs. How many lives will be lost or shortened over the next twenty years when health care reform is canceled. I am outraged when a medical savings account is offered as a solution. Those in need of health care reform could afford medical insurance if they had money to save in a medical savings account. Good paying middle class manufacturing jobs with benefits have been exported. With these jobs the base for the high paying medical jobs disappeared. Middle class, large section of the population, lower pay no medical insurance. Where is the money going to come from to support our fine medical system? We need health care reform now and it will be shot down by religious beliefs not merit. If this bill is not passed it will not be coming back any time soon. The last time was early in the Clinton administration.
Jack: As the vote demonstrated it is possible to have genuine heath reform without embrassing abortion-Both the Stupack Amendment and the bill itself passed. The only obstacle to reform now if from the pro-abortion side.
Secondly, though many people of faith are pro-life, being anti- abortion is primarily a moral position (governed by reason). The anti-abortion camp includes both people of faith and non-believers.
If you are watching the news you would see the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops continue their efforts to change the law of the land by threatening to kill the health care bill. If elected officials must consult the Catholic Church to enact health care laws I see that as a problem. Many people do not want the government making decisions for their doctor. I do not want the church making my medical decisions. I am a 55yo male, abortion will never result from my actions. I don't care if abortion is allowed or not. I do need AFFORDABLE health care and I am offended that it will be torpedoed on religious or personal values not the LAW.
Jack: Thank you for your comments. They are appreciated. Two points you bring up. First, regarding the`law of the land'. Since the 1970s no federal money has been allocated to subsidized abortions. This has been the law of the land. The new heath care bill, (a new posible law) as first presented on the floor (containing the Capps amendment) attempted to change the law of the land. The Stupak amendment only assured that the law of the land be maintained.
Secondly, our system of govenrment safeguards that all citizens, regardless of religious affiliation have an equal voice in the public space. To exclude religious voices from the public arena is not American. Neither the Catholic Church or its bishops is not an official government institution. As such the separation of Church and State is maintained. In our legal sytem, a person or group of individuals do not lose their rights or responsibilites as citizens when they join a religion.
Well, ya know, many Catholics like me think that reproductive healthcare should be funded because they have a legal right to reproductive healthcare.
1. My concern is the suffering many will endure and possible deaths that will occur if AFFORDABLE health care is not available for all. Needless suffering and early death for those who can not afford a doctor has been a part of this country since its beginning. I think it is time for that to change. The fact that this health care bill would denied because it may include coverage for any LEGAL medical procedure infuriates me. Were we to go with the teachings of Christian Scientists we would not support medicine or doctors. To think that the poor and those with preexisting conditions will continue to suffer and die an early death because of what is overwhelming a religious issue and in not now any way related to the legal practice of medicine.
2. Yes regardless of religious affiliation have an equal voice but when that message considered do the religious values of some have a legal right to affect the medical treatment of all. I don't want a Christian Scientists determining my medical
Just an additional thought. Would you consider ending insurance for public employees as it may be used for abortion? If affordable insurance is to be denied based on inclusion or exclusion of abortion language or on cost perhaps we should reconsider the billions of dollars spent on insurance subsidies for public employees. Are health care opponents fighting on moral and finical beliefs or supporting the health insurance industry?
I couldn't be more thrilled with our collapsing health structure. A return to our shamanic roots is inevitable. Doctors are dangerous, the leading cause of death. I have books on herbs, teas and plants that are useful medicinally and there are tons of everyday garden vareity plants can induce miscarriages, like a natural RU486 or morning after pill. But this is natural, plenty of morning after teas to choose from, and right in your back yard.
Shaman Guy. If one day you should fall off a ladder and break your femur just below the hip socket what shamanic root are you going to take for that poison hemlock. I needed a surgeon to realign the broken bone and install three large screws to reattach my leg to my ass. Without that surgical procedure I would have lost my leg and they would be calling me Jumping Jack. It is great that you can take care of your self through the use of plants and not chemicals but there are traumatic injuries and devastating disease that without modern medicine you will be dead or wish you were.
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