The US Catholic Conference of Bishops is telling priests to oppose health care reform in upcoming weekly masses with both leaflets and in sermons – by saying that it will provide for abortions.
This is a lie and a shame for all Catholics and people who view providing basic health care to the 47 million without health care in the US a moral obligation.
As President Obama stated in his address to Congress, the health care bill does not provide money for abortions.
“As you have done to the least of these, so have you done unto me”
Story here
Catholic pastors directed to distribute anti-health reform materials at mass
by John Tomasic
This past weekend the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops instructed pastors at parishes across the country to distribute material urging Catholics to oppose the health reform bills making their way through Congress for allowing public funding of abortions. Priests were to insert the Bishops Conference pdf leaflets and letters into parish news bulletins, distribute them at church doors or place them in pews. They were also directed to read a statement at mass to reinforce the message.
The Lie
HEALTH CARE REFORM IS ABOUT SAVING LIVES, NOT DESTROYING THEM.Abortion is not health care because killing is not healing.
For over 30 years, the Hyde Amendment and other longstanding and widely
supported laws have prevented federal funding of elective abortions.
Yet health care reform bills advancing in Congress violate this policy.
Americans would be forced to subsidize abortions through their taxes and health insurance premiums. We need genuine health care reform- reform that helps save lives, not destroy them.Tell Congress: “Remove Abortion Funding and Mandates from Needed
Health Care Reform!”Visit www.usccb.org/action to send your e-mails today.
For more information on the U.S. bishops’ advocacy for authentic Health Care
Reform, visit www.usccb.org/healthcare.
The truth
WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius pledged Sunday that President Barack Obama will support barring public funding for abortion in any health care overhaul legislation.
“That’s exactly what the president said and I think that’s what he intends, that the bill he signs will do,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.”
at 1:45 in the video – the President says it will not fund abortions
Oddly enough, the Catholic statement instructing Priests on how to discuss this issue in the Mass also criticizes the Bill for not providing health care for immigrants – a point Republicans have been very critical of, as when Joe Wilson shouted ‘You Lie’ to the President.
No matter what, we must have an HONEST discussion on this issue – from our moral leaders, especially our Churches.
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but these Catholics are focused on the actual language in the bill,
rather than on what some politician says is in the bill.
Just a suggestion, but you could go look up the actual language. In the version available before today, there was an explicit statement on page 110 about funding abortion.
Ms. Pelosi issued a new version this morning, so I don’t have the current page number.
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You could also explain why you think its odd that the one most consistent voice advocating for immigrants, the Catholic Church, is once again advocating for immigrants.
Don’t go conflating “GOP” with “Catholic” or “Conservative.” The GOP has more in common with the Democratic Party than with either of them.
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And it reads like medical insurance.
So if I have a moral objection to some other legal medical procedure, should that come out too? What if millions of Americans find it morally objectionable?
I know, the anti-abortion position is that abortion isn’t a medical procedure. But the way I understand it, the law in this country says it is.
The bishops are for universal access. not in the bill- not gonna be anytime soon.
They want a strong conscience clause (which I don’t claim to understand)
And they want no federal funds to pay for abortion.
And I’ve alwasy thought the Democratic Party had more in common with the Catholic Church than any other major American political party. But maybe that’s just the Chicago archdiocese in me.
…Should public funds finance treatment, and a possible vaccine, against HIV-AIDS in gays if it is shown to have been transmitted through a sexual act, and/or if such a vaccine were shown to remove inhibitions against same-sex sex?
…IF complications in pregnancy pose a dilemma–life of the fetus vs life of the mother–should the law mandate the former over the latter in all cases?
…Should the law ban insurance payments for birth control devices or medications IF citizens receive tax credits or other public assistance to acquire that insurance?
…Does the Church endorse incorporating its teachings into laws that affect all non-believers and non-Catholics? (We know the answer to that question, and I think we know the rationale behind it. Trouble is, of course, that every religion uses the same argument: WE know the Truth.)
…IF the answer to the former is Yes, what is the argument against incorporating the teachings of other religions–let’s start with fundamentalist Islam–into the law if a majority people vote for politicians favoring such laws? Or is democracy incompatible with Catholicism (or, indeed, with any other religion) as often seems to be the case, now as in the past?
…Should the tax code provide special exemptions for some political advocates over others, if those advocates cloak their positions in priestly garb?
It’s one thing to teach that Catholics should follow the moral mandates of the Church. It’s quite another to teach that the law affecting everyone must incorporate those same mandates. This is a slippery, slippery slope indeed. XVIth century revisited (yeah, I was there).
The standard should be assessed continuously by medical professionals- and any publicly funded/subsidized insurance should essentially follow the same medical standards as the private insurors.
And that standard should be something like:
Is it a recommended or required medical treatment for a human, American citizen?
ANd recommended should defined to exclude purely cosmetic stuff- making body parts a different size or shape or color just cause etc.
Citizenship has nothing to do with it.
… is that federal subsidy monies would not go toward abortion provision. However, plans that receive federal subsidy payments for their insured may still cover abortion with non-federal dollars. Also, this abortion non-coverage provision would be re-authorized along with all other Federal non-payment for abortion services (every few years that’s re-authorized).
The Catholic Church (and other conservatives) would like to throw in a change to current law which requires the re-authorization; they’d like to (a) prohibit any plan which receives public money from offering abortion, and (b) make the ban on federal abortion funding permanent.
Neither of these are acceptable to the majority in Congress, nor possibly even to the majority of Catholics in the U.S.