St Michael Society

The abortion industry is in full damage control mode after Saturday’s vote in the House passing the Stupak Amendment, which makes sure that no government money funds abortion. It passed the House with 240 bi-partisan votes, which is 20 more votes than what the overall healthcare passed with.

 NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan and Catholics for a Free Choice president Jon O’Brien took to the pages of Politico today to lash out against the country’s Catholic bishops and their supposed “double standard.”

 Nancy and Jon are clearly grasping at straws in their attack on the Catholic bishops. Here’s their op-ed below with our comments in red. Enjoy.

  The Catholic bishops’ double standard
By: Nancy Keenan and Jon O’Brien 
November 10, 2009 05:28 PM EST

 As advocates for reproductive health, we are outraged at what transpired in the House over the weekend.

 Translation: We want Americans to pay for abortions and we are livid that pro-lifers voted to make sure women pay for their own abortions.

 The passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment goes far beyond the status quo on abortion restrictions and would make it nearly impossible for insurance plans in the new system to offer abortion coverage. 

 Actually, the Stupak-Pitts amendment put back the status quo on abortion restrictions into the healthcare bill – otherwise the bill would have blown the status quo out of the water by allowing the federal government to pay for abortion on demand.

This campaign succeeded in large part because its supporters perpetuated falsehoods about abortion coverage in the new system. 

 Why must the abortion industry continue to outright lie when it comes to this? I mean, doesn’t it get old once even liberal media outlets are proving you wrong? See the FactCheck.org article here, the TIME mag article here and the AP story here. FactCheck says: “Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.”

Most notably, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its allies in the House distorted the facts about the health reform proposal by claiming that the proposed system would have used federal dollars to cover abortion care. They’re wrong. 

 See comment above. No, Nancy & Jon – you and everyone perpetuating your myths are wrong.

The original House bill included a compromise that required all plans to separate public and private dollars in the new system — ensuring that no tax dollars would ever cover abortion services. 

 Sure they did and it’s called the Capps Amendment which is a bookkeeping scheme and phony compromise. First, the amendment was written by staff to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Ca.), and offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Ca.), both of whom have 100 percent pro-abortion career records. Secondly, the Capps Amendment explicitly authorizes the federal government to pay for abortions and those that sign up for the public plan will be charged an “abortion surcharge.”

In fact, the bishops should be familiar with this arrangement because it reflects the same principle of separation that guides their financial interaction with the federal government. The bishops have a long history of almost unlimited access to enormous quantities of federal funding. When it comes to funding for Catholic schools and hospitals or programs run by Catholic Charities, they accept federal funding with open arms. The bishops never question their own ability to lawfully manage funds from separate sources to ensure that tax dollars don’t finance religious practices. 

 Catholics hold that a government-run “anything” should only be considered as an absolute last resort. We believe in subsidiarity - that the government shouldn’t take away from individuals what they (the individuals) can accomplish “by their own enterprise and industry.” (Pope Pius XI). Catholic Charities does great work, work that cannot be done if the government itself were handling. In fact, there is great risk to individual freedom once the government takes over something.

 Yet they reject the idea that others could do the same. This is the very definition of hypocrisy. 

 And you think that the government will siphon out funds and make sure Americans don’t pay for abortions? Are you serious?

For example, Catholic hospitals depend on federal funding. Indiana has 35 Catholic hospitals and 26 other Catholic health-care facilities. In 2007, 58 percent of patients who visited these facilities were covered by Medicaid or Medicare, a proportion reflected across the country. With well over half of their revenue coming from the government, it is safe to say that Catholic hospitals survive on government funding as well as contributions from private sources. 

Here’s where you both really took a wrong turn. One in six patients in the US is cared for in a Catholic hospital and you know where poor patients are sent who don’t have insurance? To a Catholic hospital. You fail to mention that the Senate bill lacks any sort of conscience protections for doctors and other healthcare professionals who decline to perform or refer for abortions – that’s because you want to force all doctors to perform abortions or don’t even become an ob-gyn, right? In a recent survey of faith-based physicians, when asked if they would do abortions or quit their jobs if the government forced them to make that decision, 95% said they’d quit. What if Catholic hospitals are forced to close or rather than perform abortions? Who will care for the hundreds of thousands of patients then? Some doctors have something to say about that here.

Catholic Charities, the domestic direct service arm of the bishops, also depends on state and federal dollars. Sixty-seven percent of Catholic Charities’ income comes from government funding. That represents over $2.6 billion in 2008 — an amount that is more than three times as large as the next largest charitable recipient of federal funds, the YMCA. Just as Catholic hospitals do, Catholic Charities receives enormous quantities of government dollars while abiding by existing constitutional and statutory requirements that prevent government sponsorship of religion. 

 What does this have to do with anything? Planned Parenthood gets hundreds of millions of dollars a year from taxpayers.

The bishops know that a vast majority of Americans, including Catholics, disagree with their hard-line dictates regarding reproductive-health care, including the bishops’ opposition to contraception.

 That is what the Catholic Church believes and has passed on through the centuries. It’s not a matter of debate. Accept that they have a different view than you both and move on.

However, when it comes to health care reform — from which many millions of people will benefit — the bishops injected divisive politics into the process and overran a compromise that would have guaranteed that no federal dollars would cover abortion care. 

 1) Rory Cooper at Heritage says that The U.S. Conference of Bishops has every constitutional protection under the first amendment to petition their government, without fear that the head of the Progressive Caucus will use the IRS to intimidate them, or call them “bullies.” 2) There is no compromise on federal funding of abortion – the government either funds abortion or it doesn’t. There never was a compromise that the bishops overran.

As this debate moves forward, U.S. senators and the public should challenge the bishops’ hypocrisy. If separation of federal funds and private dollars works for the church hierarchy, then it should also work for women’s reproductive-health care. 

 Catholics are called to live their faith in every area of their lives and government is no different (see Bishop Tobin’s  smackdown of Patrick Kennedy when politicians fail to do this in the public square). It’s the job of the Catholic bishops to lead and educate Catholics. U.S. Senators should be listening to their constituents – the majority of whom oppose government funding of abortion and who oppose a government takeover of healthcare overall.

Nancy Keenan is president of NARAL Pro-Choice America and Jon O’Brien is president of Catholics for Choice.

 © 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC