There has been much debate over health care reform lately in our country. In fact, it's been taking place for nearly a year now in Washington D.C., in the news and talk radio, at local town hall forums, and even among our friends, family and neighbors. With the high costs of premiums and care itself, most everyone would agree that the status quo for health care in America is not acceptable. The problem we are faced with is how to fix it. How do we reduce costs and still provide people with access to quality care and options?
With a vote on the currently proposed bill coming any day now, via the so-called "reconciliation" option, that requires only 51 votes to pass, there is one thing Catholics should know about it:
The current reform bill is anti-life.
This is the most important reason that Catholics need to oppose this bill. We should ensure that health care in America be solely about restoring life and health and protecting conscience, not threatening it. This bill, if passed, would open the doors for more government funding of abortions in America. This is the number one reason that the US bishops, conservatives, and pro-life Democrats, like Rep. Bart Stupak, are opposing the bill. Cardinal George, President of the USCCB, wrote on behalf of the bishops:
[H]ealth care means taking care of the health needs of all, across the human life span; and the expansion of health care should not involve the expansion of abortion funding and of polices forcing everyone to pay for abortions. Because these principles have not been respected, despite the good that the bill under consideration intends or might achieve, the Catholic bishops regretfully hold that it must be opposed unless and until these serious moral problems are addressed.
Moreover, Cardinal DiNadro, and bishops Murphy and Wester together urged Catholics to "let their representatives know that we want Hyde Amendment protections for the unborn, conscience protections for individuals and institutions and openness to the legitimate claims of immigrants."
How is the current reform bill anti-life?
Put very concisely by Jimmy Bell of the American Principles Project (founded by Robert P. George):Our hope as Catholics should be that we can reform health care in a way that does not provide further funding for abortions. In the meantime, let us all take the advice of Cardinal DiNardo, and bishops Murphy and Wester and let our representatives know that we will oppose any health care bill that threatens human life and conscience rather than protecting it.The Senate Health Care Reform Bill spends taxpayer dollars on health care plans that fund abortions, spends $12 billion on Community Health Centers that Planned Parenthood will be eligible for, gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius the right to declare abortion as a pre-existing condition to be covered under every health care plan in the federal exchange under the Mikulski Amendment, eliminates conscience protections for insurance providers, trip-wires the direct funding of abortions to potential expiration, and forces everyone including men and old women to pay at least $1 (to be raised under jurisdiction of Congress) to a fund for “reproductive rights” that will cover 100% of the cost for anyone who gets elective abortions. To say that the Senate Health Care Reform Bill is the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade is an understatement.
