Urgent Action Needed to Stop Federal Funding of Abortion
A story from Lifesite News gives the full details. The House Rules Committee is still trying to block a vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which would remove the federal funding for abortion contained in the House healthcare bill. H.R. 3200. The bill may soon come to a vote, and is increasingly likely to pass unless we do something.
The story gives links for contacting the committee Chair, Rep. Louise Slaughterer (R-New York) and the other members. Please make your voices heard!
Update: To give an example of the kind of skewing of facts that the President and some Democrats are engaging in, here’s a transcript of the exchange between Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D.-R.I.) and CNS News:
Nicholas Ballasy: “There’s a letter written by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to Congress saying that they believe all of the health care proposals right now – the one in the House and the ones in the Senate – they all fund abortion as it stands and unless there’s an amendment or a change to those bills that specifically prohibits it, they’re not going to support it. Do you agree with them or is there something – ”
Patrick Kennedy: “I can’t understand for the life of me how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time where the very dignity of the human person is being respected by the fact that we’re caring and giving health care to the human person – that right now we have 50 million people who are uninsured. You mean to tell me the Catholic Church is going to be denying those people life saving health care? I thought they were pro-life. If the church is pro-life, then they ought to be for health care reform because it’s going to provide health care that are going to keep people alive. So this is an absolute red herring and I don’t think that it does anything but to fan the flames of dissent and discord and I don’t think it’s productive at all.” (CNS News)
What skewed logic! It’s not the bishops who are going to be denying health care to people, it’s the President, the Democrats and the House Rules Committee, to name a few. They are willing to delay and possibly stop health care reform because they won’t give up on the federal funding for abortion that most Americans do not want. They keep saying that there is nothing about federal funds for abortion in the bill, but if that were so, they would be changing absolutely nothing and losing absolutely nothing by agreeing to the Stupak-Pitts amendment. The fact that they won’t do so is all the information anyone needs to understand that they are under the thumb of Planned Parenthood, and that the thing that they and the President are most concerned with is putting his long-promised abortion mandate through Congress (remember Obama’s pledge to Planned Parenthood during the campaign?)
The bishops are not opposed to a public health care plan — they have been urging one on Congress for decades. Didn’t Rep. Kennedy read all their statements from earlier this year urging Congress to adopt a universal health care plan? The bishops, unlike the Kennedys, are coherent in their beliefs. They believe that health care should be about actual health care, not about murder.
Update, October 24: My apologies for the server, which seems to have been down from yesterday evening until now. Otherwise I would have posted this much sooner.
Kennedy’s remarks have received a blistering reply from his bishop. LifeNews has the story.
The Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Providence, took exception to his comments in an email to LifeNews.com.
“Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s statement about the Catholic Church’s position on health care reform is irresponsible and ignorant of the facts,” he said.
He continued: “But the Congressman is correct in stating that ‘he can’t understand.’ He got that part right.”
“As I wrote to Congressman Kennedy and other members of the Rhode Island Congressional Delegation recently, the Bishops of the United States are indeed in favor of comprehensive health care reform and have been for many years,” the Catholic official said. “But we are adamantly opposed to health care legislation that threatens the life of unborn children, requires taxpayers to pay for abortion, rations health care, or compromises the conscience of individuals.”
Kennedy has a 100% pro-abortion voting record, according to National Right to Life, and Bishop Tobin said that makes him an embarrassment to the Catholic Church.
“Congressman Kennedy continues to be a disappointment to the Catholic Church and to the citizens of the State of Rhode Island,’ Tobin said.
Go, Bishop Tobin!
