The Catholic Bishops of the United States have long supported adequate and affordable health care for all. As pastors and teachers, we believe genuine health care reform must protect human life and dignity, not threaten them, especially for the most voiceless and vulnerable. We believe health care legislation must respect the consciences of providers, taxpayers, and others, not violate them. We believe universal coverage should be truly universal, not deny health care to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here. Providing affordable and accessible health care that clearly reflects these fundamental principles is a public good, moral imperative and urgent national priority.
Sadly, the legislative proposal recently unveiled in the Senate does not meet these moral criteria. Specifically, it violates the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortions and health plans that include such abortions – a policy upheld in all health programs covered by the Hyde Amendment, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program – and now in the House-passed “Affordable Health Care for America Act.” We believe legislation that violates this moral principle is not true health care reform and must be amended to reflect it. If that fails, the current legislation should be opposed.
I am particularly impressed with the tone of this letter. I pray it will be heeded.
As much as I hate to say it, I don’t trust the US bishops when it comes to health care. From everything they’ve said lately on the health care bills wending their ways through Congress, I get the impression that the US bishops are quite content to sit back and watch the Democrats and Obama run this country into the ground with their socialist, deficit spending programs as along as abortion is not included.
And why shouldn’t they favor the Democratic plan? Personally I think the issue of the role of government in our health care system is truly adiaphora. If the moral objection to abortion coverage is addressed by the legislation (and that is a big if, I frankly would like some Stupak language in the Senate bill), then whether the bishops favor the rest is a matter for each man’s conscience. And why does it always have to be about “running the country into the ground”. I disliked George Bush but the country survived him. Many disliked Bill Clinton, but the country survived him. You disagree with the President’s policies and philosophy of government, fine. I think the country will survive again.
It’s a slippery slope. All the things that may end up left out of the bills now (abortion, euthanasia, etc.) may be slipped in later once control is handed over. What I am fearful of is that the bishops are either letting their own personal or ‘institutional’ (USCCB) opinions intrude or else simply being short-sighted by approving of a concept that will subvert the autonomy of the individual conscience.
[blockquote]As history abundantly proves, it is true that on account of changed conditions many things which were done by small associations in former times cannot be done now save by large associations. Still, that most weighty principle, which cannot be set aside or changed, remains fixed and unshaken in social philosophy: Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.
–Pope Pius XI, [url=http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html]Quadragesimo Anno[/url], 79[/blockquote]
If you want to talk about conscience, then feel free to discuss free will and each person’s willingness to give to charity to help those in need. But i for one do not accept the premise that government [i]confiscation[/i] of revenue for whatever reason beyond the most basic necessities is a legitimate means to provide for those in material need.
Something to ask might be the possibility of “Rationing” procedures like this. Otherwise it seems clear that every woman of reproductive age (13-50 or so?) has a constitutional right (It’s right there in the Constitution, go look it up) to 12 abortions a year. How could she not? This item in the great national “Healthcare” push should be admitted or denied up front.