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ISSUES: CHRISTIANS AND THE WORLD

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31/10/2009 22:20
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I almost could not believe it when this news came out last Friday, but it certainly represents the high point so far in the conspicuous 'reclamation' of Catholic identity by the US bishops that has been evident since Cardinal George was elected president last year. After decades of passive and active liberalism, at long last, a promise of orthodoxy! I cannot imagine a more pro-active action taken by another local church in the post-Conciliar years, for which we can only say Deo gratias and Laudetur Jesus Christus!



'ABORTION IS NOT HEALTH CARE!'
US Bishops' Conference blankets parishes
with inserts against expanding abortion
through health care reform




WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 — In an extraordinary call to Catholics to prevent health care reform from being derailed by the abortion lobby, the United Sates Conference of Catholic Bishops has sent bulletin inserts to almost 19,000 parishes across the country.

"Health care reform should be about saving lives, not destroying them," the insert states. It urges readers to contact Senate leaders so they support efforts to "incorporate longstanding policies against abortion funding and in favor of conscience rights" in health reform legislation.

"If these serious concerns are not addressed, the final bill should be opposed," it adds.

The insert highlights the Stupak Amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) that, it states, "addresses essential pro-life concerns on abortion funding and conscience rights."

"Help ensure that the Rule for the bill allows a vote on the amendment," the insert states. "If these serious concerns are not addressed, the final bill should be opposed."



A dramatic ad of a pregnant woman notes that the Hyde Amendment, which passed in 1976, has prevented federal funds from paying for elective abortions, yet healthcare reform bills that are advancing violate this policy. The ad message: "Tell Congress: Remove Abortion Funding and Mandates from Needed Health Care Reform."

The insert also directs readers to www.usccb.org/healthcare.

Bulletin inserts were distributed to dioceses October 29, the day Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled the House health care reform bill and in expectation that they will show up in parishes in early November.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the USCCB; Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chair of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-life Activities; Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chair of the Committee on Migration; and Bishop William Murphy of Rockville, Centre, New York, chair of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development urged fellow bishops to promote this campaign in their dioceses.

"The bishops want health care reform, but they recoil at any expansion of abortion," said Helen Osman, USCCB Secretary for Communications, who helped organize the campaign. "Most Americans don’t want to pay for other people’s abortions via health care either. This impasse on the road to reform of health care can be broken if Congress writes in language that assures that the Hyde Amendment law* continues to guide U.S. federal spending policy."

The Catholic bishops have a long history of support for health care reform based on its teaching that health care is essential for human life and dignity and on its experience providing health care and assisting those without coverage.


*About the Hyde amendment:

Medicaid funded abortion until Congress expressly stopped such funding in 1977 by passing the Hyde appropriations ban, which bars most taxpayer funding of abortions.

But a federal Circuit Court of Appeals, while defending the legitimacy of Hyde, did, however, make clear that “abortion fits within many of the mandatory care categories, including ‘family
planning,’ ‘outpatient services,’ ‘inpatient services,’ and ‘physicians’ services.’”


However, the Hyde amendment is an appropriation limitation that mut be renewed every year. As a candidate President Obama stated he “does not support the Hyde Amendment” and believes that reproductive health care (abortion) is basic health care".

Further, the current House health care reform bill, H.R. 3200, has self-appropriating features that would not be covered by the Hyde Amendment.

To ensure that U.S. policy against funding or mandating abortion coverage is maintained in any new health care law, abortion
must be permanently and explicitly excluded. [Under the law, any action not expressly prohibited in any piece of legislation is allowed.]



So, until and unless any health care reform bill that passes Congress includes a provision that says no federally-funded health insurance can cover abortion services, 'public-option' or government-run health insurance will - which means American taxpayers will be subsidizing abortions.






Here, however, is a view of this all-parish initiative of the US bishops which sees it as a way of encouraging the faithful to support any healthcare form bill that will contain the desired proviso against federal funding for abortion, without caring much for the other anti-Catholic features that will be legislated.

I would hasten to add that from following the twists and turns of the health bill closely on cable news, the various versions of the bill under consideration by the Democrats is also deliberately deceptive about its eventual cost, and worse, that any actual changes in the insurance set-up will not take place until 2013. whereas the revenue-raising measures (e.g., new taxes and the mad scheme of cutting back Medicare by $500 billion to pay the bill for the new legislation!) start right away!

What the Democrats contemplate is bristling with egregious defects like these, not to mention a possible violation of the constitutional provision that does not allow the government to compel any citizen to buy anything - as this bill would compel every American citizen to buy health insurance or be fined for not doing so!

Health care for all is desirable, but it doesn't necessarily mean health insurance for all, whether they want it or not.




The Catholic Bishops’ parish outreach
could have a boomerang effect

By Frank Walker
Pewsitter.com


October 31, 2009 - The USCCB is not the best source to counter a liberal political agenda. But this weekend, they are it. By asking parishes to discuss the Federal healthcare bills at Sunday Masses and reject the current plans, they put additional pressure to stall the progress of an already unpopular project.

Moderates and conservatives have been unable to get amendments attached to the bill that would eliminate abortion funding, prevent rationing and euthanasia and protect conscience rights.

This is a very dangerous move done at a time when the healthcare bill is already facing strong resistance. Aside from these moral policy issues of abortion and euthanasia - abortion already being well established into society by the courts and euthanasia covertly practiced to an unknown degree - on every other item the Bishops’ Conference sides with the Left.

The Bishops have a very long and fruitful history of delivering Catholic votes for Democrats. These are the same Catholic leaders who enabled the huge Ted Kennedy funeral event and whose President was so happy Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize. [That is a sweeping statement which is not true in the generalized way it is made, and Cardinal George's 'happiness' at Obama's Peace Prize was obviously a gesture of courtesy and some kind of olive branch, not because George expects a quid pro quo, but so no one can fault him for lack of graciousness.]

The partnership stretches deep into the last century and beyond.

In their fantastic thinking, the bishops believe that Congress can move the entire country to a national health bureaucracy, and it will expand the medical services to people instead of uniformly reducing them. This utopian pie-in-the-sky error is standard reasoning from their quarter.

There are endless ways that Congress can seemingly capitulate to the Bishops’ demands, thus giving them a green light to do what they would very much love to do, support the bill wholeheartedly.

Regardless of the U.S. Bishops’ healthcare formulations, there is no real way to produce this government takeover and not have more abortions, rationing, euthanasia, and coercion. It is intrinsic to the machine being set into motion. The details are incidental. Any possible protections would be temporary at best, and the bishops, poised and hoping for success of the plan, are vulnerable to a Democrat feint.

Even if the Bishops were able to force the adoption of pro-life amendments that have been introduced by Republicans and blue dog Democrats, the courts would still be free to change these provisions and unleash the pro-death lobby against the elderly, sick and unborn. The court majorities exist and most of the insidious amoral laws we suffer with today have relied upon key court interventions around the country. [True, but at least, there is a first line of defense in explicit prohibition of the funding, which stays until it is successfully challenged in court.]

We are in great danger that the bishops will turn around and bolt in the wrong direction based on some weak or deceptive accommodation, and that much of the best part of the Catholic population - mass-going, sensible, elderly, impressed by their bishop’s pastoral attention and Washington’s new listening ears, will shift their opinions from where they are today and seal their own fates.

It’s amazing to me that a group of leaders who give so much time on behalf of the unborn, the sick, and the poor would ever support a national health scheme in the first place. Has the Conference solicited the advice of one medical professional, perhaps even the Catholic Medical Association?

I would not be so cynical to guess that this boomerang scenario might be a co-coordinated effort between the congressional leaders and the USCCB, but I would not be astonished if it were. Too often, these people play for the same team.


I find the last two paragraphs extremely unfair to the bishops even if I find their automatic support for any national health plan that purports to give health insurance to every citizen rather naive and unthinking.

There is simply no common-sense justification for throwing the entire healthcare system into disarray - one-sixth of the national economy - at unconscionable cost, and when 250 million Americans are happy with the health plans they now have, in order to insure an additional 30 million, mostly made up of illegal aliens and employed persons who choose not to buy health insurance (especially among young people just starting to work).

It would have been so much simpler to just propose a bill that would provide health insurance for those US citizens - probably 10-12 million - who cannot afford it, and pass other separate and much simpler bills to better regulate the private insurances as well as to discourage unwarranted litigation against doctors and set a reasonable limit to malpractice awards. Simpler focused-objective bills would not require the mind-boggling new bureaucracy that the Democratic bills (or their final version of it) are poised to create!

Where in the world is it reasonable for an obstetrician to pay $150,000 yearly in malpractice insurance as they do in New York state now? Many gynecologists have stopped practising obstetrics because they would have to pay just half in malpractice insurance if they did not deliver babies.

Doctors are forced to pay high insurance premiums, because insurance companies are made to pay out millions when a jury finds a physician guilty of malpractice. But unless a doctor has malpractice insurance, he will not be allowed to be a provider for any health plan and he cannot get privileges to admit patients to any hospital. But few doctors can support a practice without belonging to the health plans - simply because few Americans are left who would even think of paying out of pocket for health care.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/11/2009 01:12]
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