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15 Catholic Senators Join the Catholic Hall of Shame by Voting to Fund Abortion

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'Senate vote to table the Nelson - Hatch - Casey amendment is a grave mistake'.

Highlights

By Deacon Keith Fournier
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
12/15/2009 (1 decade ago)

Published in Politics & Policy

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - In an editorial in the New York Times on December 8, 2009 Congressman Bart Stupak, whose amendment to the House version of the Health Care Bill prohibited federal funds from being used to kill unborn children by abortion, set the record straight. He unmasked the campaign of misinformation unleashed by those who oppose the Right to Life and seek to fund abortion with tax dollars:

"...Over the past month there has been a great deal of discussion about the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts amendment in the House health care reform bill. Unfortunately, much of this discussion has been driven by misinformation about what our amendment does and does not do. I would like to set the record straight: Our amendment maintains current law, which says that there should be no federal financing for abortion.

Under our amendment, women who receive federal subsidies will be prohibited from using them to pay for insurance policies that cover abortion. The amendment does not prevent private plans from offering abortion services and it does not prohibit women from purchasing abortion coverage with their own money. The amendment specifically states that even those who receive federal subsidies can purchase a supplemental policy with private money to cover abortions.

Some opponents of the amendment have tried to argue that it would effectively end health insurance coverage of abortion in both the private and public sectors. This argument is nothing more than a scare tactic. The language in our amendment is completely consistent with the Hyde Amendment, which in the 33 years since its passage has done nothing to inhibit private health insurers from offering abortion coverage."

The Senate version of the Reform Bill had the same fatal flaw. That is until Senator Ben Nelson stepped up to protect those whom Mother Teresa called the "poorest of the poor", preborn children, from being killed with federal funds under the claim of providing "health care". Sadly, the Nelson- Hatch - Casey Amendment was "tabled" - which means it was killed.

The President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George, responded to this procedural maneuver with these words "The Senate vote to table the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment is a grave mistake and a serious blow to genuine health care reform...The Senate is ignoring the promise made by President Obama and the will of the American people in failing to incorporate longstanding prohibitions on federal funding for abortion and plans that include abortion."

No one can claim to care about the poor and support procured abortion as a "choice" which should be funded with federal dollars extracted from the public for "health care". As our Bishops have pointed out "killing is not health care". This is particularly egregious when the claim is made by Catholics in public office. They know the truth.

Neither should any faithful Catholic ever defend the unconstitutional action of a Supreme Court which ruled that intentionally killing our first neighbors was a "constitutional right" and a "choice". Some choices, like killing our neighbor, are always wrong. The US Supreme Court was wrong, Roe and Doe must go!

We need to be honest as a Nation. We all know the truth now. We operate on these children in the womb and place them back in their first home until they join us upon delivery. We prosecute people who in the commission of another crime kill them.

Our medical science has confirmed what our conscience and the Natural Law written on every human heart long ago revealed, these are our neighbors. It is always wrong to kill our innocent neighbors. Now, under the cloak of providing "health care" to also use federal tax dollars to fund this killing is reprehensibly evil.

Unfortunately, among the 54 Senators who did just that by voting to table this life saving amendment, 15 of them are professing Catholics. These unfaithful Catholics need to be added to what I recently called the "Catholic Hall of Shame". Here they are:

Patrick Leahy (D-VT), John Kerry (D-MA), Paul Kirk (D-MA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Christopher Dodd (D-CT.), Claire McCaskill (D-MO.), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

Once again, some of my readers will find the action of listing these Catholic politicians and calling them "unfaithful" to be "harsh" or even "uncharitable". However, I list them to invite our readers to specifically pray for their conversion, their return to the truth. I also list them in order to empower those in their Districts to use their vote and influence to defend the fundamental right to life from conception to natural death effectively.

If these faithful Catholic constituents cannot help these unfaithful Catholic Senators to return to the truth, they need to vote them out of office. Then they need to replace them with others who will defend the Right to life; even if that means running for the Senate themselves. This fundamental human right to life is not conferred by a civil government and it cannot be abrogated by a civil government. Killing is not health care, period.

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