Editorial: Stop the Senate Health Care Bill which Funds Abortion

'The bill requires each American purchasing such a plan to make a separate payment to the insurer every month, solely to pay for other people´s abortions'

P>WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - This is a critical week for the United States of America. The signals have all been sent by the Obama administration. The US Senate intends to pass the current version of Health Care Reform.

In so doing, they are enraging many people because they will do so in a manner (the use of a procedure called "reconciliation") which raises serious questions of due process and fundamental fairness. That is not the subject of this article.

Others belive that the Bill will radically alter the entire American economic system by massively increasing the role of the Federal Government. They object that such a move violates any proper application of the principle of subsidiarity or application of the principles of limited government. That is not the subject of this article.

The Bill WILL ensure that Billions of dollars in taxpayer funds will be used to kill our first neighbors in the first home of the whole human race through the funding of elective abortions. That is the subject of this article. For that reason this legislation must be opposed.

Now, please understand, there are very serious and important issues which very sincere Catholics, other Christians, other people of faith and other people of good will have concerning the current version of this health care bill. However, there is a hierarchy of values which must be considered and the taking of innocent human life with taxpayer money in the name of "health care" is right up top on that hierarchy.

Good people can disagree over the means of passage, the propriety of the Federal Government taking over 1/6 of the US economy and many other issues arising out of this legislation.  However, they cannot disagree that it is wrong to extract tax dollars from the citizenry to kill our innocent neighbors.  That is what the current Senate Bill will do.

Imagine if a piece of proposed legislation allocated billions of dollars which could be used to fund the killing of one year old children when a parent decided, for whatever reason, they did not want those children? Of course, the reaction against passing such an evil law would be both immediate and massive.

There is no moral difference between a one year old child and a one month old child in her mother's womb. Every procured abortion intentionally kills a child. 

Medical science confirms that these little girls and boys are our first neighbors in the first home in which we all once lived, our mothers womb. Our 4D technology has rendered "baby´s first picture" possible at an earlier stage in what is a lifetime of human development.

We now use these beautiful pictures to celebrate the gift of new life and send them out as announcements, when the baby is wanted. In an act which can only be properly described a pure evil, the same technology is used to facilitate their dismemberment.

In addition, we routinely operate on these, our first neighbors, while they are in the womb through marvelous medical breakthroughs. We do so at increasingly earlier stages in their development, even removing them and placing them back in the womb.

When these littlest members of our community are killed during the commission of a felony which injures their Mom we properly prosecute the offender for two crimes. C´Mon folks, it is time for honesty; we all know that the Orwellian language of the Anti-Right to Life crusaders is a fraud. No-one really argues that these babies are not human persons any longer.

The opponents of the first right, the Right to Life, and the First Freedom, the freedom to be born, have been backed into a fall back argument. They say that the positive the law should protect the "choice" to kill them. However, that does not alter the fact that to do so violates the Natural Moral Law upon which any just law must be based. There is no "Abortion Right". Abortions have no rights, only human persons do. And every abortion kills one of those human persons, taking away their right to life.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan recently reiterated something else which is critically important for all of us who defend the Right to Life. In an interview he gave to a New York reporter he said "...being opposed to abortion, is a civil rights issue, it's a natural law issue, it's not a Catholic issue." And, of course, Archbishop Dolan is absolutely right.

Opposition to Abortion on demand is not a "religious" position. It is a human rights position! We must begin to shout this from the housetops! Enough of sitting back while the opponents of the Right to Life try to silence us, it is time for resistance. You know how the argument goes. When they do not like a position because it is informed by a moral concern, they call it "religious" and then attempt to censorship it through a misguided and incorrect reading of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. 

There is a Natural Moral Law which is written on every human heart. It has informed our life together as a free people. It has inspired and motivated the great champions of freedom and human rights throughout our common history. It has informed our criminal codes which prohibit certain behavior as not being an acceptable object of human choice.

For example, we all agree that the taking of innocent human life is always wrong. We agree that the State must do all that it can to prevent such an egregious violation of fundamental human rights. Why?

Why do we agree that neither you nor I should ever be allowed to take a gun and go shoot our neighbor? Because we all know - whether we profess any specific religious faith - or none at all - that some behaviors are simply always and everywhere wrong. Further, we insist that some "choices" must not be allowed in a truly civil and just society. The Right to Life position is not only a "religious" position. It is a human and civil rights position.

The Legislation which is about to be passed by the US Senate will allocate billions of dollars for elective abortion. That is a fact. Oh, I know that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is claiming otherwise. She is absolutely and objectively wrong. Why is she continuing to present such a false claim to be a fact? I will not speculate. However, that is precisely what she is doing.

Last Friday, the Speaker held a Press Conference in which she once again made this false claim using these words: "There is no federal funding of abortion in this bill. There´ll be no expansion or diminution of a woman´s right to choose and that does not happen in this bill, and we´re determined that we are going to pass health care reform. ...This bill that passed the Senate does not have federal funding of abortion,"
 
This is the same woman who has been repeatedly corrected by her Bishop for her advocacy of abortion on demand; the same self professing Catholic who has misrepresented Catholic teaching and Church history. She has stood in open and direct defiance of the teaching of the Church. Her persistence in this is a scandal. However, that is not the subject of this article either.

Her insistence that this legislation does not fund abortion is simply incorrect. Following her Press conference, Richard Doerflinger, the associate director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), responded ot her claims. In an interview with CNSNews he stated, "We do not know how anyone who has spoken to the bishops could conclude that the Senate health care bill does not fund abortions.... .

"As the bishops have said in their letters to Congress, abortion problems in the Senate bill are so serious that, despite our strong support for expanding access to health care, we will have to oppose the bill unless they are resolved....

"While the Senate bill includes some language limiting the direct use of tax credits to subsidize abortion coverage, it still violates longstanding federal precedent on abortion funding in two ways.... First, the Senate´s abortion language limits only the use of tax credits for abortion in qualified health plans, not other funding in the bill," he said.
 
"For example, the bill authorizes and appropriates $7 billion for services at community health centers (increased to $11 billion in the President´s new proposal)," said Doerflinger. "The Hyde amendment does not prevent direct use of these billions of dollars for elective abortions (because the funds are not provided through the appropriations bill governed by Hyde), nor does any provision in the Senate bill."

"Second, the Senate´s language on tax credits still allows subsidies for overall health plans that cover elective abortions, against the policy of the Hyde amendment and other longstanding federal laws...."
 
"The bill requires each American purchasing such a plan to make a separate payment to the insurer every month, solely to pay for other people´s abortions.... This is an enormous imposition on the consciences of the millions of Americans who oppose abortion."

So, who are we to believe, the spokesperson for the US Catholic Bishops or Speaker Nancy Pelosi? 
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have released a thorough 13-page long document which specifically shows how this current Senate bill allows billions of tax dollars to fund the taking of innocent human life through abortion.

The passage of this Bill must be opposed. We call upon all Catholic Citizens to defend our youngest neighbors. Stop the Senate Health Care Bill which Funds Abortion. What can we do? Pray that the Lord gives courage to those in both Houses of Congress who know the truth about abortion to stand up against the passage of any Bill which funds it.

Make no mistake, the current Senate Bill which is slated for passage through "reconciliation" does just that! Call and write your own elected representative and tell them to oppose the Senate Bill. Remember, the children whose lives we are trying to save have no voice but ours.

 

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'

Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online