The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is now pushing the House and Senate to get health care reform passed -- but the bishops define "reform" in a very particular way. In a letter to all members of Congress, the bishops declare the "health care debate, with all its political and ideological conflict, seems to have lost its central moral focus and policy priority, which is to ensure that affordable, quality, life-giving care is available to all."
Note the words "life-giving," which are loaded with meaning for the bishops' stance on abortion and "conscience protections" for health care providers, insurers, employers, and the insured. In other words, as the bishops state in their letter, a reform bill without these "protections" is "not true health care reform." It's their clever way of trying to duck blame for stalling the bill -- we support "true" reform, honest!
Now the bishops' motive is quite clear: they are using health care reform to normalize and expand their agenda on reproductive care and end-of-life issues. They think they have enough clout, as they did with the House bill back in November, to hold up reform until it restricts peoples' personal health care choices to which they object from the seclusion of the church. If a bill doesn't pass, the bishops will relinquish responsibility for its downfall, claiming it wasn't genuine reform and therefore unsupportable.
After its divide and conquer strategy that pushed the House Democrats to adopt its version of "true health care reform," the USCCB now decries the division and partisanship that stalled final passage of a bill. "Now is not the time to abandon this task," the bishops write, "but rather to set aside partisan divisions and special interest pressures to find ways to enact genuine reform." If only they had thought of that three months ago.
Earlier this month, the bishops sent a bulletin insert to the 19,000 Catholic parishes across the country, urging parishioners to call on their members of Congress to oppose any final bill that didn't include the USCCB-approved Stupak restrictions. (But remember, set aside all those special interest pressures.) The bishops claim to support reform, but imply it was supporters of reproductive choice who stood in the way of passage because they didn't support "genuine" reform.
Now that Scott Brown's election threatens to kill reform, the bishops are attempting to portray themselves as the heroes who can save it. They've absolved themselves of responsibility for holding the House bill hostage, and for continuing to oppose the Senate bill because its abortion provisions aren't restrictive enough, even though it's just as restrictive as the House version.
But now Stupak, their closest ally in the House, seems to have been drinking too much of the Tea Party brew. After Scott Brown's election, Stupak took to Fox News to lambaste his colleagues for "overreaching" on health care. He paid lip service to wanting reform passed, but his real rhetorical bones were tossed to the opposition. Will he go to the mat to save health care and bring his (claimed) 10 or 12 House allies to vote for a bill, or will he pander to anti-abortion activists (who are throwing their lukewarm support to Brown because of his opposition health care reform) who don't really care about keeping abortion funding out of health care but rather killing it altogether?
The bishops are Stupak's cover. While he plays up to the anti-reform right, he uses the bishops' imprimatur to pretend to the Democrats that he's a "pro-lifer," an advocate of the "seamless garment" that "protects" from conception to death. But if he continues to ally himself with the opposition (while whining that the Democrats are excluding him), will the Democrats call him -- or the bishops -- out on blocking the bill? The bishops don't own the definition of "genuine reform" or "life-giving care," and disagreeing with them doesn't make one hostile to religion.
Tags: abortion, catholic bishops, health care reform, stupak amendment, usccb
These are still men without shame, without character, without pity, without tolerance, and without sense. Those who support their denomination shame themselves, their denomination, and Christian faith.
Ted--I respect your opinion, but find it a bit strong.
Catholic ethical thought has pitted reproductive rights against the social teaching of the church for at least 40 years. "Liberal" Catholics, myself included, lament this juxtaposition and seek greater integration of the ethical discernment of the church.
The Bishops have made abortion their #1 issue since Roe, and their recent behavior is not at all surprising to me as a long-time observer. I guess I have a hard time connecting with the outrage apparent in Sarah Posner's piece and Mr. Morgan's comment because the Bishops have been so clear on THEIR priorities for so long. Of course they were going to protest any reproductive rights language in the legislative process, they always do.
Maybe so. (That is what my father would say when he had reached the limit of debate.) I have watched leaders of the Roman Catholic denomination go overboard on this issue since the mid-seventies. Even Catholics used to acknowledge 120 days before they called a fetus a human being.
When I see Catholics complain about abortion, I really do not see concern for “a human being fetus” but concern that an autonomous woman with a higher purpose as autonomous person being reduced to mere functions to serve patriarchcal oppression. The issue really is not “killing babies” but dominating women. Sorry, that is how I call it.
When bishops reduce health needs of actual human beings to manipulation of political process to maintain their religious ideology, they do seem to me unashamed. They seem reckless. I recall exactly one bishop who opposed the genocidal American War against the people of Vietnam—one. The bishops often make sane comments about capitalist excesses and about the rights of human beings against capitalist ideology. However, they do not encourage mobs to stand outside A.I.G. to harass investment bankers. They do encourage mobs to harass women seeking medical care.
I see no pity from the bishop for women in need. I see tolerance of immense evil but intolerance of helpless women. I see no sense in their demands that I accept their view that a fetus is a human being.
I do not think that I am particularly anti-Catholic. I am just a boring materialist and everyday atheist—someone tired of watching men bullying women.
The bishops are clear in their priority. The one thing that trumps all else is keeping women “in their place.”
I don’t mean to be unfair. The bishops just refuse to give at all on something on which most denominations give a little. Most Catholics give a little on this matter. When the bishops refuse communion to corrupt investment bankers, maybe I can take their opposition to the autonomy of individual women a little more lightly.
I have seen the mobs harassing women seeking medical care. I have seen what they do. They do not care about the fetus. They want to put down women.
I have not seen compassion from the bishops for women. I just don't see it.
Ted--
I don't think it is fruitful or fair to paint those who oppose abortion as simply suffering from false consciousness. I think you have to take people seriously when they say they oppose abortion--and not assume they necessarily have subconscious motives.
Believe me, I would also like to see the social teachings of the church more integrated with the reproductive. In my experience of the Catholic church it would be absurd to believe that they compromise on abortion because it is a large part of the lived orthodoxy of the polity. To argue that the Bishops are being "hypocritical" with their current embrace of "genuine" HCR would be ignoring 40 years of their public statements concerning abortion--they have always been real clear as far as I am concerned.
I have every right in the world to criticize the bishops. There is nothing subconsciouse about their opposition to the rights of women to reproductive freedom and responsibility. They have a long history since Roe v Wade of standing against the autonomy of women.
Thugs are thugs. I have witnessed how Christian thugs harass women at clinics where doctors practice reproductive medicine. I am tired of the bishops acting as if anything they say or do by definition must be good. The bishops act as if their views are by nature superior of those of other human beings. They impose their religious ideologies on other human beings.
They embrace into their denomination mean people like Randle Terry. They impose religious sanctions on members of their denomination who differ with their point-of-view about reproductive freedom but not about other teachings they offer. They are inconsistent. Their actions clearly indicate that denying a woman her autonomy trumps their fantasy about a fetus as a human being.
Thugs are thugs. I have witnessed how Christian thugs harass women at clinics where doctors practice reproductive medicine. I am tired of the bishops acting as if anything they say or do by definition must be good. The bishops act as if their views are by nature superior of those of other human beings. They impose their religious ideologies on other human beings.
They embrace into their denomination mean people like Randle Terry. They impose religious sanctions on members of their denomination who differ with their point-of-view about reproductive freedom but not about other teachings they offer. They are inconsistent. Their actions clearly indicate that denying a woman her autonomy trumps their fantasy about a fetus as a human being.
They are welcome to their opposition to (what they call) artificial birth control. No one compels any woman to terminate a pregnancy. They have not right to compel any woman to maintain an early pregnancy.
I am not opposed to Catholics. I oppose tyrants. They are clear. They are clearly out of line for opposing the rights of women. They are wrong to bully everyone who opposes them. And they are not beyond criticism.
The for-profit corporation Planned Parenthood wants the government to pay the $400 needed for abortions for the needy. Abortions are not health care. They are health termination.
Hospitals provide some abortions and many other medical procedures at their own expense. Why can't Planned Parenthood do that also?
Planned Parenthood and its supporters are not willing to to support a health care bill without abortion funding.
Therefore, Planned Parenthood and its supporters are the ones responsible for denying triple bypasses,emergency room treatments, chemotherapy, pre-natal care and thousands of other preventive and acute medical procedures that cost thousands of dollars for the needy.
This comment is just plain Stupak, I mean stupid.
Some points to consider:
1-Everyone (bishops included) has a right to define “genuine reform” as they see fit.
2-Everyone (bishops included) has a right to oppose legislation that doesn't meet their definition and to support legislation that does.
To say that the bishops oppose legislation that doesn't meet their definition of “genuine reform” because they don't really want reform at all is a very unfair and illogical conclusion. This is like saying all Representatives who voted against the reform bill in the House because it included the Stupak amendment didn't really want reform and used Stupak as an excuse. Again, this is unfair and illogical.
The bishops do have the right to be politically active as they see fit, and to encourage their congregation to follow them. Once their religion becomes politically active, we also have the right (and perhaps even the duty) to question their religion. Are they speaking for God, or are they working to maintain a religious power pyramid that is paying them? The alliance between conservative religion and the party of the rich makes questioning religion important, and that makes discussions such as these here in RD important because in the past we had no way to question them, and so we tended to look the other way and give religion the benefit of the doubt, and that created a mess.
I've considered joining the Catholic Church in the past for the following reason.
Its age. Because of the politicization and hypocrisy of centuries ago, Catholicism has a heritage of great art and culture, and even as it has been superficially rigid in doctrine, it has in fact been "permeable" to anti-dogmatic, anti-establishment forces such as nativistic religious influences, (Voodoo in Haiti, el Dia de los Muertes in Mexico,) and social justice movements. On the surface, it's a lot more interesting than a lot of its competitors.However, as it has been reeling from it's systemic involvement in child molestation, it has sought to compete with fundamentalist Protestantism for the dwindling pool of uneducated, unquestioning believers.
Now these groups have fallen back on the old strategy of using State Power to enforce the perpetuation of their institutions. They could help to end abortions simply by advocating sex education, birth control and family planning.
Basically these folks don't want ANYONE ELSE to enjoy sex and they can't enjoy sex absent the thrill of secretly doing something naughty.
I see where Ted Haggard has climbed back on the old bag of bones,too.
Whip it, Ted, and Bishops.
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