Monday, June 28, 2010

The Protect Life Act

from Brian Burch at Catholic Vote.org
Last month a broad coalition of pro-life Democrats and Republicans introduced the “Protect Life Act,” a new bill that would remove all abortion funding from the new healthcare law. The bill would also create critical conscience protections for doctors and health care workers.

So every Catholic group is supporting this new proposal, right?

Well, we aim to make sure they do -- starting with the Catholic Health Association.

Sign our petition here  urging the Sister Carol Keehan and the CHA to support this new bill!

You remember the Catholic Health Association? They are the group, along with NETWORK, who publicly lobbied Catholic legislators and urged passage of the health care legislation. They independently concluded that the bill did not cover abortion, and deserved the full support of all Catholics.

But not everyone agreed with CHA.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with CatholicVote.org worked vigorously to block the bill. We opposed the entire healthcare bill – not only because it opened the door to taxpayer funding for abortion, but also because we believe a government-first approach to soaring health care problems will only make things worse.

CHA’s bold disregard for the Catholic bishops has caused a regrettable division in the Church, and continued this week with the Bishops affirming their position, while CHA publicly affirmed their own. In fact, President Obama recently delivered a special video message at CHA’s annual convention to thank them for their work.

So it’s time to act. It’s time to call CHA out for their purposeful confusion and refusal to acknowledge the clear problems with the new healthcare law.

This week I signed my name to a group letter calling on the Catholic Health Association to publicly support the recently proposed Protect Life Act. The group letter was organized by the Susan B. Anthony List and contains the names of pro-life leaders across the country.

 Sister Carol Keehan needs to hear from you too! Sign our petition here.

The Protect Life Act represents a genuine bipartisan effort to ensure that no taxpayer funds will be used for abortion or abortion related services, and would add needed conscience protections for healthcare workers. The rest of the bill remains untouched.

As you know, Catholics had strong opinions on the healthcare bill. In fact, a recent Zogby poll reported that only 33% of Catholics support the law, while 66% of Catholics oppose it.

But Catholics are even more united behind this foundational principle: No federal funding for abortion. Or at least Catholics should be united.

Is CHA with us or not?

That’s why it’s very important for you to get your friends and family to sign this petition. No matter where any Catholic group stood on the healthcare debate, all Catholics must agree that federal funding for abortion has no place in our nation’s laws, and no doctor or health care worker should be forced to participate in unethical or immoral procedures.
Sign our petition now! Urge Sr. Keehan and the CHA to support the Protect Life Act.

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2 comments:

Frederick said...

It seems to be relatively hard to publish a comment here but my thoughts are that we always seem to take an "all or nothing" attitude to some of the Catholic concepts that are being written about.

In general I am against abortions - however I find that the things included as "abortions" are somewhat extreme in my opinion. For instance in my case my late wife and I proceeded to have six children after our marriage. We thought that about four would be great but after the last two, one girl and one boy, we resorted to a pill which would keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus and hence had no additional pregnancies.

I fine that the church today considers that to be abortion and find it very difficult to agree to that
interpretation.

Leticia said...

Sometimes we have to submit our intellects to the timeless wisdom of God as expressed by Holy Mother Church. That fertilized egg has an immortal soul and a destiny on earth which you and your wife may have thwarted. You must confess this sin, it severed your relationship with God.
The Church understands when we are overwhelmed caring for children, and has developed very accurate methods, Napro Technology and Natural Family Planning which work with a woman't system instead of against it. The pill is a carcinogen, and is poison for women.