Again with the Efforts to Force Us to Pay for Abortions!

While you previously supported FOCA & voted against the Stupak Amendment, you claim to be "pro life" & seem to intimate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is inaccurate in maintaining that "the current unamended Senate health care bill fails to maintain the longstanding policy against federal funding of abortion and does not include adequate protection for conscience" (See first attachment.). Congressman, your information is absolutely inaccurate.

As per an analysis from the National Catholic Bioethics Center,

• "It is undeniable that President Obama’s plan for health care reform includes a provision for public funding of programs that provide abortion on demand. No accounting practices, or requiring enrollees or employees to write separate checks for abortion coverage, change that fact....There is no evidence of conscience protections for individuals or employers.... There is limited evidence of conscience protections for providers.... Nowhere does it provide for protection against coercion of health care providers and employers related to contraceptives or abortifacients. The plan also expands Medicaid to all individuals less than 65 years of age, based on income, and is to include essential health benefits. Courts have construed such Medicaid provisions to include abortion....In fact all basic health plans must provide these 'essential health benefits.' While, federal funding of abortion by the US Department of Health and Human Services (e.g., Medicaid)would be in violation of the Hyde Amendment, any health care reform legislation must specifically invoke the Hyde Amendment on all options within the bill to assure its applicability. There is no such invocation in the Obama Plan. Yet proponents of HR 3962 (the Senate bill upon which this proposal builds) insist that provisions for federal funding of abortion are not included" www.ncbcenter.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=482

As per yesterday's clear statement from Archbishop Charles Chaput,

• "The Senate version of health care reform currently being forced ahead by congressional leaders and the White House is a bad bill that will result in bad law....It does not meet minimum moral standards in at least three important areas: the exclusion of abortion funding and services; adequate conscience protections for health care professionals and institutions; and the inclusion of immigrants. Groups, trade associations, and publications describing themselves as 'Catholic' or 'prolife' that endorse the Senate version—whatever their intentions—are doing a serious disservice to the nation and to the Church, undermining the witness of the Catholic community and ensuring the failure of genuine, ethical health care reform....In its current content, the Senate version of health care legislation is not 'reform.' Catholics and other persons of good will concerned about the foundations of human dignity should oppose it"www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/03/catholics-health-care-and-the-senatersquos-bad-bil.

As per an appeal from the Catholic Medical Association,

• "given the clear lack of support from the American people, and given the substantial flaws that exist in House and Senate bills, we believe the most responsible course of action is to pause, reflect, and then begin the legislative process anew, working in a more deliberate and bipartisan manner. It is more important that health-care reform be done right than to finish the legislative process by a date certain....We believe the American people will rally behind sound legislation" www.cathmed.org/issues_resources/publications/press_releases/cma_issues_open_letter_to_president_obama_and_congress/