BACK TO NEWS 

News

Statement of Jon O'Brien, President of Catholics for Choice

We’re very disappointed at the passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment but we are far from defeated. It was an outrageous attack on women’s rights and showed that the bishops are willing to sacrifice health care unless their views on abortion win the day. There are many of us who are not willing to sacrifice insurance coverage for abortion for so many women and we are willing to fight to the bitter end.

It is important to note at the outset that there are only 200 U.S. bishops who oversee dioceses in the US. These men are not representative of U.S. Catholics.

In a poll we carried out recently, we asked 1,000 Catholics what they thought about this and related issues. According to that poll most American Catholics, 73 percent, think that providing health care to all people who need it is a matter of social justice.

As Catholics, we understand that social justice means we are obliged to be concerned about and care for people who are poorer than we are, or marginalized, or those who don't have a voice in decisions that have an impact on their lives and the lives of their families.

We understand that social justice includes extending health care to the whole person, not just some parts of people.

In fact, Catholic voters believe the U.S. Catholic bishops are wrong on health care reform. Fifty-six percent think the bishops should not take a position on health care reform legislation in Congress and 68 percent disapprove of US Catholic bishops saying that all Catholics should oppose the entire health care reform plan if it includes coverage for abortion.

A majority of American Catholics think that reproductive health care services should be covered in any eventual reform of the U.S. health care system—including pre- and postnatal care for women, contraception, condom provision as part of HIV/AIDS prevention, and, yes, even abortion.

A small minority of Catholics, fewer than 15 percent, are in line with the bishops in believing that all abortion should be banned. The rest can see circumstances in which legal abortion is an acceptable, even essential, aspect of health care.

These are the numbers. What about the bishops?

I’ve already mentioned that there are only 200 bishops in decision-making positions in the U.S. church.
Sadly, these 200 are often referred to as the “Catholic church.” This is far from the case. The Catholic church in the United States is made up of all 68 million Catholics and all of the Catholic institutions. So, when we refer to the church, we describe the collection of beliefs and understandings of all those Catholics and all those institutions, which extends well beyond the beliefs represented by the Catholic hierarchy.

We also feel that the bishops’ arguments against the way that the House of Representatives tried to deal with funding for abortion were hypocritical, if not dishonest. The pro-choice movement respected the attempts to ensure that the health care bill did not become a means to extend or restrict access to abortion. Sadly, the bishops and their allies did not.

The United States Conference of catholic Bishops and its allies distorted the facts about the health reform proposal by claiming that the proposed system would have used federal dollars to cover abortion care. They’re wrong. The original House bill included a compromise that required all plans to separate public and private dollars in the new system — ensuring that no tax dollars would ever cover abortion services.

The bishops should be familiar with this arrangement because it reflects the same principle of separation that guides their financial interaction with the federal government. The bishops never question their own ability to lawfully manage funds from separate sources to ensure that tax dollars don’t finance religious practices.

Catholic hospitals depend on federal funding. Indiana has 35 Catholic hospitals and 26 other Catholic health care facilities. In 2007, 58 percent of patients who visited these facilities were covered by Medicaid or Medicare, a proportion reflected across the country.

Catholic Charities also depends on state and federal dollars. Sixty-seven percent of Catholic Charities’ income comes from government funding. That represented over $2.6 billion in 2008.

Catholic hospitals and Catholic Charities receive enormous quantities of government dollars while abiding by existing constitutional and statutory requirements that prevent government sponsorship of religion.

Why couldn’t the federal insurance exchange?

We need to remind ourselves that this is only the first salvo in the bishops’ campaign against women’s health. Just imagine for a moment what health care will look like when the bishops are finished.
• There will be absolutely no access to abortion—even in cases of rape or incest.
• There will be no IVF.
• No contraception.
• No treatment for ectopic pregnancy or medical anomalies during pregnancy.
• No respect for advanced medical directives and no use of cures gained through stem-cell research.
• There will be nothing that doesn’t meet the myriad litmus tests prescribed by a small group of men who don’t represent American Catholics, let alone the America populace.

We are determined to go from where we are now with renewed vigor. The country has seen the lengths that the U.S. bishops will go to deny women access to legal abortion services. We will use the anger at that to mobilize people who are willing to ensure that abortion is not a political football. We want to end up with a health care system that all of America can be proud of—not the health care that 200 bishops want.