Health Care Reform and Abortion
A health care reform bill has passed the House, and the Senate has voted to debate the issue on the floor. Two issues within the proposed reforms seem to be receiving more attention than all of the others; namely, immigration and abortion. As of this writing, abortion has eclipsed immigration in the public spotlight because of recent developments. The issue took center stage over the weekend when Sen. Patrick Kennedy went public with his ban from receiving communion by the Catholic bishop of Rhode Island. The ban had actually been in place for two years, but by making it public now Kennedy has highlighted the friction between the Catholic Church and many of its members, as well as the larger divide among pro-life and pro-choice advocates throughout the country. The issue is so divisive it threatens to kill reform.
The Roman Catholic Church, through its U S Conference of Catholic Bishops, has weighed in on the issue, as the church ought to do. Their position, at least as I understand it, is to be certain than no public funds are to be used to perform abortions, which is the current federal law. Their aim furthermore, at least as I understand it, is to restrict access to federal money for abortions through a public option, if there is one in the final bill. The public option is likely to be the way poor women access health care, and likely the way they would have insurance to pay for abortions. I support the position of the Church in Rome on this to a degree.
The position of the Episcopal Church on abortion is that we support a woman’s right to choose in the case of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life. I would favor access to abortion through a public option in these instances. It is my belief, and only mine, that the Roman Church would not support even that.
Health care reform is something desperately needed in this country. Abortion is not only a divisive issue, but an important one with deep theological undertones. People have different theological understandings of what occurs when an abortion is performed. I believe intelligent, caring, faithful people can work out their differences in the language of the bill. It is my hope that we can have a civil debate on this difficult topic and not let it sideline reform.
One Comment on “Health Care Reform and Abortion”
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Linda Kay White said:
Although I am not a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church,it is a centuries long standing belief regarding abortion, is that life must be preserved from conception through natural death. Which is why the Catholic Church and I do not want public tax funds used to support an action I feel is immoral. Although I would hope that people would not select abortion, there are various venues such as Planned Parenthood who will provide abortions for people who feel they cannot afford them.
If people examine the statistics provided by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which surveys US abortionists, they will find in 2007 there were 1,206,200 abortions performed. Further examination shows there have been 49,551,703 US abortions performed since the advent of Rowe vs Wade in 1973. These facts alone support the conclusion that abortion in the US is neither rare nor uncommon. It seems by these facts alone, one could conclude that abortion is being used an birth control and not to end a birth from rape, incest and mental health issues of the mother. This is one problem that causes conflict regarding health care reform. In addition, in my opinion, if one looks at all the physical and mental complications regarding abortion, one can see that abortion is NOT health care.
Regarding Senator Patrick Kennedy, his bishop is really doing him a favor by asking Kennedy to refrain from receiving communion,if the Senator continued to voice a pro-choice stance. Senator Kennedy was the one who chose to publicize private communications between himself and his bishop. If the Senator receives Holy Communion while not in a state of grace, the Senator endangers his soul.