Health Care Action Alert 

We have a pro-life statesman in Washington.

And he’s a Democrat.

Pro-Abortion Health Care Bill is Not Dead.

Three troubling facts you should know about:  

By now the whole world (and several worlds beyond) has heard the news that because of the upset election in Massachusetts yesterday, the Senate Democrats have lost their supermajority.  This is indeed extraordinary news, especially for critics of universal health care.

ETHICAL QUESTIONS A CATHOLIC SHOULD ASK

Dear Friends of a Culture of Life,

We think that significant moral questions are raised by the universal health debate and would like to formulate several for you.  Our purpose is not to draw a one-size-fits-all conclusion about the merits of all current health care bills.  These raise complex questions and there are reasons to support and/or oppose various pieces of different bills. 

The Catholic Church has affirmed for some time a right to a minimum of decent, humane and accessible health care.[1]  This does not imply that a nationalized health care system is a good idea, nor its establishment a fundamental right.  But it does imply that Catholics should work for some kind of improvement or reform in the current system on behalf of those who cannot afford adequate care.

Initiative 1000 in Washington State would legalize assisted suicide, permitting a doctor to give a lethal overdose to a
patient if the doctor feels that the patient is likely to die within six months.

 
“[T]he first thing I will do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.”
Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama
July 17, 2007, Address to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Just over a year ago, the public debate over abortion was irrevocably altered.  In the landmark Gonzales v. Carhart decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on partial-birth abortion and, more importantly, abdicated, at least in part, its role as the “National Abortion Control Board.”

Denise M. Burke is the Vice President & Legal Director, Americans United for Life

Over the last few decades, abortion advocates and others have launched a concerted campaign to force hospitals, healthcare institutions, health insurers, and individual healthcare providers to provide, refer for, or pay for elective abortions, abortifacient drugs, contraceptives, assisted reproductive procedures such as in vitro fertilization, and sterilizations.  Their determined effort to eviscerate the concept of individual conscience and the freedom to follow one’s religious, moral or ethical beliefs from the medical profession has resulted in the following:

Apparently responding to Catholic bishops who spoke out in 2004 about the obligations of Catholics in public life to oppose legal abortion, 55 Catholic Democratic members of Congress have released a "Statement of Principles." Though the letter attempts to declare the signatories strong support for the dignity of life the document refuses to call for outlawing abortion and instead declares that "we acknowledge and accept the tension that comes with being in disagreement with the Church in some areas."