President Obama isn’t pro-choice, at least not when it comes to the choices of people who do not support abortion. Another crisis is brewing – one that Rahm Emmanuel will surely not waste. And I wonder if that isn’t the point of all this. If Catholic hospitals can be forced to close, what will happen to those facilities and to the patients who use them? Why wouldn’t the government buy them – and probably at bargain prices? This will accomplish two goals near and dear to the administration’s heart – a further government takeover of the health care system by controlling a third of the nation’s hospitals, and continuing promotion of abortion.
Before the election – an election in which Catholics supported President Obama by a wide margin, perhaps taken in by the outright lies spread far and wide that he was a moderate on abortion – it was just considered crazy talk that religious freedom was under attack:
What in the world were these bishops talking about, claiming that religious freedom in America was under attack? Keep up the hysterics, boys, I thought as I scanned the latest story, and this will be birth control all over again: Your lips are moving but no one can hear you. And the most ludicrous line out of them, surely, was about how, under Obama, Catholic hospitals that provide obstetric and gynecological services might soon be forced to perform abortions or close their doors. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago warned of “devastating consequences” to the health care system, insisting Obama could force the closure of all Catholic hospitals in the country. That’s a third of all hospitals, providing care in many neighborhoods that are not exactly otherwise overprovided for. It couldn’t happen, could it?
… Even without the passage of FOCA, conscientious objectors are already feeling pressure to provide services they don’t believe in. Sister Carol Keehan, a former hospital administrator who runs the Catholic Health Association, told the Times that “we have seen a variety of efforts to force Catholic and other health care providers to perform or refer for abortions and sterilizations.”
Those of us who were outshouted by the disgraceful Pro-Life Obama and Matthew 25 sites predicted this, and our predictions have so far been accurate. All through the campaign, I met people and read articles by people who intended to vote for Obama in the hope that he would not do what he clearly said he was going to do. As the Slate article quoted above stated, he was quite open about his intentions to deprive people of the right to concientiously object. He’s going to sign FOCA at his earliest opportunity; he said that he would.
At the very moment when Obama and his party have won the trust of so many Catholics who favor at least some limits on abortion, I hope he does not prove them wrong. I hope he does not make a fool out of that nice Doug Kmiec, who led the pro-life charge on his behalf. I hope he does not spit on the rest of us—though I don’t take him for the spitting sort—on his way in the door.
He didn’t make fools of you. You made fools of yourselves, by refusing to believe what he plainly said many times. Now the showdown is inevitable:
Bishop Lynch posted a statement on his diocesan blog following the most recent meeting of the Catholic Health Association board of trustees. He said hospitals would not close but would also not comply with the FOCA law either.
“Idle threats about the certain closing of Catholic hospitals if certain things happen are simply that – idle,” the bishop said about threats of closing hospitals.
“Catholic hospitals will not allow abortions to be performed in their facilities,” Lynch wrote and they will not comply with forced abortion laws “even if our actions constitute civil disobedience,” he said.
“No Catholic institution or employee of an institution can or will be made to violate the dictates of their conscience resulting from federal or state legislative action,” Bishop Lynch added, according to CNS. But “we will not close” either because Catholic hospitals have an obligation to serve patients for non-abortion reasons.
Make no mistake: the Catholic hospitals will either bend to the will of the federal government, or they will close. The Archdiocese of Boston would not comply with new mandatory gay adoption laws; the passage of the law resulted in the closure of the largest adoption agency in New England. It is ludicrous to believe that the Obama adminstration is not fully aware of the consequences of what they are doing, and of the Catholic Church’s track record. They know that they are putting the Church into a position where they will be forced to close the hospitals. And if they’re forced to close, they’ll re-open as abortion-providing facilities, quite possibly government owned.
At least if the Bishops are willing to commit civil disobedience, it will take a few years to duke this out in the court sytem, and possibly by then we’ll have a new Congress and/or President which will make this moot. In the meantime, now is the time for Christians of all denominations to pray. Pray for President Obama’s change of heart on this issue, pray for wisdom and strength for the Bishops who will decide how to respond to this attack, and that America will rise up in support of a culture of life and religious freedom.
