Uncommon Ground, Even Among Catholics.

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

On August 3, 2009 Catholics United issued a press release welcoming [an] "Effort to Find Common Ground on Abortion in Health Care Reform Proposal."

Whatever the merits of various common ground discussions and proposals, I think that Catholics United has borrowed too heavily from the Religious Rights agenda.

The release sought to refute a commercial issued by the Family Research Council that mendaciously tried to scare seniors that health care reform money that would have gone to treat them would be diverted to fund abortions.

Catholics United is welcoming the House Energy and Commerce Committee's decision last week to include language in proposed health care legislation prohibiting taxpayer dollars from funding abortion services. The amendment to the health care plan, put forward by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), also stipulates that abortion coverage cannot be included in a government-defined essential benefits package, that private insurers participating in the public exchange cannot be forced to cover abortion services, and that plans cannot discriminate against health care providers who do not perform abortions.

An esoteric reading of this statement says nothing about why people have abortions, it only says that the bill doesn't fund them or discriminate against pro-lifers. Esoterically, however, it contains another message. Indeed, it tells us more about Catholics United and where they agree with Church hierarchy on the abortion issue.

Catholics United's position is premised on the Religious Right's false assertion that abortion is always a matter of convenience and never a medical or even a moral necessity. As James P. Carroll once observed, even for many Catholics an abortion can be the lesser of two evils. But beyond that, it smacks of religious supremicism, that one particular Christian view on abortion trumps others -- as well as those of non-Christians. And whether intentional or unintentional (and I would like to believe the latter to be the case) I don't believe that is one place either the supporters of the Capps Amendment or Catholics United really want to go.

It is not my intention here to reargue abortion, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated is a matter of settled law, well founded in a broad medical and legal consensus. But let's look at some of the historic, obvious questions. What if a woman requires an abortion due to a pregnancy that endangers her health? What of case of rape or incest?  What about non-Catholic religions that have a very different take on abortion? Under Jewish law it can be a sin not to have the procedure under some of the circumstances above. Better yet, what about the many Catholic women I know who, if their lives were endangered by a pregnancy - would want the very same procedure available to them as part of a government-defined essential benefits package? Shall matters of what is covered under public or private health insurance programs be dictated by the Religious Right and the anti-abortion movement?

The Religious Right is trying to kill health care reform by saying it is about abortion, while some of its supporters (like Representative Capps and Catholics United) are trying to make it a piece of antiabortion legislation in order to get it passed And if they were to succeed in getting such legislation passed, it would be ironic that it could simultaneously step upon a woman's freedom of conscience as well as her health.