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What’s the problem with the “consistent ethic of life”? Nothing, in the abstract. Every participant in moral discourse has a duty to be consistent (i.e., not to advance contradictory claims). Yet why do we Catholics get repeated calls for a consistent ethic of life — and not, say, for a consistent ethic of charity, or a consistent ethic of inclusion, or a consistent ethic of peace? For that matter, why aren’t we urged to go the whole hog and embrace a “consistent ethic of virtue” that requires us to push for government-funded Eucharistic Adoration as part of the school lunch program? We’re right to suspect that those who dish out this advice to us are more alarmed by the prospect of our success than our failure. Quite simply, folks who are embarrassed or threatened by the pro-life vote want to shush orthodox Catholics from speaking out against abortion and other forms of legalized murder, and an effective way of doing this is to call our Catholicism into doubt. They want us to change the subject.
Trick #3: Twist the words of bishops to confuse Catholic voters.
[L]ast week the bishops issued a statement commending the Obama administration for upholding the ban on federal funding of abortion following false accusations – made by the National Right to Life Committee and the Family Research Council – that a high risk insurance pool in Pennsylvania contained $160 million in federal funding for abortion.
Logic tells you that a “ban” doesn’t have to be “upheld” unless there has been a question involved. The fact is, the legislation allowed abortion funding and the first instance that has come to light has been allowance of abortion coverage in state high-risk pools. It was only after pressure from pro-life groups that the HHS agreed to stop the funding in those instances. In other words, the President’s Executive Order does no more than to ensure we’ll have an ongoing battle on our hands in keeping abortion funding out of ObamaCare.
There is no ban on abortion-funding in the law itself. Despite the massive disinformation campaign by Catholics United and others, ObamaCare legislation pushed through by Democrats did include abortion funding and there will continue to be battles on the issue which would not have been necessary if the legislation itself included a ban on abortion funding. The bishops’ statement, while welcoming the response by HHS to discontinue abortion funding in a particular instance, was one of alarm that also called for new legislation ensuring that abortion will not be covered.
Following public criticisms of new federally-funded health insurance plans that would have covered elective abortions in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a statement that the agency will act to exclude abortion from this program. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, welcomed the statement as averting an “alarming precedent” and called for permanent law to exclude abortion from all programs under the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
Catholics United accuses pro-life groups of “perpetuating the abortion funding myth”, using the bishops’ statement as cover when the bishops’ statement actually proves that we are in an on-going battle to keep abortion from being funded by ObamaCare. Spending $500,000 perpetuating lies to hide the fact that these Democrats voted for legislation that clearly covers abortion, and doing so in the name of Catholicism, is an outrage. The fact that WaPo’s religious “On Faith” column gives voice to such outrageous deceit makes the matter all that more disturbing.
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