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Slate writes on Obama’s promise to sign FOCA straightaway:
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?
You wouldn’t think so. Only, I am increasingly convinced that it could. If the Freedom of Choice Act passes Congress, and that’s a big if, Obama has promised to sign it the second it hits his desk. (Here he is at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund event in 2007, vowing, “The first thing I’d do as president is, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing I’d do.”) Though it’s often referred to as a mere codification of Roe, FOCA, as currently drafted, actually goes well beyond that: According to the Senate sponsor of the bill, Barbara Boxer, in a statement on her Web site, FOCA would nullify all existing laws and regulations that limit abortion in any way, up to the time of fetal viability. Laws requiring parental notification and informed consent would be tossed out. While there is strenuous debate among legal experts on the matter, many believe the act would invalidate the freedom-of-conscience laws on the books in 46 states. These are the laws that allow Catholic hospitals and health providers that receive public funds through Medicaid and Medicare to opt out of performing abortions. Without public funds, these health centers couldn’t stay open; if forced to do abortions, they would sooner close their doors. Even the prospect of selling the institutions to other providers wouldn’t be an option, the bishops have said, because that would constitute “material cooperation with an intrinsic evil.”
The bishops are not bluffing when they say they’d turn out the lights rather than comply. Nor is Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis exaggerating, I don’t think, in vowing that “any one of us would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow—to die tomorrow—to bring about the end of abortion.”
Whatever your view on the legality and morality of abortion, there is another important question to be considered here: Could we even begin to reform our already overburdened health care system without these Catholic institutions? I don’t see how.
Ed Morrissey comments:
As Henneberger notes, these facilities aren’t in overserved areas, either. Catholic facilities tend to be in places other for-profit clinics and hospitals avoid. The sudden disappearance of these clinics and hospitals would leave millions of people with much fewer choices in medical attention, or none at all.
Some people on this site, the social moderates or liberals, might find this debate silly or worse. As a general rule, I don’t comment too much on social issues and frankly I think there are higher priorities then attempting to end legalized abortion in a country that isn’t remotely ready to make that step. I don’t think there are many worthier goals, but I’m a pragmatist, and I’m able to recognize the wisdom of, to a certain degree, “tabling” or at least de-emphasizing some of the more unpopular elements of our social program. But, I have to comment on FOCA, which strikes me as disastrous in every sense. Shocking though social moderates might find this position, if FOCA is passed in its current form, and freedom of conscience laws are overturned, I fully support the closing of these hospitals. I am not Catholic, but I sympathize with their plight. No one should be required to all but openly support and fund a practice they find equivalent to murder. This is more poignant in the case of Catholic hospitals because- unlike the federal government (which might well fund abortions under Obama)- they’re privately owned religious institutions. Hopefully, for the sake of Catholics and health care consumers both, Obama backs off FOCA or at the very least, revises it.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
The biggest impediment to the “undiluted” (Sen. Boxer) form of FOCA will most likely be the Blue Dog Democrats, I would imagine.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Mark, I think you are right. I don’t see a version of this bill passing congress even if the democrats secure their holy grail.
There are too many issues that pop up when you decide to instate institutional infanticide.
But, As a measure, the Gov may use eminent domain to take over those hospitals and keep them opened. I wouldn’t put it past them.
Scarey stuff.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Barbara Boxer is the most bloodthirsty member of the U.S. Senate. Beyond the issue of abortion, I don’t know what Sen. Boxer feels passionately about.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
#2, if they did I think a lot of older doctors and nurses would retire. Our healthcare system would quickly become much worse with the passage of this legislation.
Passing this sort of thing displays a fixation on promoting abortion at the expense of the health of women, men and children.
This is exactly the sort of bill that would result in women dying just so some pro-abortion politicians can laugh about killing babies.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Nope, I don’t see the Government taking over these hospitals. For one thing, the RCC would simply sell off all the equipment and close down the empty buildings. So what is the Government going to do? Buy up all those hospitals, buy up all the equipment to run them, and hire all the staff? Where are they going to get the staff? Where are they going to get the equipment? And they are going to do all this all at once?
I think not. The only solution would be to nationalize all those hospitals. And I highly doubt they would get away with it. Even if they did, the litigation alone would tie it up in court for years on end. In the meantime all those areas served by the RCC hospitals are without hospital services.
Oh yeah, the Democrats are extremely eager to step into that pile of fresh, fragrant cow dung, just so they can force their will upon the American people. I really don’t think so.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Another problem with the FOCA is the “all abortion, all the time” stance it makes. The fact of the matter is the vast majority of Americans play between the twenty-yard lines on this one. Most think that abortions should be available, but there should be restrictions place on them. What these restrictions are varies from community to community, state to state, region to region. To have the will of the vast majority of Americans stomped on in a raw power-play by the pro-abortion extremists will not sit well with the electorate.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I am Catholic and a RN. I would choose jail before being forced to assist in an abortion by the government.
I am equally concerned Obama would take over any closed hospital. Don’t say it’s illegal. Communists don’t care.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I would possibly go so far as to say that if Catholic hospitals saw eminent domain coming down the pike, they may well demolish their hospitals and destroy their equipment for the sake of protecting the unborn.
I sincerely pray that this legislation does not pass in any form.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I’m one of those people who “play between the twenty-yard lines” on abortion, and I agree with you, marK — I find this bill as offensive as I do the efforts of the extremist socons who want to outlaw all abortion.
As for the bishops, I believe they have every right and, given their moral/religious views, a duty to close down the hospitals.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I actually don’t think you’ll get a lot of argument from the social moderates on this one. I suspect that your average non-ideological socially moderate voter would be taken aback if President Obama were to sign legislation that basically requires Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Now, the logic may not quite work out, as that same average voter would probably scoff at the idea that, say, a Catholic pharmacist should be able to refuse to fill a prescription for contraception. But people don’t always act logically, and we all know that. There is, I suspect, a sensibility shared by most Americans that Catholicism and abortion just don’t fit together, and the attempt to force one on the other by law just FEELS wrong. Plus, many of those social moderates actually support the parental consent and notification statutes invalidated by this law.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:23 am
#3 Greg A Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Barbara Boxer is the most bloodthirsty member of the U.S. Senate. Beyond the issue of abortion, I don’t know what Sen. Boxer feels passionately about.
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And, in my estimation, she’s likely the stupidest member of the United States Senate – a bar that’s not very high, even with Joe Biden gone.
I think she also feels passionate about “green energy” and killing the oil industry.
November 26th, 2008 at 12:32 am
…and frankly I think there are higher priorities then attempting to end legalized abortion in a country that isn’t remotely ready to make that step. [...]
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By tabling the issue until the country is ready to take the step to make abortion once again illegal means that day is likely never to come.
The only way to advance the anti-abortion position is to keep talking about, keep fighting. By ignoring it, or tabling it, makes it just “another fact of life” in America – something that we can’t do anything about and just have to accept. And then there is the next thing that is “just a fact of life” in America that we can’t do anything about, and on and on and on.
The issue has to be confronted, day in and day out; talked about, debated, argued and fought or we will never change the facts on the ground.
November 26th, 2008 at 9:59 am
I tried to let my rep know my feelings about FOCA … all I got back was a boilerplate letter talking about reproductive freedom. And no response to my second letter. They are going to toe the party line. The only way to get their attention is to flood them with calls, letters, e-mails, organize rallies … even then I don’t know if they will listen.