“Congress continues to debate health care reform. While the House passed a health care bill that prevents the federal government from funding elective abortions, and includes provisions making health care affordable and accessible for all, the Senate rejected this and passed a bill that requires federal funds to help subsidize and promote health plans that cover elective abortions, while forcing purchasers to pay directly for other people’s abortions. These two bills must now be combined into one bill that both the House and Senate will vote on in final form. The U.S. bishops continue to strongly oppose abortion funding, while calling for critical improvements in conscience protection, affordability for the poor and vulnerable, and access to health care for immigrants…. the U.S. Bishops Conference [is] asking you to please contact your congressional representatives immediately and urge them to address the moral issues… Health care reform should be about saving lives, not destroying them.” — United States Council of Catholic Bishops
People have been asking me, “Do you support health care reform?” My answer is, “Yes, I support reform of our current health care system.” Until recently, when someone went further and asked me, “Do you support the health care reform bills in Congress?”, my answer was, “I do not know. I don’t think anyone really understands the bills as they are thousands of pages in length.”
Unfortunately, given what I am hearing from sources I believe are credible, I cannot support the Senate version of the bill for sure. To deny certain groups of people living in our country access to affordable health care, to put professionals in situations where for all intents and purposes they will be pressured to violate their consciences, and to provide funding for aborting our children, is unconscionable. I cannot support that.
I find it more and more difficult the older I get and in the context of contemporary society to find it EVER permissible to take another human being’s life. Especially under the pretext of “health care”. I understand the longstanding teaching that one has the right to defend one’s own life and when faced with an aggressor who in all likelihood will take your life you can respond in proportion to defend yourself. I cannot say I wouldn’t exercise this right if in such a situation. But a right does not demand its use.
It may be trite or cliché, but “What would Jesus do?” How would Jesus speak about these current issues?
How do you?
