Catholic Bishops 'Not Working Hard Enough' For Health Reform, Salon Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 25 Aug 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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The "best shot" at health care reform is "now," but the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is "squandering every ounce of moral capital ... on ensuring that in any reform bill not one penny of federal funds is used for abortion," Frances Kissling writes in a Salon opinion piece. The bishops are "just not working hard enough on behalf of" the public plan option, which is "the most important and desperately needed health care reform," Kissling writes. She adds that their "strategy has put them in the extremist camp among those opposed to abortion." Several religious groups from both sides of the abortion-rights debate agreed "to support the 'status quo' and to not use health care to advance their abortion agenda," but the Catholic bishops "are the only religious group that is holding support for health care reform hostage to a complete ban on any form of federal funds being spent on abortion coverage," Kissling writes.

Kissling notes that the bishops did not create a section on health care reform on their Web site until June, adding that their "posts on the section get more strident on abortion by the day and less focused on universal access." Currently, issues like providing coverage to the uninsured "are in small print on the Web site, and in the bishops' letters to Congress and action alerts," she continues.

Kissling writes that it is "time for the bishops to put aside their obsession with abortion and start working to mobilize the 67,500,000 registered Catholics ... into a lobbying force for health care reform." Currently, the "heavy lifting" on mobilizing Catholic voters is being done by the Catholic Health Association, which opposes abortion rights but "has also worked diligently with [its] hospitals to provide more charity care to patients and handle labor disputes equitably," according to Kissling. CHA's member hospitals "are for the most part sponsored by women's religious orders who have a real commitment to serving the poor, as opposed to the bishops, who over the years have become more and more concerned with orthodoxy on sexual and reproductive health issues instead," she adds.

President Obama's election has allowed a "power shift in religion ... away from the religious right toward more progressive perspectives on faith and public policy," Kissling writes, noting that "[e]ven evangelicals are moving toward the left on gay rights and reproductive health -- not far enough, but no longer absolutist in the issues." In addition, "Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Unitarian and other pro-choice denominations are working side by side with progressive evangelicals to get the best health care package for low-income people we can," Kissling says. However, USCCB is "increasingly isolated" and "[n]otably absent from these efforts," she writes. Kissling continues that Obama, in the past week, "step[ped] up to the plate to defend healthcare reform on moral grounds" during a conference call to the Faith for Health coalition, which includes religious groups such as the National Baptist Convention, the United Methodist Church, Sojourners and others. Kissling concludes, "These are organizations most Americans have never heard of. They've heard of the Catholic Church, but the bishops are nowhere to be found" (Kissling, Salon, 8/24).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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