Catholic League president Bill Donohue says relations between President Barack Obama and Catholics are at a critical juncture:
Exactly two weeks ago today, President Obama met with some Catholic journalists, telling them, “I don’t know any circumstances in which abortion is a happy circumstance or decision.” This begs the question: Why are his surrogates in the Democratic party pushing to make the public pay for a procedure that always makes women (and children) so unhappy? To be exact, over the past week, amendments to the health care reform bill sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Mike Enzi that would prohibit the public funding of abortion have gone down in defeat, all to the applause of the Obama administration. Something has got to give. If abortion is bad, then it makes no sense to subsidize it. After all, there is a reason why we don’t subsidize air or water pollution.
On that same day, the president pledged to support “robust” conscience-clause protections for health care workers. This was in keeping with the pledge he made at Notre Dame in May. “Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion,” he told the graduates, “and draft a sensible conscience clause….” This begs the question: Why are his surrogates in the Democratic party pushing to kill conscience rights? To be exact, yesterday the Democrats killed an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn to provide conscience-rights protections for health care workers.
This is break point for Obama and Catholics. The president either means what he says when he talks to Catholics, or he doesn’t.
