Following the defeat of Sen. Orrin Hatch’s amendments that would have banned funding of abortion in the health care bill and ensured conscience rights protections for health care workers, we noted that the Democrats were on a collision course with Catholics.
The Democrats cannot expect Catholics to pay for child abuse in the womb without reprisal. Nor can they expect Catholics to sit back and watch while Catholic doctors and nurses are punished for failing to cooperate in evil.
More than any group in America, Catholic bishops have been at the forefront of the movement for universal health care. But they never signed on to a health care reform package that made them violate their professed beliefs. Nor will they.
President Barack Obama has stated that he would not support a bill that provides funding for abortion or one that denies conscience rights for health care employees. But he made no public comment condemning the votes against these provisions, further fueling the concern of the nation’s Catholics that they have been lied to.
One thing we know for sure: If all along Obama had shown a fraction of the interest that he showed about winning over the Olympic Committee in bringing the games to Chicago, the Hatch amendments would have passed.
