I watched the USCCB discussion yesterday, and heard the proposal that if Catholic hospitals should be required to offer abortion services, they should simply be closed.

I’d suggest, rather than simply close, the Catholic hospitals remain open, and continue to refuse to provide abortion – civil disobedience, in other words.  Why not put up a fight?  Why should we just fold up and quit?  I think it would be a much better witness than simply closing.

It could have a good effect – would certainly generate a lot of attention on our position.

Also, I heard several bishops refer to “alleviating the social causes of abortion,” ‘as if all abortions are caused by poverty, etc.  Frankly, the majority of abortions are caused because it’s legal, and people like to have sex.  As a former pro-choice feminist, I am very well aware of the deceptive use of language by feminists to manipulate the public view of abortion, when really, within feminist circles, it’s all about sexual freedom and sexual self-determination.  We need frank talk about sexual responsibility, not just “alleviating social conditions.” Abortion and contraception have divorced sex from life.  We need to re-link them, in a beautiful and powerful way, so that people take notice.

I watched the debate and wanted to yell at the tv when some bishops were insistent on a somewhat of a conciliatory note.  It needs to be charitable, yes, but in no way unclear.  Protection of life is one of the foundational issues that needs to be addressed with the new administration.  It can not be lost in a sea of niceties and words the way it was in Faithful Citizenship.

Aimee,
I think your points are excellent.  As a RN who, before Mommyhood, worked in the OR I would be directly affected by FOCA and the loss of conscience rights.  I have said something along the lines of the bishops statement about closing hospitals, I’d surrender my license.  My good friend, who runs a CPC, challenged me on that and said, no, make them take it from you.  Refuse to submit.  Good food for thought.

Aimee—re the “the social causes of abortion”—well said!

I’m glad the bishops are taking a stand!  Thanks for keeping us updated, Rebecca.

And Aimee, I really appreciate your comment and your point of view.  I have wondered why, when people talk hopefully about Obama’s social plans eliminating the “need” for abortions, they ignore the obvious: even if there were no poverty and everyone had free health care, it would do nothing to reduce the type of abortions to which Obama himself was referring when he mentioned not wanting his daughters to be “punished with a baby.”

I think you are spot-on about the category of “social causes of abortion” being much wider, and more ideological, than the reduce-poverty reduce-abortions approach suggests.  (My personal opinion is that the contraceptive free-sex mentality is primarily to blame.) As Catholics we need to recognize and address that, and so should our bishops!

Speaking of yelling at the TV, here’s another moment, when the bishop from Joe Biden’s hometown got up and said, “I know no one wants to talk about this today, but we have to do more than just issue statements.  We have to take action, even canonical action, to ensure that Catholics in political life follow Catholic teaching, or suffer the consequences if they don’t.  I CANNOT have the vice-president elect coming to Scranton and telling people he learned his values in the Catholic Church here, when what he stands for is totally opposed to what the Church actually teaches.”

He was greeted with dead silence by the other bishops – at which I found myself yelling at the TV, “C’mon you wimps, applaud him!”

I should clarify: it also appeared to me that the bishops were more united at yesterday’s meeting than I’ve ever seen them.  It appears progress is being made, and it was an occasion for joy.  Maybe Pope Benedict’s visit really did make an impression on them?  At any rate, we must pray for them in what could be very difficult times!

This is uplifting news in dark times!  I pray they stick to it and keep their courage up.  Need our courageous Bishops more than ever to lead the way.

I agree Aimee, why pull up stakes and close our Catholic hospitals?  We should keep them open and force the abortion proponents’ hand.

I believe that, should Catholic hospitals be “forced” to provide abortions, they take a two-fold approach:

1 - first, show expectant mothers seeking abortions the videos such as the one seen at http://obamamustsee.com/—make them see what they’ll be doing.

2 - civil disobedience; refuse to perform the abortions. Period. 

I pray for our Bishops, I pray for those who physically protest abortions and for those “silent” protesters who send out the e-mails, provide funds for counseling and pro-life clinics. I pray for our country and all the unborn children.

“(My personal opinion is that the contraceptive free-sex mentality is primarily to blame.) “ - I could not agree more. I think that we can’t state this loudly enough and often enough. That was the foundation for my views when I was pro-choice.

Aimee - just saw your latest post on this subject and can’t wait to read it!

Wouldn’t it be interesting if we in fact kept our hospitals open and we had pro-choicers picketing out side the Catholic hospital doors.  Talk about a change of events.

In a private discussion I am having with someone before the elction, she mentiioned that our Bishops were not united on the priority of abortion for the election.  To my knowledge, only one from Tennessee spoke publicly in oppostition to church teaching.  To further defend my point, can anyone else give me information on dissenting bishops?

Lots of food for thought here.  For starters, I read the language of FOCA and cannot understand where it would apply to Catholic hospitals.  It looks to me as though it applies only to publicly funded hospitals and programs, so I’d be interested in hearing why there’s this concern.  My husband is a physician and he said the American Medical Association (very powerful lobby) would have a huge problem with this bill if it affects Catholic hospitals, as they compose a large part of the US medical care system.  I’m also not clear from the language exactly how FOCA affects conscience clauses.  I’m not saying I don’t have problems with the bill--I do-- but I want to be clear on the specifics.  Any info is welcomed!  I also think being very clear helps to target our opposition effectively. 

I also wanted to say that I am confused by a lot of the comments (here and on other posts) that speak almost definitively about the root causes of abortion.  I have never seen a study that points conclusively to one root cause and I get discouraged when there’s bickering in pro-life circles about this.  Conservative pro-lifers seem to want to ignore the poverty-driven reasons (which absolutely do exist) and liberal pro-lifers want to ignore the personal responsibility/sexuality angle (also key).  Factor in the racial complexities and it’s even more complicated.  Why can’t we all agree that the the root causes are many-factored and support pro-life work in whatever form it takes?  I’m thinking of Romans 12 here… many members, one body, different functions.

Finally, in response to Annette’s comment about Bishops disagreeing, I found this link helpful:

http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=91722

It highlights that fact that Bishops do differ with respect to prioritizing the abortion issue in public life and mentions Bishop Zavala (Los Angeles) by name as taking exception to the single issue approach.  My personal take is that the USCCB is divided but that the conservative Bishops can be more outspoken since the Pope is more sympathetic to their position.

Thank you Laura, for the link.

I think prolifers like myself have difficulty acknowledging the poverty factor because during the election, those that I knew were voting for Obama used this as a platform.  We, therefore, are judging if someone should exist on merely their income.  I have a huge problem with that.  In effect, we have said that the value of the soul of the unseen does not compare to the value of the soul that we see.

It sickens me that we have priests, let alone bishops that would allow this confusion.  Pray, pray, pray that we my be one in the effort to preserve life.

Just to clarify: FOCA doesn’t call for the closing of Catholic hospitals. It does protect abortion from conception until just-after delivery (in the case of late term and born-alive victims) as a civil right.

Bishop Paprocki is assuming --this is why he calls it “the next step"-- that once that’s the law of the land, it’s only a matter of time before Catholic institutions are prosecuted for denying people their civil rights.

Think about it: how can there be a conscience exception for civil rights? You can’t deny a black person or a woman a seat in your restaurant because your conscience forbids it: you have to bend to the law. That’s the inherent and inevitable logic of FOCA.

The effort to crush the conscience rights of pro-life doctors and pharmacists has been underway for some time. Even if at the end of a years-long battle it isn’t successful (about which I have no confidence--judges have made crazy rulings already), it will still mean Catholic institutions --and crisis pregnancy centers-- will face nuisance civil rights lawsuits for so long as FOCA exists (if it’s passed!) in an effort to bankrupt them. That’s the game NARAL, NOW & Planned Parenthood played during the Clinton administration, when they tried to apply anti-racketeering (RICO) laws to pro-life protesters. Go to their sites and see they’re gearing up for it again.

For example, here is NOW’s response to the Bush HHS secretary’s clarification this summer of existing rules protecting the conscience rights of pro-life pharmacists and doctors.

http://www.capwiz.com/now/issues/alert/?alertid=11958671

Here NARAL/Pro-choice America targets conscience protections:
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/choice-action-center/in_your_state/who-decides/federal/?templateName=federallawdetails&issueID=14&ssumID=2946

Quote: “The United States allows certain individuals or entities to refuse to provide women specific reproductive health services, information or referrals.

The Federal Refusal Clause, passed every year by Congress as part of a massive spending bill, provides that none of the funds can go to a government agency or program that discriminates against a health care entity that does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.  This language protects health care entities that refuse to provide a full range of reproductive services.  Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, Fiscal Year 2006, Pub. Law 109-149, Nov. 30, 2005 (Enacted Annually Since 2004).

The federal government also protects health care entities that refuse to train medical professionals to perform abortions, refuse to require abortion training, or refuse to provide referrals for abortion training.  42 § U.S.C.A. 238n(a) (Enacted 1996).”

So the assumption on the part of many bishops and pro-life legal experts is entirely rational, logical, and has precedent in our previous experience.

But to be clear, the bishops were discussing possibilities and strategies for a forseeable future, not present reality. We can hope that if the Bishops are clear and there is enough outrage, we might be able to defend at least conscience protections in the upcoming Congress and Administration.

Thanks, Rebecca, for the clarification.  I think it’s important to understand the ramifications in order to highlight the absolute importance of opposing the bill.  However, I believe we should focus on FOCA’s immediate outcomes in our broad-based opposition.  If we say “FOCA will force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions!”, we risk people dismissing our entire position as uninformed and alarmist. 

To Annette, I was a little unclear on your understanding of how poverty relates to the pro-life cause.  My understanding of the argument is that it asserts that a large number of abortions are done by poor women who would choose life if they had the resources to support themselves and their children.  So--address their poverty, help them keep their babies = reduce abortion.  Many pro-life liberals focus on government programs to alleviate poverty (thereby reducing abortions), but conservatives address poverty in their own ways.  Poverty reduction as a pro-life strategy does not need to be an inherently liberal one, in my opinion.  But I do not think that anyone believes that the impoverished unborn have less value, or that addressing poverty in a general sense is more important than addressing abortion.  (If I understood you correctly.)

Legal abortion itself has been a huge contributor to poverty, because men no longer have the incentive to marry and take responsibility for fatherhood they once had.  There was a study done a few years back on why so many men do not want to marry (it’s commonplace now for women to complain about how hard it is to find a good man to marry), and the number one reason men gave was that there are so many sexual partners available to them, they don’t see the need to marry.  Thanks to legalized abortion, women are now more sexualized than ever in history, and are pressured to become sexually active at very young ages.  This has hurt women and increased poverty by contributing to a huge rise in single motherhood.  Abortion advocates would just have those women get abortions, when it is legal abortion itself that is exacerbating the problem.  (Incidentally, another study recently came out of video game users - and they found that teenage boys are continuing to play video games as their main pastime well into their 30’s, rather than settling down and starting a family.).  If you want to reduce poverty, outlaw abortion.

The “discussion” on the school parking lot when I addressed someone who had an Obama sticker on their car was something to the effect of, “If we can’t take care of the poor children that we have, how can we expect to take care of those in the womb”. The solution implied was that because there are so many poor people already, not only do we need to focus our resources on them, but we shouldn’t allow children to be born that are conceived in the less than ideal circumstances.  we should allow this legal and safe out so as not to burden that mother with a child.  I feel strongly this devalues the child in the womb, making their rights secondary to those we see in our midst.  I hope that clarifies.
I am so convinced of this truth that it is difficult for me to even fathom a thought that someone could think a preborn is anything less than an invaluable soul to Christ.

Yes, Annette, that helps me understand where you are coming from.  It sounds like the person you spoke with is not pro-life, so her argument was a totally different one than that of pro-life poverty reduction.  Hers is a common pro-choice argument, so it’s unfortunate that it can get confused with legitimate pro-life poverty reduction efforts!

OK, I haven’t read every single comment here, but I have to say that the first comment I read from Aimee was AWESOME!! I used to be a pro-choicer feminist too and it is wonderful being pro-LIFE!! It feels good to be doing the right thing, but it also feels bad knowing that our president-elect is trying to overcome that.  I just don’t understand it.  We don’t have to understand it, but we have to keep fighting it.  God is calling us to do that! And you’re right Aimee, we need to focus on stopping the actual murder of these babies, but we also have to create a sense of self-respect in women and girls not to participate in sexual activity.  It’s almost like we have become so moral-less (word??) that now it’s time we circle back around and accept God into our hearts and minds as a nation and fight for our God-given rights TOGETHER.

I’m very new to the pro-life movement and I have read most of the posts now and never thought in detail about how making abortion illegal could help to reduce poverty.  It makes total sense to me though.  I actually made that point to a friend of mine.  That if we took abortion away as a birth control method, then maybe people would think twice about having sex.  I’m not sure if that would happen or not, but I know I would have back in the day....  There are so many pieces to this that have to be put together.  For instance, we have a Catherine Foundation right down the road from us and I didn’t even know it existed.  I had seen the sign before, but didn’t pay much attention to it until I asked a friend of mine about it one day.  WOW!! I think that foundations like these and other support centers need to get their voices out there and support our women in their choices.  I just see Planned Parenthood all over the place (I mean really, who doesn’t know what that is??) but you don’t hear much about other foundations that could truly help that girl or woman with her pregnancy.

We have a lot of work to do, and prayer must be first and foremost.

While I welcome the number of bishops who issued statements prior to the election, let’s not forget that one of the reasons more than 50 percent of Catholics voted for a pro-abortion candidate is because of the lack of statements issued by bishops in the last 35 years.  The bishops are responsible for the priests I have encountered through the years who clearly did not adhere to Catholic teaching.  They are responsible for the lack of catechism being taught in our schools and colleges.  They are the ones who had a blind eye to the seminaries in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s that produced men ill-equipped to be our leaders.  It’s hard to forget all of this, especially for those of us who lived through it.  I applaud the bishops for their stands, but it was obviously too late for many Catholics who lost faith in their leadership.

I am so grateful that the bishops are finally speaking loud enough so that even the mainstream media can’t ignore them.  Yes, it’s too late for this election but then again we can’t all expect a complete change of heart by the millions of Americans who haven’t been catechized properly their entire lives.  This starts with the hearts of the individuals.  Do they know Jesus?  Do they understand He loves them and wants a them to be disciples?  Truly, prayer and volunteering are good things but are we all doing our part to help transform the hearts of the people one at a time?

I haven’t been active in my Catholic faith until just recently and I can see now how the Bishops may have contributed to the disrespect of our faith.  I think it started with others who didn’t like the Catholic faith and then our Bishops didn’t take the necessary leadership roles to build us back up and make us stronger.  But maybe that needed to happen to get us where we are today.  I know that for me, when I’m faced with trying to teach my children right and wrong, I look to my faith and God.  And I think that the downfall of our society and the removal of our morals has brought more and more of us back to our faith.  Whether that be Catholic or some other denomination. 

It’s important at this point for us to come together and fight the evil that has overcome us.  Whether we are Catholic or Protestant, we still believe in God.  We may not believe the same things about Him, but the Bible is clear: Thou shalt not kill.  There is no discrepancy there.  Well, there shouldn’t be.  A friend of mine put it this way: Without the sperm and the egg meeting, there would be no life.  There would be no human race.  So how can we reason that life does not begin there? It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t agree with God’s law. 

Maybe Obama becoming president WILL unite us.  Maybe we will come to see what is happening and find God again.  We must pray for that to happen and we must take action by educating our young people about God and the Bible.  I have already begun doing that with my children.  My son even prays for the unborn babies and that God keeps them safe.  I don’t go into detail with them about it, but they are aware that they need protection and that’s all they need to know right now.

I was thinking of getting trained in a program called ENDOW (http://www.endowonline.com) for women.  Anyone have any info or heard anything about that program? It looks wonderful.  I thought it could help women communicate with each other and become closer with their Catholic faith.

If we took abortion away as a birth control method, then maybe people would think twice about having sex.

Yup.  That’s the real reason why people don’t want to outlaw abortion - they’d have to stop having sex so much and actually be responsible for their behavior.  It was people having sex with contraception in the 1960’s that led to the pressure for abortion in the first place, because contraception doesn’t always work.
Maybe Obama becoming president WILL unite us. I sure hope so.  I am so mad and disgusted by Obama’s support for abortion, considering that Blacks themselves were once not considered full persons, and Black babies are aborted more than anyone else, it’s made me want to speak out a whole lot more.  Wrote two long posts on my blog about it in the past two days, triggered by watching the USCCB meeting.

I know I come across as a “conservative” Catholic, but what I am is an angry former pro-choice feminist who knows women - and the whole country - have been lied to and misled by the abortion movement.  All the talk about poor women in crisis pregnancy and women dying in back alley abortions were red herrings – lies, frankly - thrown in front of the country to get the public, and the Supreme Court, to allow abortion.  Prior to Roe, there had been a drastic drop in deaths from illegal abortion due to the discovery of penicillin, which reduced infection, and in 1972, the year prior to Roe, there were just 39 deaths from abortion – not 5,000-10,000, as members of the organization now known as NARAL claimed in briefs supplied to the Supreme Court in Roe.  Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who belonged to the organization at the time, has testified that those numbers were made up lies, perjury pure and simple, which he helped make up, and the CDC data from those years backs him up. 

And deaths due to abortion keep on happening under legal abortion.  Only the public is not as aware of it, because such deaths are now covered up, reported as deaths due to a complication, such as embolism, rather than deaths due to the cause of the complication, which is legal abortion.  So we don’t really know how many women are dying from legal abortion – but we do know that it is more than the official CDC numbers admit, likely significantly more.

Really, the abortion movement that led to Roe was all about sexual freedom, being able to have sex without having babies.  I remember, I was there, I grew up during that era and it had a major impact on my life.  And now that I’ve come out of it I am speaking up about it, and telling the truth.  Poverty is a SEPARATE issue from abortion, has been made WORSE by abortion, and should be treated separately, not used as an excuse to justify abortion.  Legal abortion has done nothing but exacerbate poverty, and has created many other problems in our culture.

Karen:  ENDOW is great!  I know a lot of the women involved there, and attended one of their study groups.  I recommend them.  Nothing like female pro-life feminist solidarity, that honors real femininity as a strength, not a weakness.

Please, please, please vocally & visibly support our bishops who are vocally & visibly supporting Church prolife teaching. The time for Catholics to simply show up & sit in the pews once in awhile is obviously past. I live in a diocese where the bishop is a “one issue among many” proponent so I’m very heartened to see on EWTN this wk that they’re not all like that!

Aimee I checked out your blog and it’s awesome! Thanks for putting it out there like it is.  I used to be one of those liberal feminists too and had a change of heart, mind, body, and soul a couple of months before the election and tried everything I could to change the minds and hearts of friends and family away from Obama.  I am going to send your post to a dear friend of mine in hopes that she will read it.  She is even more liberal and “free” than I was.  But I would love to hear her thoughts on your blog post. 

And I’m definitely going to try ENDOW.  The more I think about it, the more I want to do it because I can see the power it could have to change our feminists ways of thinking, one person at a time.  I certainly don’t want my daughters growing up in a time like I did with all that “sexual freedom” stuff going on.

GTB, I agree with you on supporting our Bishops.  We can’t look at the past and say shoulda coulda woulda.  We have to look at what they are doing now and do our part too.  We can’t sit back and let them do all of this for us.  We must do our part.  Whether it be prayer, education, vigils, or sending emails, we must take part in their efforts to change what is going on.  Catholics are not the only religious group that sees the demise of our morals here in the United States.  We MUST all join together and FIGHT THIS!!