SMRs and AMRs

Thursday, March 18, 2010

On health care, listen to the nuns

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
WashPost
Thursday, March 18, 2010

One of the tragedies of the viciously politicized battle over health-care reform is the defection of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops from a cause they have championed for decades.

Indifferent to political fashions, the bishops were the strongest voices in support of universal health coverage, a position rooted in Catholic social thought that calls for a special solicitude toward the poor.

Yet on the make-or-break roll call that will determine the fate of health-care reform, bishops are urging that the bill be voted down. They are doing so on the basis of a highly tendentious reading of the abortion provisions in the Senate measure. If health reform is defeated, the bishops will have played a major role in its demise.

The provisions they dislike were written by two Democratic senators strongly opposed to abortion, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Pro-choice groups condemned the Nelson-Casey language from the start.

(More here.)

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