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.)
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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