Bishops call phony pro-life amendment “money laundering system”; Stupak says still has votes to stop
The article below indicates Catholic pro-life Democrats are having a problem defying their bishops on the healthcare bill currently as written. They are not falling for the phony pro-life Ellsworth amendment.
It also indicates Catholic pro-life Dem congressman (and co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus) Bart Stupak is holding strong with his assertion he has the votes to stop healthcare on the Life issue. From CNS News, today…
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops… sent a memo to congressional staff on Thursday about the issue. The memo, a copy of which was obtained by CNSNews.com, says that the Ellsworth amendment is not a “meaningful compromise,” because merely segregating the funds would not prevent federal money from being used to fund abortion….
In the case of the bill’s public option, the Ellsworth amendment mandates that the government segregate federal subsidy payments from individual premiums.
The bishops called this a “money-laundering system” because once premiums are paid into a public option, they become federal funds….
Doug Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee… called the Ellsworth amendment a “fig leaf made out of cellophane,” adding that it was nothing more than a “last minute effort” to cloak the reality of the bill….
Stupak told CNSNews.com on Thursday that he and 40 other pro-life Democrats would continue to oppose the health care bill unless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) allows a floor vote on his amendment that would explicitly prohibit federal funds from going to insurance plans that cover abortion.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Thank you Conference of Catholic Bishops for your statement and for not allowing your congregants to be duped by this “shell game”. God bless you for taking this stance and for taking the heat you are certain to receive for it.
There are a lot of Catholics who do not see depriving the poor of health insurance and health care as “pro life”.
There are a lot MORE Catholics who don’t want to pay to deprive others of life. I’m one of them.
I am also one of them. I don’t want to pay for abortions or assisted suicide drugs or euthanasia!
I don’t want to pay to deprive others of life, either.
I couldn’t be more pleased with how the bishops are leading and mobilizing Catholics on this!
I love bystanders’s logic – much like most liberals. “Depriving” the poor of health care???? If it’s my money, I’m not depriving you of anything if what you’re talking about is using my money to buy it – I don’t care what it is. You see, they don’t get it. There’s justice and there’s mercy. Justice is blind – you get what you “earn” (and that includes luck, by the way). Mercy is its complement – you get things despite the fact that you didn’t earn them. The state has an obligation to defend justice – which includes protecting the God-given rights our founding fathers aknowledged – primarily life – not quality of life – life. as INDIVIDUALS we are obligated to show mercy. If the state is the one showing mercy, then what follows is criminal beaureaucracies (sp?) and arguments over whose agenda is more important. That’s why it’s wrong. Individual acts of mercy are more difficult and personal. On top of that, given our enormous national debt, insisting on mercy from the state is akin to an 85 year old with terminal cancer taking his grandson’s credit card and buying $100,000 worth of food to feed the homeless. That’s not mercy – it’s theft and passing the responsibility of mercy completely onto someone else.
There is no greater violation of our God-given rights than the legal and institutionalized murder of millions of unborn children. Nothing else compares – nothing. I have people asking me if a 23 year old life is as important as an uborn life (speaking of war). I answer that it absolutely is, and hopefully we have candidates who uphold all life as sacred. If we do not, we need to choose the greater number – and no war casualty figures compare to the scourge of abortion. So we stick with the candidate who will fight to illegalize the murder of the unborn and fight that person where he or she is wrong on other life issues.
Thank God the bishops are unified on this issue. May God’s will be done on this whole health care issue—and it is not the legislation the Democrats put out there that the faithful have to literally demand they change.
Hey Blue Dogs… are you seriously willing to end your political career for Nancy Pelosi?
WHY?
What’s in it for you… and your constituents? Hard to imagine why anyone would allow themselves to be hectored into taking-one-for-the-team and incurring the wrath of the nation… when this arrogant socialist twit wouldn’t spit on you if your hair was on fire.
NOW is the time to KILL this pig- there’s no future in backing Obama’s radical plans anymore.
Vote for this highly unpopular bill at your peril… as SanFranNan will leave you twisting-in-the-wind next fall, of that you can be sure.
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com