If FOCA is passed, then Catholic Hospitals are in Danger of Closing
by Krystle Weeks
December 8, 2008
This morning, I read an article in The Washington Examiner about how the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) would be a huge threat to Catholic health care systems, not just in Maryland, but around the nation.
Barack Obama has pledged the very first thing he would sign into law would be legislation aimed towards making abortion legal throughout the pregnancy and place the burden on taxpayers to cover this horrific procedure.
With this type of legislation being possibly enacted, many bishops are considering closing Catholic hospitals. At a recent general meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki said, “We may need to consider taking the drastic step of closing our Catholic hospitals entirely.” In Maryland, there are eight hospitals that would be threatened, including St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, which is nationally renowned for their cardiac care center.
According to our own government affairs department here at FRC, Maryland, along with six other states has legislation similar to FOCA.
“In Maryland , FOCA-type legislation has been on the books since 1991. According to Planned Parenthood’s Alan Guttmacher Institute, the abortion rate in the United States DECREASED nine percent since 2000 to 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age in 2005. By contrast, the state of Maryland in 2005 produced a rate of 31.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, an INCREASE of eight percent since 1991.”
Hopefully, Congress will use common sense and not pass such a detrimental piece of legislation that would threaten quality medical care straight across the board.
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Comments
Suricou Raven and others just don’t get it. It is abortion that kills when a child is “unwanted.” It is invitro fertilization that kills if the extra embryos are “unwanted.” It is contraception that harms and kills women (pills, patches and IUD’s). It is all these ill effects that have also harmed women psychologically.
The facts sometimes get in the way of misguided politics, but, nevertheless, they are documented facts.
Notice the slick wording from Suricou Raven. Never mind that hospitals owned by the Catholics are now and have been in the business of saving lives. Suricou and others of that leaning seem to miss the fact that abortion is the killer. The only one that will not survive is the one that can’t vote. That is in itself pure selfish thinking. Seems to me Suricou would be screaming the loudest if others who cared nothing about Suricou’s life got to vote on Suricou’s survival. It is my opinion, upon reading the constitution, the federal government has no business with this issue, especially using peoples tax dollars. It is purely a states rights matter as far as I can see. I wonder how Suricou Raven would feel if we taxed Suricou for something like… teaching self control to our young at public schools. Also, it is a real stretch to say closing your business is a threat to a government, unless that government is planning to use tyranny against that business to force them to do something they are not willing to do.
By: Suricou Raven | December 13, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Threatening to close hospitals if the legislation passes? This sounds like threatening the government to me.
They did the same thing in the UK, when we were debating passing a non-discrimination law. The catholic church said that if the law passed, they would close down all their adoption services. The law passed. It hasn’t taken effect yet though, so the services still remain open.
Effectively the church is declareing that it would rather let people die than refer for abortions. Notice the bishop isn’t even considering selling the hospitals, so that they could continue to operate without church endorsement. No: If he doesn’t get his way, then screw the sick people and just let them die.
Anyway, my little rant aside, I don’t think this matters. The democrats have a majority, but unless they can get near-perfect party unity it’s not going to be enough to overcome the republican opposition. Even if they do somehow pass FOCA, the catholic hospitals can probably just ignore it – what attorney general or state prosecuter would dare to destroy his career by trying to enforce it on a Catholic hospital?