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Obama Closing Catholic Hospitals?
The Bulletin ^ | 10/31/2008 | Joseph John Vennari

Posted on 11/01/2008 7:15:57 PM PDT by murphE

On Oct. 7, 2007, Sen. Barack Obama spoke to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and promised, "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing I'll do."

What is the Freedom of Choice Act? It is the most sweeping pro-abortion legislation ever proposed in the United States.

In a letter dated Sept. 19 to members of Congress, Philadelphia's Justin Cardinal Rigali rightly warned:

"Despite its deceptive title, FOCA would deprive the American people in all 50 states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry. FOCA would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortion with their tax dollars. And FOCA would counteract any and all sincere efforts by government to reduce abortions in our country.

"The operative language of FOCA is twofold. First it creates a 'fundamental right' to abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy, including a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined "health" reasons. No government body at any level would be able to "deny or interfere with" this newly created federal right. Second, it forbids government at all levels to "discriminate" against the exercise of this right "in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information." For the first time, abortion on demand would be a national entitlement that government must condone and promote in all public programs affecting pregnant women," said the cardinal.

It is clear the FOCA raises abortion to what it calls a "fundamental right." Yet it is not clear if Catholics realize the threat that Mr. Obama poses to the unborn, to believing Catholics in the medical profession, and to Catholic hospitals across the nation.

Michael Moses, legal analyst of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops called it a "radical measure" that will "go way beyond Roe [vs. Wade]." The language is so sweeping that it will wipe out any state's "conscience" clause, which is the law that allows hospitals, doctors and nurses to abstain from taking part in abortion for reasons of conscience. If abortion is a "fundamental right", according to FOCA, then every hospital must provide it.

The net result, as one writer noted, is "President Obama and his congressional supermajority would force every Christian hospital, doctor or nurse to abandon their faith or go out of business." Under FOCA, believing Christians could be banned from the hospital industry (and apostolate) by federal law.

John Vennari is editor of the monthly Catholic Family News. He can be reached at cfnjjv@gmail.com


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; abortion; catholic; catholichospitals; catholicvote; digg; foca; obama; obamaisevil; prolife
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1 posted on 11/01/2008 7:15:58 PM PDT by murphE
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To: murphE

I suggest he draft Romney for that effort; Romney has experience in telling Catholic hospitals to shove it.


2 posted on 11/01/2008 7:16:43 PM PDT by manapua
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To: murphE

Yeah Clinton signed some big partial birth abortion thing as his first act in office. These guys are SICK freaks.


3 posted on 11/01/2008 7:16:55 PM PDT by yldstrk (My heros have always been cowboys--Reagan and Bush)
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To: murphE
Hope the Nat. Staff Nurses Union can handle the reduction in membership, after all they did support nObie.

Something about make your bed, sleep in it?

4 posted on 11/01/2008 7:18:24 PM PDT by IllumiNaughtyByNature (If You Have A BRAIN - You'll Vote For MCCAIN)
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To: NYer; Salvation; cpforlife.org

ping


5 posted on 11/01/2008 7:18:40 PM PDT by murphE ("It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." - GK Chesterton)
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To: murphE

Shouldn’t a doctor decide if an abortion is needed, and not the patient? Why is it a patient can demand an abortion, but not other types of surgery? Also this whole health of the mother issue is far to broad, as every pregnancy carries a risk an you really do not know who will be at risk until it happens.


6 posted on 11/01/2008 7:19:59 PM PDT by LukeL (Yasser Arafat: "I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize")
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To: murphE
God willing, even if That One wins, maybe he won't get a filibuster-proof Senate and we can avoid this mess.

25% of the hospital beds in the US are in Catholic hospitals. If FOCA is enacted, the bishops should begin shutting them down, fast enough to make things difficult. When NYC tried this garbage, that's what the Abp. did there, and they had to back down.

And meanwhile, start the legal action. If a "right to an abortion" is protected by some stupid constitutional "penumbra," the right to practice medicine without endorsing abortion ought to be protected as well.

7 posted on 11/01/2008 7:21:06 PM PDT by Campion (Vote for Obama and Get Nuclear War for Free!)
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To: murphE

Both Cardinal George of Chicago and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver threatened to close all of the Catholic hospitals in their respective states when their legislatures tried to pass the same thing as a state law.

Both legislatures backed down immediately.


8 posted on 11/01/2008 7:22:53 PM PDT by BlessedBeGod (I guess I'm a redneck clinging to God & guns, 3 generations from small towns in W. Pa.)
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To: IllumiNaughtyByNature
My priest gave a really good sermon about this today. He never mentioned Obama by name, just as, “the young man running for president, I refuse to speak his name in this holy place.”
9 posted on 11/01/2008 7:23:29 PM PDT by murphE ("It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." - GK Chesterton)
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To: IllumiNaughtyByNature

People have had the ability to fight against abortion for 35 years. It’s never really been put on the front burner as an issue that was more important than, say, taxes or gas prices.

Result: 50 millions dead.

Does anyone think this slipped God’s attention?

Maybe if the nation doesn’t care enough when there is a clear choice on these matters—when it clearly votes FOR abortion and FOR gay rights—then He will let the nation have its way.

And after that, he’ll start grading the exam...


10 posted on 11/01/2008 7:23:29 PM PDT by CondorFlight (I)
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To: murphE

Real Christians don’t vote for genocide. Real Christians do not vote pro-choice!


11 posted on 11/01/2008 7:24:28 PM PDT by GailA ( Valor Quilts for our wounded Troops....I'm a quilt-aholic!!!)
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To: yldstrk
They're not sick, they're evil.

They worship death; dead babies are their "sacrament".

The Democrat Party has become the demoncRat Party ... and it is dead to me.

I may not always vote for the Republican in a give election (I voted for and am actively campaigning for McCain/Palin) but I will never again vote for a demoncRat.

12 posted on 11/01/2008 7:25:01 PM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: yldstrk

Sick, evil and inhuman. That’s all I can say and stay within the bounds of civility.


13 posted on 11/01/2008 7:25:51 PM PDT by darkangel82 (If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. (Say no to RINOs))
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To: CondorFlight
Exactly. And those who stand on God's side will face persecution, yet we should rejoice in it.

Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.

14 posted on 11/01/2008 7:28:03 PM PDT by murphE ("It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." - GK Chesterton)
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To: murphE
This dovetails nicely with Obama’s very frightening, very revealing 2001 interview, bemoaning the “limitations” of the CONSTITUTION! :

“But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.”

Perhaps the Messiah's ‘Civilian National Security Force’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s
will go door to door, collecting and destroying this limited, constraining document.

Can you say “Josef Stalin”?

15 posted on 11/01/2008 7:31:09 PM PDT by Chairman of the Bard
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To: LukeL
Abortion is never necessary in the 2nd or 3rd trimester...that is what C-Sections are for...to save the life of the mom and baby.
16 posted on 11/01/2008 7:31:25 PM PDT by GailA ( Valor Quilts for our wounded Troops....I'm a quilt-aholic!!!)
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To: manapua
As with all of DemonRATs newly discovered “rights”, this is another thinly disguised usurpation of freedoms. Under the guise of ensuring the rights of those seeking abortion, they trample on the rights of those who oppose the practice. If enacted, such legislation will in short order make it impossible for Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions, or they will lose the ability to bill medicare and Medicaid. Shortly after-wards, it will become a hate crime to criticize pro abortion policies. Welcome to the left wing of the DemocRAT party, champion of all that is vile, corrupt, and despicable in human behavior.
17 posted on 11/01/2008 7:36:51 PM PDT by bitterohiogunclinger (Never argue with an idiot, they always wear you down and beat you with experience)
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To: Chairman of the Bard
Can you say “Josef Stalin”?

Well said, but I would have asked: can you say "George Orwell"?
18 posted on 11/01/2008 7:37:13 PM PDT by Apparatchik ("Hope" is not a course of action. "Change" is a not a policy.)
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To: Coleus
DIGG IT
19 posted on 11/01/2008 7:38:44 PM PDT by murphE ("It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged." - GK Chesterton)
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To: GailA

I know that and doctors know that. The problem is that doctors are willing to listen to patients desires instead of what is in their best interest, which is why we have 1,000s of people walking around disfigured from multiple plastic surgeries, and people dying from getting unneeded abortions.


20 posted on 11/01/2008 7:39:57 PM PDT by LukeL (Yasser Arafat: "I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize")
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