Posted on 04/22/2012 11:10:14 AM PDT by Pyro7480
...[S]ome Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate said they'd favor the concept of a federal law requiring even Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Now, the state's Catholic bishops are objecting.
...[They] issued a statement expressing their dismay after all five Democratic candidates said during Sunday's "Face the State" debate that they would support legislation forcing Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.
"If it is their [the candidates'] position that our hospitals should be forced by law or regulations to provide abortions in spite of our teaching, it is unfortunate to note their readiness to violate religious liberty"...
Here are some excerpts of the answers:
Susan Bysiewicz: "The federal government has the right to regulate what services are provided, because Catholic institutions, colleges and universities get funding from the federal government, and I believe that those institutions should provide access to reproductive health care."
Chris Murphy: "They certainly have the ability to decide what services they perform."
Matthew Oakes: "If they're gonna take our money—I'm Roman Catholic—then they need to perform the health care issues that women need performed for them."
William Tong: "Access to an abortion should be open and available. Acess to contraception, the same thing. These are basic liberties enshrined in our Constitution, in our jurisprudence. That's a fact. [...] I think we need a cooperative approach. We had a bill in the state Legislature to provide emergency contraception. It was called Plan B. [...] Now Plan B is a reality. Emergency contraception is made available to patients at Catholic hospitals. We just need to find a way to make it work."
Lee Whitnum did not answer the question about whether the federal government must force Catholic institutions to provide abortion or contraceptive services. She said she supported institutions providing them.
(Excerpt) Read more at westport.patch.com ...
That may be true since the Civil War. I doubt they have good information for voting by Catholics before the influx of Irish and German Catholic immigrants in the 1840s and 1850s. The older Catholic populations in places like Maryland, Kentucky, and Louisiana were probably too small to matter. The winning Democratic candidates before the Civil War--Jackson, Van Buren, Polk, and Buchanan--all lost Maryland, and all carried Louisiana. Buchanan carried Kentucky--the others lost it because of Henry Clay, not because of the Catholic vote. By 1856 Irish Catholic immigrants may have been voting in some numbers--Buchanan lost New York and Massachuetts, where a lot of them had settled, but I would guess for other reasons.
Forgot Franklin Pierce. He carried Maryland and Louisiana, but lost Kentucky.
And the person who made the pivotal move to first establish that government death-cult religion that even Catholic hospitals have to obey was Mitt Romney - the same day that the Boston Globe published an article applying pressure.
So the GOP-e is in the process of nominating a candidate who will bend to media demands and give in to become a tyrant in one - count ‘em - ONE day.
And then the supposedly “pro-life” groups (NRLC and affiliates I’m talking directly to YOU!) will fawn all over him because he talks about how pro-life he is (except when he’s talking to pro-deathers, at which point he talks about how pro-choice he is).
Romney is who he is and we’re not going to change that. He’s a media lap-dog. Unfortunately, the GOP-e and supposedly “pro-life” groups have shown us exactly what they are as well. And it ain’t pretty - at all.
This isn’t really about abortion at all. It’s about government tyranny - the establishment of government religion that no religion is able to be free from, even within their own sanctuaries. I am a Missouri-Synod Lutheran, but my Synod president, along with spokesmen for a variety of other religions, testified before Congress on the need to keep religious liberty rather than succomb to the tyranny in Obamacare.
But as you can see, Mitt Romney’s argument that religious tyranny is fine as long as it is done by STATES has been heard by his fellow pro-deathers in New England. He set the standard for them and they are running with it. And as a reward the GOP-e is about to force all us conservatives to commune at this altar of death with our very votes.
It is beyond sick. Way, way, way beyond sick.
We MUST fight back. We must REFUSE to reward the guy who started this state-religion avalanche in which the whole concept of religious liberty is about to be crushed.
that's what's been happening in NYC.
Obama was right,. This is not a Christian Country any more.
Wrong. And that's why we're suffering with him. (IMHO).
Exactly.
They want to play chicken? It will be them who has to explain how and why the people in these states can’t get standard medical care because of too-high demand in hospitals, while doctors and nurses are unemployed and hospitals stand empty.
Acts 5:29 applies: “Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than men!’”
But what did they actually do in Massachusetts when Mitt Romney forced Catholic hospitals to perform abortions? Are there still Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts?
Just don’t sell them as hosptals.
Close them down.
The Bishops can always instruct that the hospitals are to be burned down, rather than comply with a dictatorial edict.
Then they can force Catholic churches to perform gay marriages.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.