Holding the President and the Reformers Accountable
by Fr. Roger Landry - October 23, 2009
Last week we mentioned the increasingly firm statements of the leaders of the U.S. bishops that unless President Barack Obama actually make good on his September 9 promise to the American people that "under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions and federal conscience laws will remain in place," the bishops would have "no choice" but to "oppose the health care bill vigorously."
Members of the media took these statements to White House press spokesman Robert Gibbs, asking whether the Administration planned to weigh in on a federal abortion funding ban, especially after various congressional committees have rejected pro-life amendments to do exactly this. Gibbs responded by twice taking issue with the bishops' assertions that none of the five health care reforms bills presently being advanced in Congress have met President Obama's promise to bar the use of federal dollars for abortion.
On October 14, he said at his daily press conference, "There's a law that precludes the use of federal funds for abortion. That isn't going to be changed in these health-care bills." Two days later, asked whether the President will call on Congress explicitly to prohibit abortion funding, he replied, "There may be a legal interpretation that has been lost here, but there's a fairly clear federal law prohibiting the use of federal money for abortion. I think it is — again, it's exceedingly clear in the law."
It's Gibbs who himself is lost in his legal interpretation. In his comments, he was referring to the Hyde Amendment, claiming that its existence ensures that no abortions will be funded by any of the health care reforms. But this is just political subterfuge, as was pointed out in an October 16 press release entitled "Federal Abortion Funding: What Some People Want To 'Hyde' From You," by Susan Gibbs (no relation to the presidential spokesman), who is the assistant director for education and outreach of the U.S. Bishops' Secretariat of Pro-life Activities.
"Contrary to Mr. Gibbs' assertion," she stated, "it is 'exceedingly clear' that the Hyde Amendment does not apply to any of the health care reform bills." Then she presented, in very intelligible language, a brief history of the Hyde Amendment and why it's irrelevant to the present health care reform debate.
"Between 1973 and 1976, courts interpreted broadly-worded language on health benefits in the Medicaid statute to include abortion. Taxpayers were forced to pay for the abortion deaths of about 300,000 children annually. In 1976 the Hyde Amendment was passed, as a rider to the annual Health and Human Services (HHS) appropriations bill. Hyde prevents federal funding of elective abortions and of health benefits packages that include such abortions. But it is not permanent law, and it applies only to funds appropriated under the annual HHS bill, not to funds appropriated under other statutes. So specific prohibitions on abortion funding have been written into laws governing other federal programs, such as federal employee health benefits, foreign aid, and military hospitals. An explicit prohibition must also be included in the final health care reform bill to avert a huge expansion of federal abortion funding. Without it, and notwithstanding their strong support for health care reform, the bishops will have no choice but to oppose the final bill vigorously."
She stated that we are "approaching the eleventh hour" and urged Catholics to contact their Senators and Representatives immediately to state their opposition to expanded federal abortion funding. Catholics can do so easily online by visiting to www.nchla.org and, with two simple clicks, send a clear message to those who are supposed to be representing them in Washington.
Around the same time, Dr. Louis Breschi, the President of the Catholic Medical Association, released a more wide-ranging critique of the proposed legislation on Capitol Hill. He charged that, as presently written, the proposed pieces of legislation not only threaten the dignity of human life but the dignity of human freedom through an obvious violation of the principle of subsidiarity.
Speaking on behalf of the Catholics doctors, nurses and other medical personnel in the CMA, he said, "We believe we are facing a crisis, not only in health-care financing and delivery, but in the health-care reform process itself. As is often noted, the word "crisis" can mean either danger or opportunity. The United States has the opportunity (and obligation) to craft effective, ethical responses to the crisis in health-care financing and delivery. But there also exists a real danger that misguided legislation could make our current problems even worse. This is a critical time for Catholics to work together to formulate solutions based upon authentic moral, social, and economic principles."
He described in length what he saw as the crisis in the health-care reform process. "Bills passed out of committees in the House and Senate this summer rely heavily on the federal government to dictate solutions. They empower a small group of unelected government bureaucrats and committees to determine the composition and cost of health insurance policies, the reimbursement of providers, the approval of treatments, etc. We think this government-controlled approach is flawed in principle and ineffective, if not dangerous, in practice. This approach clearly violates the principle of subsidiarity."
He specifically and respectfully called on "all Catholics and Catholic organizations to place a greater emphasis on respecting the principle of subsidiarity across the spectrum of issues in health-care financing and delivery" during the ongoing legislative debates. His call can be taken as a reminder to some Church leaders that even if President Obama is faithful to his yet-unfulfilled promise to ensure that consciences of health care workers are protected and no federal monies be used for abortion, even if spiraling costs are controlled and truly universal coverage is achieved, the end result will still be contrary to Catholic principles and an overall loss if the mechanism for achieving these goals is one that violates the principle of subsidiarity.
As we mentioned in our October 2 editorial, quoting the bishops of the two Kansas Cities, subsidiarity is "the principle by which we respect the inherent dignity and freedom of the individual by never doing for others what they can do for themselves and thus enabling individuals to have the most possible discretion in the affairs of their lives." To violate subsidiarity is to violate human dignity and freedom. Just as most people would never seek to reform the educational system by taking away the ability of parents to make choices about whether to home-school their children or send them to private schools, or by reducing the authority of principals, superintendents, school boards, and state departments of education in order to give control over pencil acquisitions and homework assignments to someone in the District of Columbia, so it would be a similar violation of the principle of subsidiarity to shift so much health-care decision-making to the nation's capital — unless, of course, all other means at levels closer to us had been shown to be inadequate to, but incapable of, the task. That has yet to be proven, because other reforms of what's broken have not yet been tried.
"Experience indicates," Dr. Breschi continues, "that medical decisions are best made within the personal context of the individual patient-physician relationship rather than within some remote, impersonal, and bureaucratic agency, whether governmental or corporate. We are convinced that if this important principle of Catholic social teaching is not correctly upheld, then short-term measures to defend the right to life and respect for conscience will ultimately fail and the patient-physician relationship will be irreparably compromised."
He advised patience and real study to make sure that all such reforms are actually changes for the better. "We must ensure that well-intentioned efforts to bring about 'change' are not exploited to create a federally controlled system that promises health care for all, but creates an oppressive bureaucracy hostile to human life and to the integrity of the patient-physician relationship. It would be better to forgo long-needed changes in health-care financing and delivery in the short-term if these would lead to a long-term, systemic policy regime that is inimical to respect for life, religious freedom, and the goods served by the principle of subsidiarity. Rather than accept such an outcome, we should take the time required to implement reform measures that are sound in both principled and practical terms."
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
