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PDF versionDeal Hudson's Deceitful Bogeyman
by Michael Sean Winters on Oct. 13, 2009
I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures. It is fast becoming obvious that health care reform, in some form, is going to pass Congress and become law. So conservative Republicans, including conservative Catholic Republicans, are mounting last ditch efforts to scuttle the legislation. The most recent was posted by Deal Hudson over at InsideCatholic.com.
Hudson argues that the public option will end up extending federal funding for abortion. He says that the courts will step in even if Congress doesn’t mandate abortion coverage in any such plan. Mind you, the courts have not stepped in to over-rule the Hyde Amendment lo these many years. The federal health insurance coverage that members of Congress enjoy does not include abortion coverage. Federal Medicaid funds do not support abortion. So, why would the federal option, which would be modeled after the insurance that members of Congress get, necessarily end up mandating abortion coverage? Hudson does not say.
Actually, I can think of one scenario in which this could happen. If the USCCB follows Hudson’s lead and opposes health care legislation that includes a public option that does not include abortion coverage, their moral voice will have been so weakened that perhaps they will not be able to perpetuate the Hyde Amendment or its health care corollary.
We are all waiting to see what the final legislation looks like. The bishops are right to insist that no federal dollars go to cover abortion: The Hyde Amendment is nearly as settled law as is Roe. But, creating fear about what might happen when nothing of the sort has happened in the 32 years that the Hyde Amendment has been on the books is disingenuous in the extreme.
Hmmmmm...National Catholic
Hmmmmm...National Catholic Reporter sides with the Obama White House and the Democratic Party over the U.S. Bishops Conference and the National Right to Life Committee.
You do understand that the Hyde Amendment clearly states that it only applies to funding for abortion through the Health and Human Services appropriations bill, don't you? Please tell me you did some research before you started typing.
Deal Hudson is not wrong all the time just because you disagree with his political views. Similarly, everything the Democratic Party puts out in its talking points are not always correct and are not always in line with Church teaching.
Please enlighten us as to why the Democrats have voted against each and ever attempt to amend health care legislation to explicitly state there will be no federal funding for abortion. If such funding is already banned by the Hyde Amendment as you say, what do they have to fear from such amendments that they vigorously oppose? What harm could these amendments do to their agenda? I await your response.
Please refer to the following article for some background and information you won't get from your Democratic Party contacts and friends:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17369
Obama and his press secretary want the bishops to be quiet and fall in line on this issue....I wonder why that is? I'm sure it has nothing to do with the millions of dollars pouring in from members of NARAL, NOW, Emily's List, and other pro-abortion organizations....right?
Ohio's Justin writes: "Obama
Ohio's Justin writes: "Obama and his press secretary want the bishops to be quiet and fall in line on this issue....I wonder why that is? I'm sure it has nothing to do with the millions of dollars pouring in from members of NARAL, NOW, Emily's List, and other pro-abortion organizations....right?"
How do you define "pro-abortion organizations" including these groups?
How do you trace their "millions of dollars?" Show me the money, its source and its usage.
How do you assert that our President and his Press Secretary are influenced by what you indicate to be a bribe of these millions? Upon what grounds?
In what specific way have the President and his Press Secretary indicated they "want the bishops to be quiet and fall into line?" Have you read the recent words of Cardinal George and of the Vatican? Why are you a dissenter from Rome?
How have the President and his Press Secretary tried to silence "the bishops?"
What "bishops?"
In what specific way does "the National Catholic Reporter side with the Obama White House (is there any other in America?) and the Democratic Party over the U.S. Bishops Conference?" Have you read the recent articles of Cardinal George here in NCR, the only reliable English-language news source upon these troubled shores? Does Cardinal George seem in any way silenced by the Press Secretary? What is his position?
just wondering
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
How right you are,Michael
How right you are,Michael Sean.As a matter of fact,the Hyde Amendment has been upheld by the Supreme Court. So people,don't be fooled. The public option will not give an ok to federally funded abortions.
Yeesh. As others have noted
Yeesh. As others have noted below, not even close to being a good analogy, much less correct. The Hyde Amendment has to be re-enacted each year. Moreover, it has changed over time (becoming slightly less restrictive during the tenure of President Clinton). It is statutory, and can be repealed or modified by a majority of the houses of Congress.
More to the point, it can be repealed by the simple refusal of a majority to include it in the relevant appropriations.
Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak has been sounding the alarm for weeks. At this point, Catholics have to be jamming their fingers in their ears not to hear the danger.
Health care reform *will* cover abortions unless there is a clear legal prohibition. Period. Moreover, it will be the most drastic increase in the number of abortions since Roe.
Get your fingers out of your ears and help Stupak fight this.
Federal tax policy subsidizes
Federal tax policy subsidizes many abortions anyway - at least those paid for with private insurance, since such insurance is deductible for employers. Further, poor women often find charitable and state funding for abortions, or use cash. While the Hyde Amendment may prevent some abortions, it is certainly not universally effective. Further, because of the remoteness between any taxpayer or voter and any funded or tax subsidized abortion, the main reason to insist on abortion neutrality is tribal rather than moral.
Michael writes: "Further,
Michael writes: "Further, poor women often find charitable and state funding for abortions, or use cash."
Does not the usage of "cash" remove them from your "poor" classification? To which specific "charitable and state funding for abortions" do you refer?
just wondering at the semantics
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
"Does not the usage of "cash"
"Does not the usage of "cash" remove them from your "poor" classification?"
By that logic, any impoverished person who uses cash for a transaction is not poor.
Just wondering at the thought process.
Deal Hudson, Will wonders
Deal Hudson,
Will wonders never cease. Now he, who accidentally may impregnate one of his students, is worried about the public option!!! Think about the people who can't afford health insurance and pray for healthcare reform!
We live in a representative
We live in a representative form of democracy where each person is free to have their own political opinions and religious beliefs. While I find the notion of deregulated capitalism run amok and its trampling of the most impoverished to be morally repugnant, I recognize another person’s freedom to embrace it.
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As a medical professional and practicing Catholic, the thing I cannot accept is when neocon Catholics attempt to hide their partisan love affair with capitalistic greed, blaming the victim and personal monetary gain, behind a smoke-screen of religiosity and anti-abortion frenzy. Hudson and his ilk, including certain bishops, have shamelessly used their carefully selected religious doctrines as a means to manufacture all manner of nonsensical obstacles, for the sole purpose of sabotaging health care and insurance reform. The only folks they convince are those who also live in the far right ethereal zone of the Republican Party. Their flimsy arguments are based on manufactured fear of some remote possibility having no basis in fact. They depend on their listeners being uninformed followers of Fox News and YouTube. There is no way to reason with folks who will believe only what suits them to believe — we already learned that from the bogus FOCA postcard campaign. For them, the actual facts are irrelevant — they can (and do) resort to distortions and outright falsification when all else fails.
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Here is a reality check about how often abortion is already funded by private insurance.
Guttmacher Institute Memo on Insurance Coverage of Abortion
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthenews/2009/07/22/index.html
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A further reality check about the effect of severe poverty combined with a lack of contraception access:
Report: Unsafe [illegal] abortions kill 70,000 annually
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ABORTION_WORLDWIDE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-10-13-18-20-23
ABORTION AND UNINTENDED PREGNANCY DECLINE WORLDWIDE AS CONTRACEPTIVE USE INCREASES
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2009/10/13/index.html
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The Republican party and their partisan Catholic supporters who attempt to force their religious beliefs and neocon economics on the population at large, are barking up the wrong constitutional tree AND promoting patently false information for politically partisan gain. If the actual goal is to acknowledge the dignity of all life, and improve the circumstances of life in a meaningful way in the real world, we must first get our facts straight. Severe poverty in the United States is growing at a staggering rate — after decades of Reaganomics and its deregulated capitalism — making a huge segment of our population live like third world citizens. Poverty in Africa and the Philippines (where both access to contraception and legal abortion is almost non-existent) leaves thousands of children foraging in garbage dumps for food. Religious doctrine and neocon economic philosophy does nothing to offer any dignity to their lives or remedy for their plight. Those sharing the tunnel-vision mindset and virtual reality of Deal Hudson are part of the problem rather than being part of the solution. There is also such a thing as attempting to be so "spiritual" and "doctrinally correct" as to be no earthly good to any of God's suffering children. In the gospel such folks were known as Pharisees.
And yet forcing taxpayers to
And yet forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions somehow *isn't* forcing your religious beliefs upon others.
Fascinating. The irony meter detonates.
Yep, the irony
Yep, the irony continues... folks who strongly object to any remote possibility that even one taxpayer dollar might subsidize contraception and medically necessary abortion, would not consider giving up their private insurance coverage (thus putting their own health and security at risk) even though their insurance premiums have a greater statistical likelihood of funding contraception and abortion via their private insurance pool. You just can't have it both ways... what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Go figure!
Um, no. The difference
Um, no. The difference between what government does--in the name of all of us--and what a private party does for a limited number of people is elementary and obvious. Painfully so. E.g., I somehow doubt you'd be willing to argue there is no moral distinction between capital punishment and a private citizen committing murder.
Furthermore, it isn't a "remote possibility" that abortion will be taxpayer funded, and your flip response indicates that you well know it.
Moreover, it is also self-evident to anyone with a basic knowledge of the current health insurance set-up that I am not "having it both ways." One of the (many) problems with the current insurance regime is that there are massive financial disincentives to people choosing their own insurance--it's a take it or leave it scenario from a limited number of options provided by the employer. Or, one could elect to take a massive tax hit by trying to pick a non-employer plan. Thus, private plans are not a matter of free choice.
Of course, none of the problems with our current health care system are addressed by the determination of the current administration to fund abortions from the public fisc, but I'll leave it at that.
To: D. R. Price
To: D. R. Price
Since I have already commented at some length elsewhere on Michael’s blog (Immigrants and Health Care), on both the morality and the politics of thinking such as yours, I won’t re-state those points in response on this thread. You can read them here:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/immigrants-health-care?nocache=1#co...
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On such a serious matter I can assure you that I am not being "flip". Yes, those married to the single issue of abortion ARE trying to have it both ways — playing a dangerous and immoral game with partisan politics — parsing words and engaging in flawed logic to promote their personal religious beliefs. In your strict Catholic theology you would deny even emergency surgery for non-Catholic women having ectopic tubal pregnancy, where neither mother nor embryo would survive without intervention… unless the woman has cash to pay for the surgery up front before she begins to hemorrhage from a tubal rupture. Trying to mix secular politics with religion is a recipe for tyranny, as history clearly demonstrates. And yes, as a medical professional, I also know about health insurance and how it works. Obviously, either you do not, or just don't care.
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This is NOT about some silly notion promoted by the religious right of women being ‘eager to have abortions, the more the better’. Such a notion is arrogant and insulting. It IS about women’s health care which includes reproductive health care, and the multitude of medical problems that can arise unexpectedly… before, during and after pregnancy. It is about health care for already born children, many with chronic serious illnesses. You and the anti-abortion crowd want to place yourselves between a woman and her medical physician to determine what is best for her and her family — to personally impose your religious beliefs or withhold medical care via legislative caveats. That is the REAL end result of your position and your desire to “play God” in the lives of other people. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes clear that neither yourself or anyone else has the right to violate the conscience of another human being and their moral choices, especially in the matter of religion and defense of one’s own life (nn. 1782, 2264).
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Your responses have been geared more toward your politics/economic ideology than to a larger picture of Christian morality and objective documented facts. Yes, I DO question the morality of capital punishment, wars of choice, and ‘sickness and death for profit’ (among other things), which are also subsidized by my tax-payer dollars. Never-the-less, neither I nor you nor anyone else, gets to pick and choose always and everywhere how our tax money is spent in a representative form of democracy. I have great moral outrage at how the Bush/Cheney administration and a GOP controlled Congress drove our country into massive debt, drove staggering numbers of middle class citizens into poverty with their neocon ideology, endorsed torture and condemned so many to death and disability in their war of choice. But — Elections have consequences… that is how our system of government works.
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We are not a theocracy, and rightly so. I’m old enough to remember when Catholics suffered under Protestant ideology in this country, when the WASPs held the political and cultural control — Catholics were deemed to be loyal only to the dictates of the papacy. Times change and the zeitgeist shifts in cycles; it will continue to do so as the demographics of the culture continue to change. Playing political games under a veneer of religiosity, be it with health care reform or some other issue, has potential to come back and bite Catholics in the fanny feathers. Political and legal precedent under our system of laws ALSO carries long-term consequences. Focusing on a single political or religious ‘tree’ poses great risks when navigating the larger cultural and governmental forest. Critical thinking is in order here.
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You have a right to hold your political and religious ideology, but you have no right to force Catholic theology into the life decisions and health care of non-Catholics who are less affluent than yourself. Health care with caveats does exactly that. [Consider yourself being forced to live under strict Muslim Sharia law against your will, in the most intimate and personal matters of your life. That’s the nature of religious tyranny.] You have free will to be self-satisfied with your own prosperity and access to health care — you are fortunate, but NOT more deserving than anyone else — nor is your life and health of more value than that of a poor person or undocumented immigrant. You can rationalize your partisan position with our Lord at the Particular Judgment. However, you do not have a legal or moral right to sabotage health care for others, or condemn them to chronic illness and death for lack of health care, merely based on your personal ideology or your personal belief that you somehow deserve to have what you are wanting to withhold from others.
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Your arguments and profession of “moral” concern for the unborn ring hollow when you obviously have so little regard or concern for those already born. The unborn fare much better in a society where there is universal health care and where the poverty rate is low. Roe v. Wade was not the precipitating cause of abortion, nor will overturning Roe be an end to abortion. Poverty and lack of access to health care and contraception are the primary driving causes of abortion. Those are the facts and the statistical correlation is clearly significant. On these forums I’ve posted multiple links to the credible research in the matter for anyone willing to have a sincere and substantive discussion of problem solving.
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Universal health care without multiple religion-based exclusionary clauses, ideally single-payer that is un-attached to employment, is good economics, good for business, good health care AND good Christian morality. There is absolutely NO Christian morality to be found in a country where corporations and their CEOs make obscene profits from the poverty, sickness and death of other human beings. Health care in the United States is a shame and an embarrassment. Apparently some of our citizens, Catholic hierarchy and politicians, are not yet shamed and embarrassed enough.
I'll let this stand in for
I'll let this stand in for your overall soul reading as to me and my beliefs:
"Your arguments and profession of “moral” concern for the unborn ring hollow when you obviously have so little regard or concern for those already born."
Hi, we've never met, and I don't know any "Aileens." When you talk to people in the flesh who don't agree with you, do you automatically project, label and assign motives, political and economic affiliations and assume the worst about their inner motivations? I hope not--that's a good recipe for being shunned and lonely.
So, let me introduce myself: I'm Dale Price, a husband and father of five. I live in Metropolitan Detroit and turned 40 last June. I'm a civil rights attorney who exclusively (and for no compensation from the victim) represents victims of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age and disability. [That is why, not so by the way, I support legal protection for the unborn. Discrimination is discrimination. And I'm delighted civil rights legislation has been imposed on the unwilling, and even more delighted nobody bothers to accuse King and the U.S. Congress of "playing God," bolded or not.] Though I waver at times, I support the current Church teaching on capital punishment. I think the war in Iraq was wrong. The last candidate I donated money to was a Democrat, I supported the stimulus package and I am in favor of universal health coverage because a dear friend, one for whom we named our youngest daughter, died of cancer at age 33 because she wasn't able to get it treated in time, and because the Church teaches it is a right.
So, your assumptions about me look to be dead wrong. So, why don't we try this in a more friendly fashion, introduce yourself fully and try to address me as a person and not from the prism of gender antagonism, nor from the presumption I'm some theocratic neocon.
In the process, please explain to me how my understanding of how health care insurance works is wrong.
Your ignorance of the law is
Your ignorance of the law is mind boggling. "The Hyde Amendment is nearly as settled law as is Roe".
Roe vs. Wade IS constitutional law, according to the Court. The Hyde Amendment is something that goes on a Dept. of HHS appropriations bill and has to be approved every year.
Is it ignorance, or will you just go to any extreme, including lying, to promote your Party?
So uh Sean, The Hyde
So uh Sean,
The Hyde amendment is nearly as settled as law as Roe? Really? It expires every year, and they have to renew it every year. Now what is disingenuous in the extreme? Wake up NCR.
MSW is wrong again. There is
MSW is wrong again. There is a huge gap between Roe and Hyde. For Roe to be overturned, either the Supreme Court would have to reverse itself or it would require a Constitutional Amendment. Hyde would lapse if not approved annually by congress. This is either ignorance or deliberate deceit.
The Hyde Amendment is nearly
The Hyde Amendment is nearly as settled law as is Roe.
Ummm, no. The Hyde Amendment is a federal piece of legislation that can be overturned at any time by Congress if it so wills it. Roe v. Wade is a Supreme Court decision that cannot be reversed unless 5 or more Supreme Court Justices so desire, and only if a case is brought before that touches upon the original decision. Moreover, legislators are not restrained by the (dubious) doctrine of stare decisis, and are vastly freer to act that are SCOTUS Justices.
You also ignore the fact that the Hyde Amendment only applies to the DHS funding. Congress can therefore easily skirt the amendment without overturning it.
I am a lawyer and can state
I am a lawyer and can state categorically that the Hyde Amendment is in no way, shape or form "settled law" like Roe. It is subject to elimination by any Congress at the drop of a hat. More importantly, Justin is absolutely correct when he says Hyde will not even apply to the health plan legislation.
MSW you are smarter than
MSW you are smarter than this. The argument is not that the courts will strike down a ban on abortion funding like Hyde. The argument is that without a ban like Hyde the courts will step in and interpret the provision of healthcare as including abortion. In fact, that's exactly what the courts did for Medicaid, which didn't say yes or no on abortion. That's what made Hyde necessary. And it's what makes something like Hyde necessary in healthcare reform, because it ain't there. If you make comments as uninformed as this and don't correct yourself it begins to seem intentional.
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