A Catholic Surgeon General
July 13, 2009, 4:05 pm
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
HT: Rocco
On the board of the Catholic Health Association, a papal award-winner.
And by the way, she’s an African-American woman.
Obama’s administration has showcased the diversity of the American Church.
The President linked her appointment to his healthcare overhaul, and said she is going to help get it done:
http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-obama-remarks-on-new-surgeon-general/
His administration and the Democrats’ health care plans all plan to cover abortion. Is paying for everyone’s abortions going to reduce it?
What will Dr. Benjamin’s position and influence be on paying for everyone’s abortions? Dr. Benjamin favored troubling things regarding teaching about abortion in medical schools:
http://www.lifenews.com/nat5208.html
Is supporting free abortions a legitimate manifestation of Catholic diversity on this issue? This is like the evangelical David Gibson mentioned for NIH, who is going to fully play ball with experimentation on preborn children, or like supporting Sotomayor as a Catholic despite her group’s view that strict scrutiny (FOCA) is a constitutional mandate, or Sebelius despite her promotion of abortion in Kansas.
Doesn’t Dr. Benjamin instead have a duty to publicly health care as payment for everyone’s abortions? Don’t all supporters and officials of the Obama administration have such a heightened duty? Or can it be called legitimate Catholic diversity to not only support the administration, but to support its abortion and destructive research promoting goals?
If the President and Dr. Bejamin pass health care plans to pay for everyone’s abortions for the first time in American history, will you still maintain that this administration is and can be abortion-reducing?
sorry, that’s: Doesn’t Dr. Benjamin instead have a duty to publicly OPPOSE health care as payment for everyone’s abortions?
All the good works a person does and how competent they are to work toward solving one of the critical issues in our country gets lambasted for one issue Catholic politics!
No wonder most Catholics voted for Obama and no wonder the Righ to Life movement is hurt by their one issue people.
I’m saying a few Aves that the ‘one issue’ people and their like minded bishops will not call for the return Dr Benjamin’s Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice. {as they did for the ND degree] We all need to mount a movement to reduce abortions. With new leaders, a new agenda about how to do this and isolate the one issue people who want to continue their failed approach..
His administration and the Democrats’ health care plans all plan to cover abortion. Is paying for everyone’s abortions going to reduce it?
Jason,
Can you cite some evidence? This issue hasn’t been decided yet, to the best of my knowledge.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/07/09/abortion_health_care/index.html
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1909178,00.html
Is supporting free abortions a legitimate manifestation of Catholic diversity on this issue?
What do you make of this?
It doesn’t sound like she’s a bad Catholic.
The article you link to is titled “Obama Surgeon General Pick Regina Benjamin Wanted Docs to Learn Abortions,” except she is quoted in the article itself as saying, “”We are adopting a policy that medical school curriculum provide the legal, ethical, and psychological principles associated with abortion so students can learn all the factors involved.” If that is what she spoke in favor of, it certainly isn’t “learing abortions.”
Here’s what the Catholic League has to say. (I never thought I’d be quoting them!)
By the way, when insurance pays for something, that doesn’t make it “free.”
Jason Drakes: When you make claims like the ones you’ve made about Collins and Sotomayor, you ought to provide some evidence to support them. You’ve linked to a tendentious post on Beliefnet implying that Collins has no problem with aborting fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome, and now you claim he wants to experiment on fetuses. If you don’t have proof, stop repeating it here. And again you assert without explanation or evidence that Sotomayor’s “group” views FOCA as a “constitutional mandate” (whatever that means). What group? In what sense is it “her group”? How do you know she agrees? The president has said that FOCA is not a legislative priority for him. Why are you dragging out this bogeyman again?
Grant Gallicho, I don’t think you are familiar with the facts. I provided “proof” that Collins supports destroying human embryos and even proposes a theology that embryos not in a woman are not persons, which is strikingly similar to the theology of “essential difference” that Doug Kmiec recently speculated about in America. Regarding experimentation on aborted babies, NIH currently and for years has funded experimentation on aborted babies. Are you denying this? Perhaps you are not familiar with those facts, though they are common knowledge to people aware of the subject. It is fair to ask for evidence, and you may claim ignorance if you don’t have such evidence but I think we agree you cannot legitimately deny something just because it hasn’t been proven to your satisfaction. The simple fact is that Collins is not going to end all that funding–unless you have reason to believe he will–rather, as head of NIH he will continue to distribute it just as he he will the embryo destructive funding he publicly supports.
Are you also denying that “From 1980 to 1992, Sotomayor was a governing board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) where, according to the New York Times, she “was an involved and ardent supporter of their various legal efforts.”"
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/22/sotomayor-worse-than-souter/print/
http://www.sotomayor411.com/
Is that not “evidence” that she supported their legal views? Not even evidence that she agrees? How about very good evidence? Are you a governing board member of any conservative groups, or any racist groups, which groups put out regular, repeated memos in your own specialty field, proposing extremist positions, but which memos maybe you completely disagree with? Let’s put it this way, when Sotomayor votes with Ginsburg, consistent with PRLDEF’s position, will you be “shocked, shocked!” that she took that position?
It also seems that you are not familiar with the legal issues at stake. Are you actually denying that PRLDEF’s position for strict scrutiny against abortion regulations, striking down informed consent and parental notification for example, is the SAME standard as FOCA? Are you denying that Ginsburg and Stevens and Breyerand PRLDEF believe that this standard which FOCA would impose, is already required by the Constitution, and that Souter (whom Sotomayor is replacing) voted against that view in Casey and instead allowed parental notification and informed consent? This is “whatever that means.” I am troubled that in your position here at Commonweal, which comments on the relationship between LIFE and voting for Obama, that you wouldn’t be familiar with this information. I’m more troubled that you act indignant when people propose the facts that you aren’t familiar with. Is it a “bogeyman” if three sitting justices take the position that FOCA is already mandated against any abortion regulation, and a fourth is being added? Why are you acting like none of this matters?
I asked a simple question: is support for abortion a la paying for everyone’s abortion in health care is a legitimate form of Catholic diversity from the progressive perspective. Obama and the Democrats admittedly support paying for all abortions in health care, Obama nominated Benjamin to make his health care plan happen, and Sotomayor’s group agrees with the extreme justices that the Constitution requires paying for all abortions. Here and at America, Benjamin and Sotomayor are offered as positive examples of Catholic diversity, and Obama is offered as an abortionr reducer. I wonder whether anyone promoting these positions will take note of the fact that the health care overhaul their candidate is about to give us, and the view our new justice will vote for will increase abortion enormously by payng for everyone’s abortion, or how abortion reduction is even possible in light of that.
Obama and the Democrats admittedly support paying for all abortions in health care. . . .
Jason,
You have given no evidence for this. Also, it is not a simple issue. You did not address the two articles I linked to, one of which contained this quote:
I prepared a comment with evidence but the page is rejecting it. There’s tons of evidence starting at http://nrlc.org/AHC/Index.html
There’s more here and here
http://lifenews.com/nat5207.html
http://www.lifenews.com/nat4415.html
The evidence is ample that the plans and the administration support paying for abortion. Dr. Benjamin has been appointed to make Obama’s health plans happen. I want to know if supporting health care is legitimate “diversity of the American Church” and is consistent with any plausible definition of abortion reduction if it includes free abortions for everyone. It’s a simple question.
This is not going to turn into a thread on abortion. You’ve said your peace, Jason.
I am fascinated by the mention of her grandmother. After reading Fr. Davis’ The History of Black Catholics in the United States and Och’s Desegregating the Altar: The Josephites and the Struggle for Black Priests, 1871-1960, I am quite moved by the history of our black brothers and sisters in the faith. They teach us what it is to be truly Catholic.
Congratulations to Dr. Benjamin!
Michael Sean Winters over at America says, “My sources in the Obama administration tell me that the White House understands that overturning the Hyde Amendment could kill health care reform and that they do not want to have this fight despite pressure from pro-choice organizations to hijack health care reform to achieve this long sought goal of theirs.”
Jason Drakes: Claiming that Collins supports destroying embryos for stem-cell research is a half-truth, and you know it.
You’ll forgive me for not being persuaded by the Washington Times writer, whose argument boils down to: “Sotomayor has not disavowed my interpretation of these legal briefs put out by a group whose board she sat on, therefore she agrees with what I take to be their worst parts.” I certainly would be troubled to learn that sitting Supreme Court justices had comments on FOCA. Looking forward to proof of that too.
Grant I think you are still not understanding me or the issue. Who said “sitting Supreme Court justices had comments on FOCA”? Maybe I wasn’t sufficient’y clear: FOCA imposes strict scrutiny against abortion restrictions, and sitting Supreme Court justices in opinions and dissents that we can both read impose strict scrutiny against abortion restrictions. Some people want to do it by statute–some justices vote to do it becasue they believe the Constitution already requires it.
David as Douglas Johnson documents in the comments over there, the Democrats are voting against amendments both to protect Hyde and to prevent a mandate that non-federal plans cover abortion and abortion clinics. MSW’s sources would have to mean that Obama will veto any bill that covers or mandates coverage for abortion–do you really think he will veto such a bill? Dr. Benjamin is tasked to push his health care plan–I hope she shares MSW’s views and is willing to act on them. We’re in big trouble if she doesn’t.
Actually, I have come to understand at least one thing about you: the IP address you post from is the same as Matt Bowman’s. I deleted his account several months ago. Please find another blog.
Federal funds cannot be used to create or destroy embryos. Government funds can only be used for research on stem cells created by entities which were not funded by the government using embryos originally created for in vitro fertilization and donated.
As I have said before, any arguments against deriving stem cells from embryos originally created for vitro fertilization has to be based on something more than the fact that the embryos will be destroyed. They will be destroyed no matter what happens. It seems to me that those opposed to government-funded stem-cell research are now forced challenged to be as vocal in their condemnation of in vitro fertilization as they are of federally funded embryonic stem-cell research, since given the NIH rules, the federally funded research does not encourage the creation of embryos for scientific research. The only way to keep embryos from being created only to be destroyed is to strictly regulate or ban in vitro fertilization. But I don’t think that is a cause the “pro-life” movement wants to take on.
I can only say that if the Most Reverend Drogo Genesius, Archbishop of Telapia City — a wise and holy man who occasionally posts very persuasive messages here and on Vox Nova strongly agreeing with me — should have the same IP address as mine, it can only be due to the strange workings of the Internet in small, developing nations such as the Republic of Telapia.