Stupak’s ‘Health Care Hell’
In which Congressman Bart Stupak briefly tells the story of “the most grueling period in my nearly twenty years on the hill.” That may sound hyperbolic. It’s not. Read the whole thing. He has body guards. His wife unplugs the phone because drunks harass the family at all hours and from all states (note to self: prolife not the same as prosleep). He’s still getting death threats.
And why? Because he compromised. On Sunday, March 21, the day of the reconciliation vote, Stupak and his coalition of prolifers gathered to work out the language of the executive order President Obama promised them. The clock was ticking. They phoned the USCCB for some last-minute guidance.
No, no, no, no, they said. We need statutory law. But an executive order can have the full force of law, I said. Lincoln used one to free the slaves. George W. Bush used one to block stem-cell research using human embryos. And President Obama assures me that this is “ironclad.” Besides, I said, it’s time to negotiate or lose our chance to shape the bill. Help me with it? No, they said. Won’t you at least look at it? No.
That call changed my relationship with the pro-life movement. In the 18 years I’ve been in Congress, pro-life Democrats like me have delivered, working out compromises that protect human life. Now we had the most important piece of legislation for our movement yet—with pregnancy prevention, prenatal and postnatal care, and care for kids—and we couldn’t get support.
Presumably he means that Richard Doerflinger, or someone in the USCCB’s prolife office, wouldn’t even look at the proposed language of the executive order–language that was being drafted by Bart Stupak and his prolife allies, the very people Doerflinger and the bishops who repeated his arguments had thrown their weight behind until it became clear that the House bill wasn’t going to make it into law without revisions. (Although I’m still not sure how many of them grasped that political reality.) And they wouldn’t even look at it? Astonishing.
It isn’t hard to read between these lines:
Ultimately, what stings the most isn’t the hatred…. It’s that people tried to use abortion as a tool to stop health-care reform, even after protections were added. That realization has stayed with me in the weeks since…. My decision not to seek reelection isn’t about anything other than it being time to do something else with my life. The truth is that I’ve been thinking of a career change for more than six years. I was glad that I stayed to fight the bull. Now I’m glad the fight is over.
“Now I’m glad the fight is over.”
I wonder if that’s true.
I’ve said several times that Bart Stupak is my hero, and he still is. Truly, he is carrying the cross for being a follower of Jesus.
I guess, to my reading, this is a recounting of a difference of opinion between Stupak and the USCCB. We knew, at the time, that the USCCB pro-life office didn’t consider an executive order to be sufficient – they were very upfront about that. Stupak tells us the same thing – that the USCCB didn’t consider an executive order to be sufficient. I’d list that disagreement under “legitimate difference of opinion”.
I suppose one interpretation of Stupak’s closing paragraph is that, in his view, the USCCB didn’t want health care reform to get done, and hoped that Stupak would be the agent of its destruction. Istm that in one sense, that may be somewhat true: the USCCB didn’t want *this version* of health care reform, because the pro-life protections were insufficient. If, in someone’s sincere opinion, a bill is a bad bill, they shouldn’t want it to pass. The USCCB explained, in mind-numbing detail, the bill’s defects. One needn’t posit bad-faith dealing; surely the most straighforward explanation is that the USCCB disliked this bill for the reasons it stated.
Beyond that, Stupak confirms here what he said in the wake of the historic vote: that Pelosi had the votes to pass the Senate bill, whether Stupak and his (dwindling) coalition came on board or not. I don’t know to what extent that political reality was clear to those who aren’t Hill insiders like Stupak. Could the USCCB have thought that Stupak controlled the votes to stymie passage of the bill, and thereby overestimated his leverage? If that is so, then in retrospect we see that they were badly mistaken.
FWIW – my opinion is that Bart Stupak did something monumental; he changed the game in a way that resulted in real and substantive protections for unborn life, and for that, we should be grateful.
In regard to Bart Stupak’s claim that “people tried to use abortion as a tool to stop health-care reform, even after protections were added” see Public Discourse, 4/28/10 “Health Care and the Abandonment of Pro-Life Principle” by the Editors.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/04/1280
In regard to the political harassment experienced by Mr. Stupak before his compromise see michaelmoore.com: “How the People in My District Got Stupak to Change His Mind — and Thus Saved the Health Care Bill” 3/22/10
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/how-people-my-district-got-stupak-change-his-mind-and-thus-saved-health-care-bill-letter-michael-moore
and see “Stupak: Health fight has been ‘living hell’”, The Hill, 3/18/10
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/87519-its-been-a-living-hell-says-rep-stupak
A short time after the health care bill passed and Bart Stupak was targeted by the ‘right’ I sent him, for me, a generous campaign donation, I marked the memo space to use it or donate to other Dem pro-lifers running. And I’m 2000 miles distant from his district.
Two weeks ago I got the check back with a nice note saying he was not running… In my very long years I never got a check back from you know who.
Obviously the pro-life campaign has become a focus of destructive fanaticism, and the person who has most promoted this, rashly, is John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae). I preached to French sisters on that the day Ev. V. was published, saying, we must beware of a culture of death, but also of a culture of condemnation. The right, sane approach was articulated by the French bishops in a book they published in 1978 — an approach that no bishops would have been allowed to express under John Paul II (though Bernardin may have come close). Intelligent Catholic discourse on abortion has dried up because it is a no-win topic.
The latest abortion polls show two interesting things:
1. Many people (almost 2-1) have serious reservations about the current state of legalized abortion.
2. Many people (almost 2-1) don’t want the S.Ct. to get rid of Roe.
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion2.htm
I was pondering how these views fit together, and I wondered if part of the reason is that people don’t want to unleash the full force of the abortion debate on the state and national level, in the way that would happen if Roe were actually overturned. A version, in other words of the social peace argument in Casey. People fear social upheaval–so they don’t want to upset the status quo.
Any other thoughts?
Prof. Kaveny,
I think the discrepency between the two figures you cite is simply due to people’s ignorance about Roe. I would like to see a poll in which people were asked to correctly identify what Roe (combined with Doe v Bolton) actually holds. My guess is that you would find most people believe:
1) overturning Roe would outlaw abortion everywhere, and
2) Roe/Doe permit abortion only in the first trimester of pregnancy with only a few exceptions
I wondered that too. Of course the poll question doesn’t say that. . . right, it says legalized abortion. So the first question points to the status quo (which is widely, but somewhat inaccurately described as Roe.)
Then the second question asks if the law should be more restrictive than it is now. Roughly 2/3 of the people want the law more restrictive than it is now, and roughly the same amount don’t want to get rid of Roe.
It’s rather a puzzle.
Richard Doerflinger is among the most honorable men in public life. He is a faithful Catholic and a liberal Democrat who has dedicated his entire life to defending the unborn child. I trust him completely on this issue. I suspect he knows more than Stupack and Stupack’s staff about this legislation and about the efficacy of this executive order. In fact, Doerflinger has been a close adviser to Stupack and prolife Dems for more than 20 years.
About Americans and Roe. Most Americans haven’t the slightest idea of what Roe did and have never even heard of Doe. Some years ago the Boston Globe did a poll about the reasons for abortion and whether respondents thought the various reasons should be legal reasons or not. Result. Most Americans believe that most abortions should be illegal. Americans favor legal abortion for rape, incest and to save the LIFE of the mother, about 20,000 abortions a year.
I agree that Bart got the shaft from official pro-life organizations and channels, and that his treatment is not likely to encourage more prolife Democrats to press their points.
However, for those of us without health care, the bill is still about … health care.
So far premiums are not down to affordable levels; in fact some of the quotes are now higher. Public assistance is not available at this point due to economic stresses on the state.
Bottom line, the effects of the bill were as I feared they would be: as of this month, I still can’t afford a policy–premiums are still at roughly the same levels they were before the bill was introduced (in fact, projections are that premiums will rise).
What has changed is that I’m liable to pay a fine for not having health care on top of carrying what health care I can afford out of pocket.
This was a bad bill for the middle class that found itself suddenly underemployed and uninsured. And it still is a bad bill.
Sorry, clarification: Reports are that, nationally, premiums will rise. When I checked with my local insurance agent, premiums were still about the same–still outside my budget.
Jean, your situation sounds awful. I’m praying for your health and the health of your family.
Regarding the bill: istm the rubber-meet-the-road question is: when the provisions of the bill are phased in (over the next four years?) (1) will insurance exhcanges drive premium costs low enough that you can afford insurance? and/or (2) would your family be eligible for government subsidies?
We won’t know the answer for (1) for several years, I’d expect. You might be able to figure out the answer to (2), assuming your family’s income stays roughly the same. But I wouldn’t know where to begin trying to ascertain the answer.
It would be nice to understand more about the exchanges. My sense from reading about your efforts is that you’ve already combed the market pretty thoroughly. An exchange would just present the same options, but more efficiently? I guess the game changer would be if state-by-state restrictions are removed, and more carriers could enter the market in your state. That might (or might not) result in better options. But I confess that I can’t keep straight whether or not that was a feature of the law.
Cathleen, I see it more or less along the same lines as David Tenney. I’d think that people are dissatisfied with the status quo of abortion-on-demand with relatively few restrictions; but they don’t want the option to disappear completely. (I agree that the perception may be that, were Roe overturned, abortion would be made completely illegal). There is a secret corner in peoples’ hearts where they like the idea that there is a last-ditch, emergency option – ‘God forbid I’d ever need to avail myself of it, but if I did …’ Abortion has touched just about everyone in a personal way – virtually every family has its experiences. So for Americans, it’s not just a theoretical or hypothetical – it’s personal. Just my amateur stab at mass psychology.
What has changed is that I’m liable to pay a fine for not having health care on top of carrying what health care I can afford out of pocket.
Jean,
I understand that you feel the health care bill doesn’t help you now (and you are no doubt correct), but the fine for not buying insurance doesn’t kick in until 2014, and 2014 is also when health care exchanges are to be set up and subsidies will be available for families making between 100 to 400% of the federal poverty level. So hopefully, there will be affordable insurance available in 2014 and you will avoid being fined by buying affordable insurance.
I don’t pretend to be an expert, but it seems to me the fine is intended to encourage people who can afford to buy insurance to get it, not to penalize people who can’t afford insurance.
An exchange would just present the same options, but more efficiently?
From one of several articles in the Christian Science Monitor:
This was a low point for the USCCB, and it comes from one single fact – they were too close to the NRLC and too afraid of the nuts on the right. Even as they laid out the principles of healthcare reform, they did not have the guts to challenge the laissez-faire libertarians who made un-Catholic arguments against healthcare reform. They did not have the guts to challenge the heated and hateful Palinesque rhetoric that poisoned the atmosphere, and is now causing poor Bart Stupak so much grief. No, they got into bed with the NRLC, a group that has opposed universal healthcare for years, a group that is avidly pro-GOP, and a group that has actually supported an expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion under the Republicans (in the Medicare Advantage program).
Sadly, this follows a pattern. When Obama was elected, instead of leading, they followed the nutty right like lemmings – buying into the faux-FOCA nonsense and the talking point that Obama is the “most pro-abortion president in history”. And this follows their relative silence after 8 years of war and torture. Even today, not s single bishops has said a word about Raymond Arroyo and Marc Thiessen defending torture and mocking just war teaching on EWTN. Not one.
Someone asked me about the health care bill and I told them it probably doesn’t do much for me now, in fact, it may make life harder due to the decreasing number of GP’s to be who won’t take medicare, but, for the majority of folks nad compared to what we have had, it’s a major step forward.
I think the next generation onward will really beneefit.
But this thread is about the mistreatment of Bart Stupak by the right to life crazies.
I guess I’m with the religious sisters who supported the bill and Stupak as a means of moving us forward in this country.
I think my way or the highway is not only counterproductive but encourages the kind of craziness we see in regard to this dedicated man.
Perhaps we all might agree that polling results on this subject depend ultimately on the precise phraseology of the items used by canvassers?
I, too, commend Stupak and our good sisters, and our bishops as a group have simply given me one more reason to criticize them — but not to ignore them since they need our feedback whether they welcome it or not!
The Hyde Amendment seems to be the consensus within our country; as a pro-lifer, I support it.
I’m reminded of the time a friend and I, trying to get a pro-life group started in our parish, attended a pro-life/anti-abortion speakers’ event at a local convention hall. The program was not an official RTL event but, rather, was sponsored by several Protestant congregations in the area. I began to feel kinda’ antsy after awhile, and my friend (a PhD philosophy professor) turned to me and said, “I think I’ve met the enemy, and it is us!”
O, yeah!
Bart’s Bishop Sample has an editorial on the diocesan page. He avoids mentioning Stupak specifically, and tries to be somewhat conciliatory. But he’s hardly congratulatory.
http://www.dioceseofmarquette.org/upcarticle.asp?upcID=2272
@ David N (and at the risk of dragging thread off topic,) “the fine is intended to encourage people who can afford to buy insurance to get it, not to penalize people who can’t afford insurance.” I’m sure that WAS the intent, but we all know where good intentions lead, especially when there are no provisions that will reduce health care premiums or the costs of care itself.
I was under the impression that the fines would kick in immediately, and would gradually increase in the first four years. Something I better check out. Thanks for the heads up.
David, you are right; the fine doesn’t kick in until 2014, and it will be increased in the next two years to encourage more people to sign on.
Jean–
The Kaiser Family Foundation has prepared a helpul implementation timeline for the health reform statute:
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/8060.cfm
There is also a link at that site (just above the timeline) to a summary of the new law–2,000+ pages of legalese reduced to about 12 readable pages. :)
Cathy –
Years ago an old friend, an expert in PIagetian studies, told me that some Piagetians had established that more than a few people when confronted with a contradiction simply accept both horns of the dilemma rather than recognizing that there must be something wrong with their thinking. Sorry, I don’t have a reference.
Ann, thanks. I guess I also see it as somewhat consistent. A person might want a particular end (more restrictions) but not be willing to do what one needs to do to actually get there in reality (create the social upheaval by overturning a controversial s.Ct. decision)
If you’d asked me in college: Would you like to be a medical doctor? I would have said yes. If you’d asked me, in the next sentence, do you want to take organic chemistry, I would have said no.
I’d still say no to that one, by the way!
Cathleen/Ann, some state legislatures have been able to agree on a level of restriction (parental notification, informed consent, etc.). Perhaps if pro-life groups were more effective at reaching out to the mainstream, they would be able to push more restrictions.
But I don’t see the desire for restriction and the desire to keep Roe in place as a form of DoubleThink so much as an unwillingness even for those in the pro-life camp to say where the lines should be drawn for others and under what circumstances.
Ooops, should say for “SOME in the pro-life camp to say where lines should be drawn.” I expect most pro-life activists have clear ideas where the lines should be drawn and are willing to require everyone to stay on the right side of the line or suffer legal consequences.
Studies have shown that many young women are increasingly opposing abortion. The reason is the sonogram which shows the human form developing. This has even been admitted by pro choice advocates. So women oppose it but are not ready for the the government to dictate what they can do. Certainly we do not know the full reason of this phenomenom. One might be rebelling against elders who are generally more liberal on this matter. Further, it would be helpful if we knew the breakdown of those involve. IOW, those having babies, those who are years from it. Etc.
About the Stupak experience. Whether on the right or the left it is hard to respect or regard people as spiritual who exhibit such venom. This was particularly evident in the demonstrations at Notre Dame.
While my friend Bart Stupak has said only that he talked to USCCB the morning of the House vote on March 21, the Commonweal blog is correct in guessing that he called me (on my cell phone at home). So let me just say this:
1. People who know me know I am incapable of answering any question about abortion legislation with a sentence of one word (even one word repeated four times, like “No, no, no, no”). Anyone asking me then, as now, about the ability of President Obama’s executive order to resolve the abortion funding problem in the health care bill, would receive the answer that there are some problems in the bill that can validly be addressed by executive order (particularly where it delegates authority to the executive branch), but whether funds appropriated by the Act are covered by the Hyde amendment is not one of them. The Senate decided that issue, by creating this new appropriation while leaving out any such limitation (and even voting to defeat an amendment that would have provided such a limitation). If anyone needed a more expansive answer in writing, they would have received something like this:
“One proposal to address the serious problem in the Senate health care bill on abortion funding, specifically the direct appropriating of new funds that bypass the Hyde amendment, is to have the President issue an executive order against using these funds for abortion. Unfortunately, this proposal does not begin to address the problem, which arises from decades of federal appellate rulings that apply the principles of Roe v. Wade to federal health legislation. According to these rulings, such health legislation creates a statutory requirement for abortion funding, unless Congress clearly forbids such funding. That is why the Hyde amendment was needed in 1976, to stop Medicaid from funding 300,000 abortions a year. The statutory mandate construed by the courts would override any executive order or regulation. This is the unanimous view of our legal advisors and of the experts we have consulted on abortion jurisprudence. Only a change in the law enacted by Congress, not an executive order, can begin to address this very serious problem in the legislation.”
2. Commonweal calls it “astonishing” that I would refuse to look at language that Bart Stupak offered to send me for comment, or refuse to meet with him if asked. I find it astonishing too. I would not do these things.
3. Executive orders have the force of law when they deal with an issue under the President’s authority to decide. President Lincoln’s executive order “freed the slaves” in states that were NOT part of the Union at the time, in part because he was told he lacked the authority to do more. President Bush’s executive actions on funding embryonic stem cell research merely reversed (and later partly reinstated) another executive decision on the issue by his predecessor; there was no statute or court decision to the contrary, only an appropriations rider FORBIDDING use of federal funds for research in which human embryos are destroyed. President Bush also discovered the limits of executive orders, when his order about bringing civilians suspected of terrorist ties before military tribunals was knocked down by the Supreme Court; it turns out his order had no support in the relevant statute.
Rep. Stupak said in his column that during and after the final days of the health care debate he was under incredible pressure, receiving death threats, fearing for his family, sleeping no more than three hours a night, etc. I saw some of the effects of this mistreatment myself. Under these circumstances, when he was put in a virtually impossible position by congressional leaders and so many others, I don’t think anyone should think ill of him for being careless in recalling one conversation during those hellish last hours. He should be admired and respected for the tremendous things he achieved during his 18 years in Congress, for the determination he showed time and time again, for his nearly spotless pro-life voting record, and for the opportunity he gave to some of us to become acquainted with a great and courageous man.
Richard Doerflinger
Mr. Doerflinger–
Others may decide to engage you on some of the points raised in your post, and perhaps I will, too, but for the present I’d like to compliment you on your articulate comments, especially your gracious views about Rep. Stupak’s pro-life record.
Richard,
Aside from the particulars which some of us will comment on, can we say this is some kind of paradigm change when someone at the UCCB will engage in the conversation on this most important issue? All things considered that was the most welcome aspect of your appearing on the Commonweal Blog. Hopefully this will not be something that happens one time in a a decade.
I must apologize for being unable to see that Richard Doerflinger has done much except to
a) explain that Stupak’s efforts on behalf of unborn children and families without insurance were inadequate (EO’s aren’t good enough), and
b) border on calling Stupak a liar in the most delicately euphemistic terms I have ever read (“I don’t think anyone should think ill of him for being careless in recalling one conversation during those hellish last hours”).
“Unfortunately, this proposal does not begin to address the problem, which arises from decades of federal appellate rulings that apply the principles of Roe v. Wade to federal health legislation. According to these rulings, such health legislation creates a statutory requirement for abortion funding, unless Congress clearly forbids such funding.”
Mr. Doerfinger –
Do these rulings involve cases in which there was a prior executive order forbidding the money to be spent on abortions? Or did the cases involve no executive orders one way or another? I mean were those cases so to speak without executive guidance?
Fact Check.org’s latest on all of this:
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/04/the-abortion-issue/
Cathleen, thanks for the link.
It leaves me even more stymied about claims that the EO is somehow insufficient and holds less teeth than an actual legislation, since laws can be overturned or found unconstitutional as well, no? Even the Constitution has been amended. Several times.
From a legal standpoint, would an EO be analogous to a codicil to a will? Binding in the same sense that the will is?
I certainly can’t speak for what the Americans polled were thinking, but for myself, I find that I combine a real uncomfortableness with abortion with a reluctant feeling that in the first trimester it ought to be available. The Catholic approach to abortion reminds me of rabbinic Judaism–draw a big fence around the Torah, right? As I understand it, the idea is that we’re not really totally sure when ‘human life’ begins–and we never have been and probably never will be–but if we say it begins at conception, then we can be sure we’re not committing murder. But there’s just too much uncertainty in all that for me, and so I continue to think, yeah, as long as it happens early, maybe…. And I think about what I would say if one of my freshmen showed up in my office wanting advice about an unplanned pregnancy…. And I think about how different my life would have been if I’d gotten pregnant my freshman year of college, or how different my friend A’s life would have been if she’d had the baby she conceived at sixteen (yeah, they were using birth control, but it didn’t work)…. And I feel like this set of dilemmas must play out over and over again. People are really anguished about this, and often not in a way that leads to “bright line” decisions.
I’m not saying any of this is consistent or intellectually rigorous or actually defensible. In fact, I think it’s not. But at a gut level, it’s how I *feel*. And I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a similar set of feelings (abortion is wrong, or probably wrong, or deeply problematic; but early in pregnancy it might not be so wrong that we need to outlaw it, or at least we don’t *know* that, and so it should stay available) is driving the apparently inconsistent polling.
From reading Jean’s comments and various replies, I take it that the upshot of health-care reform has been to make things more complicated and, where it matters most, more expensive. Also, others here who sound intelligent, articulate, and reasonable seem to feel that the pro-life people got shafted in return for a politician’s promise. Sounds as though this may have been a reform in name only, something that even true believers had serious reservations about.
It’s discouraging that so much political capital seems to have been largely wasted on a project whose principal outcome has been to make things only marginally better, even on paper, and arguably worse for the people it was supposed to help the most. This sort of exercise can give “compromise” a bad name.
Some have raised questions about the court decisions that required Medicaid to provide elective abortions, whenever it was not prevented from doing so by statutory Hyde language. (The authorizing legislation for Community Health Centers has the same broad language for required services as the Medicaid statute, like “family planning,” and some that are even more specific, like “gynecology services.”) These sources might help.
Legal analysis of the legislation and executive order on these points:
http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/03-25-10Memo-re-Executive-Order-Final.pdf
Less technical explanation of the Community Health Centers abortion funding problem:
http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/communityhealthcenters.pdf
The question was also raised whether an executive order was attempted before to prevent this result. Medicaid was construed by courts as requiring federal funding of abortion under four past presidents: Nixon and Ford (before passage of Hyde), Carter (when Hyde was enjoined by federal courts), and Clinton (when Hyde was amended to allow funding of rape/incest abortions, and courts threatened to knock down state laws and state constitutions that were stricter than that or kick the states out of the Medicaid program). At least three of these presidents opposed federal funding of abortion. None of their legal counsel apparently saw an executive order as worth attempting, given the court decisions’ language. The theory that such an order can resolve this question is new, heard for the first time on the day when it was needed to pass a health care bill.
The question is also somewhat academic now that the health care bill has passed. Everyone would agree that a legislative fix is far more secure. So do you gamble on the executive order, knowing that a law suit against it (even an ultimately unsuccessful one) would probably produce federally funded abortions for months or years during the litigation and appeal (see the 300,000 abortions a year that Medicaid funded while the Hyde amendment was being litigated)? Or do we pass a new bill that brings this now-enacted law into line with the policy that already applies in all other federal programs? Is this even a difficult question?
“None of their legal counsel apparently saw an executive order as worth attempting, given the court decisions’ language.”
Richard, this might be considered mixing apples with oranges. An executive order changing the abortion law which was quite risky with Nixon, Ford and Clinton since it would “change” the existing law. In Obama’s case he was agreeing with an existing law, the Hyde Amendment. Both situations involved the Hyde amendment in different circumstances.
Further, so far no one is challenging the EO as the rhetoric has dimmed also on suing the health care bill.
“I am glad the fight is over.” The fight will not be over until the Right to Life of every Human Individual is protected by acknowledging that every Human Individual is created equal and thus from the moment of creation at Conception, every Human Individual is endowed by our Creator with the fundamental Right to Life.
Mr Doerflinger also fails to mention the congressional colloquy which Stupak had with Waxman that clarifies that it was the Congressional intent abide by Hyde. The lower courts , appeals, and Supreme court would find it most difficult to overrule Congressional intent. How by saying their intent holds more weight? And who besides Doerflinger says abortion money flows while the courts settle the EO and congressional intent/ Is this [ his?] ‘opinion’ too part of the revealed tradition and faith?
As a bystander to the debate, the attack on the community health centers seemed to me to be a total red herring. Legislators said over and over again Community Health Centers have never ever provided abortions, they have no intention of doing so, and they will not be funded to do so under health care reform. I think it is an odd use of advocacy resources to run a campaign to prevent an institution from doing something it has never done before and has no plans to do in the future. I think it also unjustly smears those centers and undermines the important work they do.
Mr. Doerfinger –
As I understand your post and the links you’ve provided, a summay of the bishops’ argument would go like this:
The Hyde amendment precludes the spending of funds authorized by an act whose language does not preclude spending its authorized funds on elective abortion..
The scope of Hyde is limited to whichever legislation it expressly amends. The Senate health care reform bill did not preclude such spending, Neither does the health reform Act. Therefore, the health reform Act is not within the scope of Hyde.
Sp far, subsequent decisions of federal appellate courts have all supported mandating payment (e.g., the Indian Healthcare Act) where legislation did not specifically banned payment for elective abortions,
Except for legislation expressly forbidding paying for elective abortions, federal appellate courts have ruled that electiveabortions must be paid for under *other* laws which fund more general categories of health care, categores which obviously include the sub-category of elective abortion.
It is not entirely clear to me whether Executive Orders were involved in those cases, but apparently they weren’t because you say that several presidents who were against abortion apparently didn’t even consider that such orders might stymie payment for abortions under other laws. In other words, its seems to me that the question of the effectiveness of an EO is still moot. Being still moot, it seeems to me that the conclusion of your secong link does not hold. It says:
“Conclusion: In line with longstanding jurisprudence the authorizing legislation for Community Health Centers creates a PRESUMPTIVE MANDATE [emphasis mine] for funding abortions without meaning ful limit.”
Since those prior appellate decisions did not involved any executive orders precluding such payment, I cannot see how the presumptive mandate follows from the NCCB arguments– the prior cases were very, very different. First, there is no law saying that only Hyde can restrict such payment, and second, an executive order has great force, though it is not a law. So the question is still quite moot.
As to what we should press for next, yes: a Hyde amendment for the health care Act or something like it.
Mr. Doerfinger –
While we have you here, let me ask a question an answer for which I have been trying to find for many years.
Does there exist an official definition of “person” by the Vatican or the American bishops, and does there exist any express official philosophical argument(s) in official documents puts out by either Rome or the bishops, spelling out 1) how they define “person” or “human being” in the fullest sense of the term, 2) arguments proving that a person is present from the first instant of the joining of sperm and egg (generally called “conception”), and 3) arguments proving that killing an unborn person is in every case wrong. (I might add that “conception” needs careful defining, especially in the light of the stem cell research context.)
At the moment all we have are official *declarations* about persons, conception and abortion, Declarations are not arguments. Until we have official, detailed answers to all those questions the bishops’ and popes’ proclamations on those matters will not persuade anyone to change their minds.
Thank you very much for joining us, and do come back :-)
I’m just a lowly Catholic in the pews, but when the American Bishops reject a bill which gives the kind of medical and other support to young women who find themselves with an unintended pregnancy, help which might help them decide to carry their baby to term, I can only be left with the sense that they (the bishops) are more interested in politics then they are in saving the lives of unborn children. Bart Stupak is my hero.
To Richard Doerflinger:
What was your position on Medicare Advantage, which subsidized private health care plans in the provision of Medicare, and which has the weakest pro-life language possible? Today, Medicare Advantage is covering “elective abortion” – in other words, public funds are paying for abortion, See here: http://vox-nova.com/2010/03/01/abortion-and-republican-ideas-on-reforming-healthcare/
Re query from “Morning’s Minion” on Medicare Advantage:
Like all of Medicare, Medicare Advantage is covered by the Hyde amendment, which bars all funds in the Medicare trust fund from paying for elective abortions or plans that cover them. The “weak” pro-life language cited on the web site you referenced is not a funding ban at all: It was passed by Congress in 1998 as an ADDITIONAL protection, not as a substitute for Hyde, because some Catholic hospitals were being told that they had to provide at least the “Hyde exception” abortions (life and rape/incest) as a condition for remaining in the program. This conscience provision addressed that problem. As for that site’s copy of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Medicare Advantage form from Michigan, if that is accurate and up to date then it would seem federal law is being ignored by someone in Michigan, and that’s worth investigating. Thanks for raising this!