I have been more than a little disappointed with the US bishops during the healthcare debate. I do not doubt their\u00a0utter sincerity, but I question their political savvy. In fact, this precedes the healthcare debate. Time after time, we have seen the US bishops acting as the cart being pulled by the pro-life horse, and I pro-life I mean the \u201cprofessional\u201d political pro-life movement that is solidly wedded to the agenda and strategy of the Republican party and the whole cult of individualism that mis-names itself conservative.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Consider the past year. Prompted by the pro-life zealots determined to paint Obama as the \u201cmost pro-abortion president in history\u201d, the USCCB\u00a0got caught up in faux-FOCA\u00a0panic. FOCA\u00a0was not an issue, and it was never going to be\u00a0an issue. But because of some stupid comment of Obama\u2019s from a few years back, it became a central rallying cry for the prolife movement that was opposed to Obama on so many other levels. And the bishops followed. And when the pro-life movement erupted again over Obama\u2019s degree at a midwestern Catholic university, the bishops followed again, with some of them acting as if it were the most important issue facing the country.\u00a0(In contrast, \u00a0there seems very little outcry in Catholics circles\u00a0to the granting of a \u201cpro-life\u201d award to George W. Bush by the Legatus<\/em>\u00a0group.) This\u00a0pattern appeared\u00a0even after a record of making very little public comment about the many immoral policies of the previous administration, including the legitimization of torture and the practice of pre-emptive and unjust war.<\/p>\n The professional pro-life movement never showed much interest in life issues beyond abortion. The movement cared little about, and often showed ideological disdain for, the policies that might reduce\u00a0abortion \u2013 this in spite of\u00a0\u00a0the Declaration on Procured Abortion\u2019s<\/em> clear statement that \u201cone can never approve of abortion, but it is above all necessary to combat its causes\u2026it is necessary\u2026to do everything possible to help families, mothers and children.\u201d The abortion issue has been used\u00a0time and again as a trojan horse to hide those policies that are less than palatable in Catholic circles. Using the unborn for political gain has become quite a cynical sport.<\/p>\n Look at the record. The movement is satisfied\u00a0with minor and symbolic victories, victories that do little for the incidence of\u00a0abortion, but do a lot for their fund-raising efforts. And of course, the great\u00a0ace-in-the-hole\u00a0is the ability to nominate the \u201cright\u201d Supreme Court judges. Sure, Bush made two picks that earned him great accolades, but while his judges continue to steer the court further in the direction of\u00a0big business and corporate interests, nothing\u00a0was done\u00a0to tackle the conditions that lead to abortion.\u00a0Under Bush, median real income declined by 4.3 percent, poverty\u00a0rose by\u00a026 percent, child poverty\u00a0shot up by\u00a021 percent, and the number of uninsured\u00a0also increased by\u00a021 percent.<\/p>\n The pro-life movement seems to care little for changing the very culture that is so supportive of abortion \u201crights\u201d. Changing the culture is hard, time consuming. Nobody says otherwise. Ask William Wilberforce. But the very political strategy of the pro-life movement itself sets the clock back even further, by aligning the interests of the unborn with big business, with war, with torture, with environmental hooliganism. This hypocrisy disgusts the pro-choice crowd. As well it should.<\/p>\n The healthcare debate really shone a light on the jaded tactics of the pro-life movement. It was very clear very quickly that killing the healthcare bill became the number one propriety of the political right. And the pro-life movement played\u00a0its part perfectly.\u00a0Its long courtship with the political right was finally consummated. The nadir was reached\u00a0with the elation over the election of\u00a0Scott Brown to the Senate, a man who is proudly pro-abortion and proudly pro-torture, a man who resembles nobody as much as Rudy Giuliani, who not so long ago was\u00a0demonized\u00a0by this very same pro-life movement. But times\u00a0had changed.\u00a0There was a healthcare bill to kill. And Brown\u00a0might be able to deliver the fatal blow. Hence, his great victory was to be celebrated \u2013 even at the March for\u00a0Life, of all places.<\/p>\n And yet, the pro-lifers claim steadfastly to oppose\u00a0healthcare for its abortion provisions. But is this true? When the House passed a bill with the ironclad Stupak\u00a0protections against abortion, the pro-life\u00a0movement did not embrace the bill. They continued to oppose. Yet again, they used the unborn for political gain.\u00a0Their real\u00a0loyalty was to the American cult of individualism, which objected to forcing people to purchase health insurance, and especially to forcing the healthy to subsidize the sick, either directly through community rating, or indirectly through budgetary subsidies.\u00a0This was really why they opposed reform, not abortion.<\/p>\n Which brings me back to where I started \u2013 to the role of the bishops. I believe the bishops have been poorly served by the pro-life movement during this debate. I believe they were intimidated\u00a0into supporting a maximalist position that would not have happened even a few years ago, and would seem peculiar in other countries, including Catholic countries. Perhaps they\u00a0felt trapped\u00a0in that position\u00a0as so many\u00a0Catholics on the left were all too ready to mock and dismiss them on a whole host of teachings, including sexual issues. Perhaps they feared the attacks they would face if they showed any weakness to this group. But they were poorly served, and their latest letter pleading with\u00a0Congress not to let healthcare fail seems almost tinged with regret. One thing we know for sure \u2013 this regret is not shared by the so-called pro-lifers, the Robbie Georges and others, who are relishing the defeat of healthcare and their own role in it.<\/p>\n Just think through some of the issues on abortion and healthcare. Once we start from the position\u00a0that abortion\u00a0is\u00a0covered\u00a0by private health insurance plans, it becomes very difficult to design a reform that simultaneously increases coverage without\u00a0including abortion. I believe the Democrats went further than many thought possible to meet these concerns. Personally, I support the Stupak\u00a0position. I think the Stupak\u00a0position\u00a0is better than the Nelson compromise, but not that much better, and certainly not better enough to derail the whole\u00a0reform. After all, Nelson would allow states to forbid abortion coverage, give people the option of\u00a0an abortion-free plan, and shine attention on abortion coverage by separating payments (if you can\u2019t see the value in forcing such attention, just ask the RNC).<\/p>\n The problem is, the bishops trapped themselves in a corner by drawing the line with Stupak. We all know that the issue relates to the degree of proximity of taxpayer funding to each and every\u00a0act of abortion, and that this proximity is not that close, given that the plans are private plans funded by private premia, and the only relationship to the\u00a0taxpayer is through\u00a0subsidies to people\u00a0under a certain income level\u00a0(and anyway, private premia are equally tainted).<\/p>\n Nobody seems to be\u00a0noting that the Republican health reform plans would suffer from similar \u2013 if not greater \u2013 problems. After all, granting tax credits makes it cheaper for people to purchase private plans with abortion, and allowing insurance plans to be\u00a0sold across state lines would gut the Nelson provision allowing states to ban abortion coverage. The bottom line is that\u00a0if abortion coverage is widespread in private plans, then these issues become unavoidable.<\/p>\n \u00a0By all means, the bishops\u00a0were right to push for as much distance as possible between abortion and healthcare, and I applauded them all the way, but to draw the line in such arbitrary manner\u00a0makes little sense. However, it makes a lot of sense to the pro-life movement, for entirely different reasons. And therein lies the problem.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been more than a little disappointed with the US bishops during the healthcare debate. I do not doubt their\u00a0utter sincerity, but I question their political savvy. In fact, this precedes the healthcare debate. Time after time, we have seen the US bishops acting as the cart being pulled by the pro-life horse, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2951,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,109,241,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-health-care","category-healthcare","category-mornings-minion"],"yoast_head":"\n