Bishops should be included in health-care debate, Cardinal says
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BALTIMORE -- In his address to all Catholic bishops of the United States, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago defended their right to express their views in the design of a national health care system.
"It is not for us to speak to particular means of delivering health care. It is our responsibility, however, to insist, as a moral voice concerned with human solidarity, that everyone should be cared for and that no one should be deliberately killed," he said today at their semiannual meeting here.
The bishops have long argued that health care is a basic human right and supported universal access to health insurance. But they have also insisted that abortion isn't health care.
Individual bishops and their national staff lobbied successfully for a recent amendment to the House version of the health care bill that banned coverage of most abortions --- other than those that could cause death of the mother or resulted from sexual abuse --- in any federally subsidized program, though it would allow the purchase of a rider to cover elective abortions. Parish bulletins encouraged parishioners to contact their legislators.
Cardinal George quoted a 1994 speech by his predecessor, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who said the bishops must "stand up for both the unserved and the unborn, to insist on the inclusion of real universal coverage and the exclusion of abortion coverage."
"We are most grateful for those in either political party who share these common moral concerns and govern our country in accordance with them," Cardinal George said to applause from the bishops.
First Published November 16, 2009 4:34 pm
