Standing Up for Real Health Care

One must rejoice a little when the secular press represents a Catholic position more or less well. From the New York Times this morning:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has lobbied for decades to persuade the government to provide universal health insurance, says it opposes the bill unless it bans the use of subsidies for plans that cover abortion.

The Catholic Church seeks to cooperate with grace in the development of the common good and a more just human society; public health--as an issue of both wellness and justice in our time--is a critical component of this vision. The problem here is that abortion is not health care, but in fact the opposite, both for its specific victims and for the deforming of our imagination around human life that it imposes on all of us.


Full article here. Thanks to the writer, David D. Kirkpatrick.


UPDATE: An old friend, who often does me the great favor of keeping me honest in these posts, reminds me that we should always keep in mind that federal funding for abortion has long been forbidden. So, just to clarify, my point is not to try to say anything about politics, funding, insurance plans or anything else about which I am unqualified to comment. What I do want to point out is that the debate in these days is a good moment to remind ourselves that what the world calls 'health care' is not the same thing as what we Catholics would call 'health care.' Since many of our so-called Catholic politicians do not seem to care about this distinction, I think it's important that we point it out when we can.