Posted on 04/22/2012 4:30:50 PM PDT by markomalley
Something we have to remember when considering the Obama Administrations erosion of the 1st Amendment through the HHS mandate, is the element of what I call creeping incrementalism. Each time some radical thing is proposed, even if it fails, nevertheless bumps the needle just a tad in the radical direction. Over time, tiny little increments of shift add up to a huge shift.
If the Obama Administration is pushing for Catholic hospitals to distribute contraceptives and abortifacients, perform sterilizations, etc., we know that their next goal is to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.
There is an interesting story on the site of a newspaper in Connecticut:
Bishops: Dont Make Catholic Hospitals Perform Abortions [UPDATE]
When asked during a debate Sunday if they would support, as a concept, a federal law requiring Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, some Democratic Senate candidates indicated they would. The bishops object. [Who was it that took heat for calling the Democrat Party "the party of death"? Was it now-Cardinal Burke?]
By Patrick Barnard and David GurliacciOn Sunday, some Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate said theyd favor the concept of a federal law requiring even Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Now, the states Catholic bishops are objecting.
Connecticuts Catholic bishopsincluding Bishop William Lori, who announced in March that he is leaving the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport to become archbishop of the Baltimore Archdiocesehave issued a statement expressing their dismay after all five Democratic candidates said during Sundays Face the State debate that they would support legislation forcing Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.
If it is their [the candidates'] position that our hospitals should be forced by law or regulations to provide abortions in spite of our teaching, it is unfortunate to note their readiness to violate religious liberty, wrote Archbishop of Hartford Henry Mansell, Archbishop-designate Lori, Bishop Michael Cote of Norwich, and Bishop Paul Chomnycky of the Ukrainian Catholic Diocese of Stamford in the statement issued Monday.
[NB] Their position would be the logical extension of the federal Health and Human Services regulations with regard to so called preventative services.
When asked whether Catholic hospitals should be required to provide contraceptive services and abortions, the candidates replied in various ways, according to the recording of the debate available at the WFSB-TV website (starting at the 5:30 mark).
Lockhart recently wrote on his blog: Now, before those of you reading this pick a side, please watch the footage, listen carefully to what the candidates did/didnt say and then draw your own conclusions about whether all five answered in the affirmative.
Susan Bysiewicz and Matthew Oakes said the federal government has the right to require Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Chris Murphy seemed to indicate the government should not do that. William Tong also did not give a direct reply, but said, Access to an abortion should be open and available. Lee Whitnum said providing contraception services is a good thing, but did not say whether Catholic institutions should be forced to do so.
Heres the question Lockhart wrote on his blog that he asked: Mr. Murphy, you were a strong advocate for the Obama administrations recent decisions regarding contraception coverage for employees of Catholic organizations. The New York Times recently reported that as Catholic hospitals become a greater force within the health care industry there are concerns that womens access to treatments from abortions to sterilizations will be limited. Should the federal government require Catholic hospitals to provide these services, specifically abortions?
Here are some excerpts of the answers:
Susan Bysiewicz: The federal government has the right to regulate what services are provided, because Catholic institutions, colleges and universities get funding from the federal government, and I believe that those institutions should provide access to reproductive health care.
Chris Murphy: They certainly have the ability to decide what services they perform.
Matthew Oakes: If theyre gonna take our moneyIm Roman Catholicthen they need to perform the health care issues that women need performed for them.
William Tong: Access to an abortion should be open and available. Acess to contraception, the same thing. These are basic liberties enshrined in our Constitution, in our jurisprudence. Thats a fact. [...] I think we need a cooperative approach. We had a bill in the state Legislature to provide emergency contraception. It was called Plan B. [...] Now Plan B is a reality. Emergency contraception is made available to patients at Catholic hospitals. We just need to find a way to make it work.
Lee Whitnum did not answer the question about whether the federal government must force Catholic institutions to provide abortion or contraceptive services. She said she supported institutions providing them.
Sick. I hope that the CT Bishops speak out loud & clear.
Overton window
I hope they just shut down in protest. Watch the scramble.
A total disgrace. This is so egregious to all believers of the Catholic/Christian word. “Thou shall not kill”.
A total disgrace. This is so egregious to all believers of the Catholic/Christian word. “Thou shall not kill”.
It's more like creeping excrementalism.
Watching this.
Will forcing Jewish daycares centers to offer porkrinds and pickled pigsfeet snacks to to the tiny tykes be far behind?
Gotta be cultural diverse nowadays...
Abort the democrat candidates.
Catholic hospitals provide about 25% of hospital care. In some areas it is much greater. They also provide a greater proportion of care to Medicaid and the uninsured than other hospitals. I do hope the Bishops stand firm and we will see who blinks first. If Catholic hospitals shut down, private entities will not have the resources to buy many if not most of them because, hospital margins are small, and Catholic hospitals also rely on charitable enowments. The government could try to take them over, but this would be worse than bailing out the car companies. Just think how bad the access would be if the Catholic hospitals closed down.
What do Catholic owe to the Democrat liberals anyway?
You cannot be a serious practicing Catholic (or Mormon, or Presbyterian, or even a Bible thumping Baptist) and a liberal Democrat at the same time.
And if the Islamists could look beyond the obvious socialist message long enough, they would see the secular socialists are not their allies either - what with all the concerns with making the workplace and the streets safe for those who practice perversions of moral character (i.e., drug use, sexual depravity, generally unclean habits of dress and conversation), the Islamists would execute their former comrades without a moment’s hesitation.
As was expected. Now the Bishops need to decide if they are willing to go to jail for their refusal to comply. I’m thinking that if enough folks see these men standing against such an assault on Religious Liberty by the Fed. Govt., it might just change their attitudes about the Govt. in general and Obamacare in particular.
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Important article for any and all conservatives. This point is essential for understanding why leftism needs to be fought very vigorously and NO compromise. Someone may say, "well, isn't a bit late for that?". My answer - it's never too late. In fact, it's high time to fight back.
And the following quote is applicable not just to the 0bomba administration, but all leftists/communists/socialists/culture of death-ists/democrats etc.
Something we have to remember when considering the Obama Administrations erosion of the 1st Amendment through the HHS mandate, is the element of what I call creeping incrementalism. Each time some radical thing is proposed, even if it fails, nevertheless bumps the needle just a tad in the radical direction. Over time, tiny little increments of shift add up to a huge shift.
The only thing that might make them stop before that point is if they are just doing it for votes--they may feel they have shown enough zeal to please their base and they were forced to give in to the bad guys (the people who cling to their God or their guns). But it could be that this is so central to their thinking that they can't compromise even if it hurts them in the election.
“....if they are going to take our money.....” The government has no money except for what it extorts from taxpayers. Christians are taxpayers. It is wrong—tyranny, actually—to compel people of faith to murder innocent unborn children simply because money extorted from believers is recycled in the form of Medicaid or Medicare payments. If the Democrats attempt to crush religious liberty in this manner, the government will have lost all legitimacy. If that happens, the consequences don’t bear thinking about. God help us!
I spent twenty-five years asking conservative Christian Southern folks exactly what they owed the democrat party before they started to actually take the question seriously.
Many of them, a lot of them now passed on, refused to stop voting democrat, giving money to the democrat party, and working hard for the democrat party, their entire lives. When Clinton was elected I remember one such diehard telling me, "you watch, he'll roll back all this liberal s**t and take the democrat party back from Kennedy and his crowd". I can't explain why some people are that way about the democrat party but they are.
I don't know what else the democrat fascist party could do to make it clear that they don't want Catholics or any other Christians who actually believe in Christ. There are folks I know who hate every candidate the democrat party has had locally and nationally for the past twenty years but who still insist that the democrat party will turn around and that they need to be in the party when that happens.
Likely what they want. The more confusion and grief that they can cause, the happier they are. Don't think for a moment that they care about the "little people", because they don't. What the Catholics should do is keep operating without complying. When they come, if they come, to shut them down they should be surrounded with 1,000s of peoples with guns. If they want to shut them down, stop them, all over the Country. Don't let them. Like most bullies, actually confronted, they may well back down. In the least people will be appalled by them and more will come out against them. We should not be naive, they may fight and have places ready to take us to lock us up. We need to be extremely smart and try to and with God's help win.
DONT TAKE FEDERAL MONEY,Or you open yourself up to tyranny
Pretty much confirms that the whole Obama “contracepetion” mandate is really all about forcing everyone to subsidize, and in the case of Catholic hospitals, provide abortion.
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