I haven’t heard this story, but if the Obama Administration is really going to take on Catholic Hospitals as described here, they MUST be as arrogant as the most “extreme” of us believe, and then some.
Catholicism has 50 million adherents in the US — but even if only a small percentage took this type of insult, and their Bishop’s consequent calls for action seriously, the country could be paralyzed.
Not that I think the “messiah-complex” President wouldn’t LOVE to see all Catholic hospitals shut down. That would remove “market pressures” and at the same time deliver much more “market share” into the control of Government Medical facilities.
Indeed, the question DOES seem to be, will Catholics decide that conscience is worth less than Government cash, or will they stand for their convictions regardless of cost? There are multitudes of examples throughout Church history pointing to the possibility that they could do either...
ALL THIS DOES is change things back to what the rules were as of November 2008, prior to President Bush's lame-duck rule change.
From WaPo:
"The Obama administration's move to rescind broad new job protections for health workers who refuse to provide care they find objectionable [...]" [emphasis added :-)]
From CNN:
The Obama administration plans to reverse a regulation from late in the Bush administration allowing health-care workers to refuse to provide services based on moral objections, an official said Friday.IMO, this is one of the big reasons why conservatives get marginalized. We MUST be better than the MSM, making sure of our facts and not screaming "The Sky is Falling!" or crying wolf unless it's real.
The Provider Refusal Rule was proposed by the Bush White House in August and enacted on January 20, the day President Barack Obama took office.
It expanded on a 30-year-old law establishing a "conscience clause" for "health-care professionals who don't want to perform abortions." [(emphasis added :-)]
This is exactly the point Douglas Kmiec and Time's Amy Sullivan were making...conservative bloggers are making us all look bad.
No offense meant, Coach, but I think that we really need to do better research, and I hope you take my comments as constructive...I want a better, more successful conservative movement, and as my tagline implies, part of that is facing constructive criticisms and warnings.