At Salon, Frances Kissling argues that Catholic bishops are committing a sin of omission by failing to fight for a public option in the U.S. healthcare reform debate:
For decades the bishops have advocated for universal healthcare—in fact, for a single-payer system with a strong emphasis on covering the uninsured, the poor and immigrants. The best shot at reform is now. But the bishops are squandering every ounce of moral capital they have, not on the public option, but on ensuring that in any reform bill not one penny of federal funds is used for abortion.
This strategy has put them in the extremist camp among those opposed to abortion. Moderate evangelicals and antiabortion Catholics bit the bullet on abortion four years ago and decided that other issues like ending wars, reducing global warming, and fighting poverty meant it was time to move on from attempting to outlaw abortion. While one can quibble with their strategy, working to prevent the need for abortion was a step forward from working to make it illegal.
On healthcare reform, religious groups opposed to and supportive of legal abortion have adopted an awkward but workable frame for containing the abortion issue. All agree to support the “status quo” and to not use healthcare to advance their abortion agendas; and they agree to disagree about what the status quo is and move on. Not the bishops; they are the only religious group that is holding support for healthcare reform hostage to a complete ban on any form of federal funds being spent on abortion coverage.
Read the full article here.