Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
August 17, 2009

As the House of Representatives headed out of Washington for a five-week summer recess, with the Senate soon to follow, members of Congress were vowing to listen to their constituents’ views on health care reform. What should the American Catholic public be telling their representatives and senators in light of Catholic social teaching? “We need health reform that respects the life and dignity of every person, from conception to natural death,” said Carol Keehan, a member of the Daughters of Charity who is president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association. “That means the unborn, it means the patient with multiple sclerosis, the patient with cancer, the young mother, the addicted, the mentally ill, the dying patient and the frail, frail elderly.”

In an interview on Aug. 3, Sister Keehan decried the “deliberate distortions” about health care reform being circulated by “those who for whatever reason don’t want health reform to succeed.” The worst of the distortions, Keehan said, is that C.H.A. and Catholic Charities USA are “working at cross-purposes” with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the abortion issue in health reform.

According to Sister Keehan, all three groups are sending a clear message that health reform must be “at least abortion-neutral” and must include conscience protections for health care professionals and institutions that do not want to participate in abortions or other morally objectionable medical procedures.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024