Abortion and Health Care Reform

I've been scratching my head for weeks about why abortion opponents, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, especially, oppose the Health Care Reform bill. Read Chicago Cardinal Francis George's press release about it if you have a strong stomach.

I'm going to try very hard to say this without being insulting. I've already failed, but let's face it — Catholic cardinals need to be a little more humble, and they still haven't got that message. Now that I've told them, I'm sure they'll settle down.

Here are three facts:

• Medical bills to carry a child to term are 3-4 times more than they are to have an abortion. And a child's health care needs don't end at birth.

• Many women have abortions because they cannot afford to have a child.

• And here's the big one: As T.R. Reid wrote in Sunday's Washington Post: "There's a direct connection between greater health coverage and lower abortion rates." By all means, read the whole article. Reid writes:

The connection was explained to me by a wise and holy man, Cardinal Basil Hume. He was the senior Roman Catholic prelate of England and Wales when I lived in London; as a reporter and a Catholic, I got to know him.

In Britain, only 8 percent of the population is Catholic (compared with 25 percent in the United States). Abortion there is legal. Abortion is free. And yet British women have fewer abortions than Americans do. I asked Cardinal Hume why that is.

The cardinal said that there were several reasons but that one important explanation was Britain's universal health-care system. "If that frightened, unemployed 19-year-old knows that she and her child will have access to medical care whenever it's needed," Hume explained, "she's more likely to carry the baby to term. Isn't it obvious?" [my emphasis]

Isn't it obvious?

Apparently not to to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. It seems that if they can't reduce the abortion rate their way, they'd rather not reduce it at all. Oops, another insult.

Postscript:

The leaders of more than four dozen U.S. congregations of [Catholic] women religious are urging members of Congress to "cast a life-affirming 'yes' vote" on the Senate's version of health reform legislation.

Those women have got guts. The Grand Inquisitor, Ratzinger, is already after them.