A report produced by a privately established and funded Commission on Assisted Dying has recommended that assisted suicide be legalized in the United Kingdom for any competent person over 18 years old who is terminally ill and expected to live less than 12 months. It also recommends that physicians who refuse to assist with suicide for reasons of conscience be compelled to refer patients to colleagues who will do so [P. 311, Report]. The eleven members of the Commission included Lord Falconer, a lawyer and former solicitor general, who acted as Chair. The validity of the Commission has been challenged from the outset, and a number of groups, including the British Medical Association, refused to take part, though about 1,300 sources gave evidence. [BBC]
Category: News
Comment following meeting of Illinois Catholic bishops and governor
Following a meeting with Illinois State Governor Pat Quinn with nine Catholic bishops from the state, Francis Cardinal George commented, “As Catholic pastors we wanted to remind the governor that conscience, while always free, is properly formed in harmony with the tradition of the church as defined by scripture and authentic teaching authority. A personal conscience that is not consistent with authentic Catholic teaching is not a Catholic conscience.” [National Catholic Reporter]
Catholic Medical Association provides comment on HHS defintion of religious employer
Bala Cynwyd, PA — On August 1, 2011, the Secretary of HHS effectively mandated that abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilization be offered and subsidized by all insurance plans and issuers, and proposed to exempt only a narrow set of “religious employers,” using a definition supplied by the ACLU and recognized in only 3 states. Today, the CMA submitted comments to HHS, criticizing this mandate and HHS’s draconian approach to respect for religious freedom.
Equality legislation used to defend conscientious objection to abortion
(United Kingdom: 2011)
- John Smeaton* | The two nurses . . .were employed at a hospital for ordinary nursing duties. They were then allocated to work once a week at an abortion clinic in the hospital. The abortion process did not involve surgical abortion but the increasingly common process of “early medical abortion” . . .When they became aware that they were participating in abortion they told their management that they did not want to continue but were then told that they had no choice in the matter. . . Full Text
Obama Plays Catch 22 with Religious Groups
NEWS RELEASE
Catholic League president Bill Donohue addresses the dilemma that the Obama administration has created for religious employers:
Yesterday, the Obama administration mandated that all health insurance plans cover contraceptives and sterilization for women, though it made an exception for religious employers. But did it? Not really. To wit: a religious employer is defined, in part, as one that primarily employs, and serves, persons who share its religious tenets.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said this means that “our institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics.” He’s right: Catholic schools, hospitals and social service agencies have a long and distinguished record of serving everyone, regardless of religious affiliation; most even employ non-Catholics. However, there are matters, like foster care programs, where same-religion requisites make sense.
The situation is even more pernicious than it looks. Consider that three years ago, then presidential candidate Barack Obama said he opposes allowing faith-based programs to hire only their own people. Since becoming president, he has authorized his administration to consider this issue on a case-by-case basis, and just recently many of his allies lobbied him to gut the religious liberty provision in hiring altogether.
In other words, the Obama administration is playing Catch-22 with religious employers. If they are too religious, Catholic social service agencies risk losing federal funds, but if Catholic hospitals are not sufficiently religious, they cannot be exempt from carrying health insurance policies that transgress their religious tenets.
The Obama administration knows exactly what it is doing, and what it is doing is burning religious institutions at both ends. This is a pretty sick game. But it is one where there is plenty of time left on the clock.