"what I have done and what I have failed to do"

When is it OK for Church leaders, ethicists, and/or pro life leaders - indeed for any faithful Catholic - to look away from evil being done by Catholic institutions?  Just how does the Pontifical Academy for Life explain "cooperation"?

The Pontifical Academy for Life has also reminded us that "cooperation" does not only involve "what I have done" but it also involves "what I have failed to do":

Scandal

My dad never went to college, and he was certainly no expert on the scriptures or on moral theology.  Yet my dad was well aware (and would often remind us) that our Lord Himself used incredibly strong and frightening language in saying that we 'd be better off to have "a millstone...put around...[the] neck and...be thrown into the sea than...to cause one of these little ones to sin."  Like my dad, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reminds us of our Lord's "little ones":

Misleading Our Lord's "Little Ones"

Trying to be faithful, unsuspecting Catholic patients and their families - our Lord's "little ones" - no doubt take great comfort in statements such as these:

• "As a Catholic health system, the ERT [Saint Mary Medical Center's Ethics Resource Team] adheres to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services."
• "As a Catholic healthcare provider, Holy Redeemer expects that all health care practitioners adhere to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services at health system locations." 

Are these statements verifiable?

St. Mary's is Misleading Our Lord's "Little Ones" Regarding OB/GYN Services

Saint Mary Medical Center advertises itself as having "Bucks County's most trusted and preferred maternity services."  Noting "24 OB/GYN specialists" and "high-risk pregnancy management experts," the unsuspecting are encouraged to "Call 215.710.5888 for a Physician referral or visit www.StMaryHealthCare.org/Maternity."

NONE of St. Mary's "24 OB/GYN specialists" (nor any of their "high-risk pregnancy management experts") are to be found on a list of NFP-only physicians.  ALL of St. Mary's "high-risk pregnancy management experts" - including Dr. Stephen Smith - are associates of Dr. Frank Craparo of Abington Perinatal Associates, which is known for "reductions" - a euphemism for "abortions" (cf., See http://www.fertilethoughts.com/forums/selective-reduction-termination-due-health-issues/714760-selective-reduction-twin-singleton.html).  Dr. Smith's name was previously removed from St. Mary's online directory; it is less than three years since the Huffington Post reported the following: 

• "Dr. Stephen Smith of St. Mary's performed an ultrasound on an expecting mother and confirmed that the fetus had polycystic kidney disease, a fatal condition in infants. Smith recommended an abortion....local abortion opponents publicized Smith's advice....any pledge to support Catholic doctrine on medical matters is broadly viewed as a formality to be agreed to and then summarily ignored."

Holy Redeemer is Misleading Our Lord's "Little Ones" Re: OB/GYN Services

Holy Redeemer's website tells the unsuspecting: "If you’re pregnant or planning on having a baby, you’ve come to the right place. Our board-certified obstetricians offer the latest medical expertise that can help maintain your health and the health of your baby at a convenient location near you." While NONE of Holy Redeemer's obstetricians are to be found on a list of NFP-only physicians, ALL of their "Reproductive Endocrinologists and Obstetricians" are IVF specialists (i.e., Drs Larry Barnat and Jennifer Nichols of Abington Reproductive Medicine; Drs Arthur Castelbaum, Martin Freedman, and Benjamin Gocial of Reproductive Medicine Associates of Philadelphia; Dr Maria Pia Platia of Fertility and Gynecology Associates)!

Give Me a Break!

How can it be believably argued that either Saint Mary's or Holy Redeemer are MERELY providing hospital privileges to providers of morally prohibited services under some sort of supposed duress?  These advertisements indicate that both PROMOTE providers of services condemned by Church teaching! To allow these facilities to continue to call themselves "Catholic" seems tantamount to false advertising.  Such mislabeling endangers the physical and spiritual health of the unsuspecting!

Aren't "Catholic" Hospitals in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Dishonoring the Memory of Philly Native Terri Schiavo?

Neither Saint Mary's Advanced Directives and Living Wills nor Holy Redeemer's Making Your Own Health Care Decisions and Advance Directive Form nor Mercy Health System (encompasses Mercy Fitzgerald, Mercy Philadelphia, Mercy Suburban, and Nazareth)'s Vendor Compliance Program properly specify 
1) Catholic teaching with regard to nutrition and hydration, and
2) that health care services cannot honor advance directives (e.g., non-specific directives to forego nutrition and hydration) opposed to Catholic teaching (cf., Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, Charter for Health Care Workers, 1995; Address of John Paul II to the Participants in the International Congress on "Life-Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemnas", 3/20/04; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responses to Certain Questions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Concerning Artificial Nutrition and Hydration, 8/1/07; USCCB, Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (5th ed), 11/17/09).

Protect Our Lord's "Little Ones": "prohibit that agency from using the name 'Catholic'"

The Holy Father's recent Motu Proprio provides indication that our own good example is NOT synonymous with sitting back and accepting that this is "just the way it is"! Those of us who are parents and grandparents have every right to expect authenticity in the institutions which call themselves "Catholic."

"Art. 11. – The diocesan Bishop is obliged, if necessary, to make known to the faithful the fact that the activity of a particular charitable agency is no longer being carried out in conformity with the Church’s teaching, and then to prohibit that agency from using the name 'Catholic' [emphasis added] and to take the necessary measures should personal responsibilities emerge....(Apostolic Letter Issued 'Motu Proprio' of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI on the Services of Charity).

The Holy Father's Motu Proprio of 11/11/12:

"Art. 7. - § 1. The agencies referred to in Article 1 § 1 are required to select their personnel from among persons who share, or at least respect, the Catholic identity of these works.
"§ 2. To ensure an evangelical witness in the service of charity, the diocesan Bishop is to take care that those who work in the Church’s charitable apostolate, along with due professional competence, give an example of Christian life and witness to a formation of heart which testifies to a faith working through charity [emphasis added]. To this end, he is also to provide for their theological and pastoral formation, through specific curricula agreed upon by the officers of various agencies and through suitable aids to the spiritual life....

"Art. 11. – The diocesan Bishop is obliged, if necessary, to make known to the faithful the fact that the activity of a particular charitable agency is no longer being carried out in conformity with the Church’s teaching, and then to prohibit that agency from using the name 'Catholic' [emphasis added] and to take the necessary measures should personal responsibilities emerge....

"I order that everything I have laid down in this Apostolic Letter issued Motu Proprio be fully observed [emphasis added]...and enter into force on 10 December 2012" [emphasis added] (Apostolic Letter Issued 'Motu Proprio' of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI on the Services of Charity).

The Holy Father's Address to Participants in the International Congress Organized by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers (11/17/12):

"The theme of your Conference — 'The Hospital, a Place of Evangelization: a Human and Spiritual Mission' — gives me an opportunity to extend my Greeting to all the health-care workers....

"Your being Catholics, without fear, gives you a greater responsibility in the context of society and of the Church....

"hospitals assume a privileged position in evangelizing, because wherever the Church is the 'bearer of the presence of God' it becomes at the same time 'the instrument of the true humanization of man and the world' (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization, n. 9)."

The Holy Father's Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia (12/21/12):

"Man’s refusal to make any commitment – which is becoming increasingly widespread as a result of a false understanding of freedom and self-realization as well as the desire to escape suffering – means that man remains closed in on himself and keeps his 'I' ultimately for himself, without really rising above it. Yet only in self-giving does man find himself, and only by opening himself to the other, to others, to children, to the family, only by letting himself be changed through suffering, does he discover the breadth of his humanity. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child – essential elements of the experience of being human are lost.

"The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: 'one is not born a woman, one becomes so' (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term 'gender' as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: 'male and female he created them' (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man" [Emphasis added]."

The Holy Father's Message for the World Day of Peace (1/13/12):

"our times, marked by globalization with its positive and negative aspects, as well as the continuation of violent conflicts and threats of war, demand a new, shared commitment in pursuit of the common good and the development of all men, and of the whole man....

"In the eyes of the world, those who trust in God and his promises often appear naïve or far from reality. Yet Jesus tells them that not only in the next life, but already in this life, they will discover that they are children of God, and that God has always been, and ever will be, completely on their side....

"The precondition for peace is the dismantling of the dictatorship of relativism and of the supposition of a completely autonomous morality which precludes acknowledgment of the ineluctable natural moral law inscribed by God upon the conscience of every man and woman. Peace is the building up of coexistence in rational and moral terms, based on a foundation whose measure is not created by man, but rather by God....

"The denial of what makes up the true nature of human beings in its essential dimensions, its intrinsic capacity to know the true and the good and, ultimately, to know God himself, jeopardizes peacemaking. Without the truth about man inscribed by the Creator in the human heart, freedom and love become debased, and justice loses the ground of its exercise....

"The attainment of peace depends above all on recognizing that we are, in God, one human family....

"The path to the attainment of the common good and to peace is above all that of respect for human life in all its many aspects, beginning with its conception, through its development and up to its natural end. True peacemakers, then, are those who love, defend and promote human life in all its dimensions, personal, communitarian and transcendent. Life in its fullness is the height of peace. Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life....

"There is also a need to acknowledge and promote the natural structure of marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the face of attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different types of union; such attempts actually harm and help to destabilize marriage, obscuring its specific nature and its indispensable role in society.

"These principles are not truths of faith, nor are they simply a corollary of the right to religious freedom. They are inscribed in human nature itself, accessible to reason and thus common to all humanity. The Church’s efforts to promote them are not therefore confessional in character, but addressed to all people, whatever their religious affiliation. Efforts of this kind are all the more necessary the more these principles are denied or misunderstood, since this constitutes an offence against the truth of the human person, with serious harm to justice and peace.

"Consequently, another important way of helping to build peace is for legal systems and the administration of justice to recognize the right to invoke the principle of conscientious objection in the face of laws or government measures that offend against human dignity, such as abortion and euthanasia.

"One of the fundamental human rights, also with reference to international peace, is the right of individuals and communities to religious freedom....Sadly, even in countries of long-standing Christian tradition, instances of religious intolerance are becoming more numerous, especially in relation to Christianity and those who simply wear identifying signs of their religion....

"One of the social rights and duties most under threat today is the right to work....[We need] a fresh outlook on work, based on ethical principles and spiritual values that reinforce the notion of work as a fundamental good for the individual, for the family and for society....

"No one should ignore or underestimate the decisive role of the family, which is the basic cell of society from the demographic, ethical, pedagogical, economic and political standpoints. The family has a natural vocation to promote life: it accompanies individuals as they mature and it encourages mutual growth and enrichment through caring and sharing. The Christian family in particular serves as a seedbed for personal maturation according to the standards of divine love. The family is one of the indispensable social subjects for the achievement of a culture of peace. The rights of parents and their primary role in the education of their children in the area of morality and religion must be safeguarded. It is in the family that peacemakers, tomorrow’s promoters of a culture of life and love, are born and nurtured."

Dr. O'Hara & Ms.Hill: A Special Session is needed for abortion "opt-out"

Good morning Dr. O'Hara and Ms. Hill,

As you reported on 12/12/12, "Governor Corbett announced...that Pennsylvania will not set up its own health insurance exchanges under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) [i.e., "Obamacare"]....The Catholic Church has long and consistently advocated for the reform of the American health care system....Yet concerns raised during the health care reform debate about conscience protection and coverage of elective abortion are not resolved. Without a state exchange, Pennsylvanians who qualify will be enrolled in the federal exchange, which will cover elective abortions....If Pennsylvania had created its own exchange, it would have been able to opt out of this abortion coverage." 

As per your report of 12/13/12: "it appears that a legislative remedy can be found to assure that the federally administered insurance exchange can exclude elective abortion coverage....Please click here to send a message to your representatives in support of legislation that removes taxpayer funded abortions from health insurance exchanges."  That link sets up personalized emails for the governor, as well as an individual's state rep and state senator.

Your report of this morning links to a CNS article: "individual states can pass a law to opt out of abortion coverage if the state has decided not to set up its own insurance exchange program....the state Catholic conference, after consultation with its attorneys, believes the opt-out is possible [Obviously, this differs from your report of 12/12/12.]. The conference, which is the public policy arm of the state's bishops, is urging the Legislature to draft legislation for it, but nothing can happen until lawmakers reconvene in January [NOTE: Pennsylvania CAN hold a special session , BEFORE January.].

A look at recent history shows why we MUST demand a special session:

• Pennsylvania Senate Bill 3 was designed to prevent tax payer funding of at least some "Obamacare" abortions. 
• After passing the Senate on 6/7/11, things looked good, provided that SB 3 passed the House and that Governor Corbett applied his promised signature. 
• Instead of just running SB 3, an identical bill - House Bill 1977 - was put up in the House and passed on 12/12/11.
• Instead of reconciling SB 3 and HB 1977, it now appears that certain "pro life" legislators and our "pro life" governor played a shell game.  Why would they do this? 
• A 6/4/12 ACLU memo to its board of directors is telling: "Reproductive rights (HB 1077, HB 1977/SB 3, HB 2405): There has been little-to-no activity around these bills for months. HB 1077, the bill to mandate an ultrasound at least 24 hours before an abortion, hit a wall when it was voted out of committee, and the resulting controversy may have crippled the chances of the bills to block insurance coverage of abortion in the exchange created by healthcare reform, HB 1977 and SB 3."  Translation: After passing it, "Pro life" legislators got scared off from SB 3/HB 1977 by reaction to other pro life efforts.
• Leviticus 26: 36-38 provides a terrifying picture of what happens to our characters, when we act in cowardly, disobedient ways: "Those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies, I will make so fainthearted that the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and they shall run as if from the sword, and fall though no one pursues them; stumbling over one another as if to escape a sword, while no one is after them—so helpless will you be to take a stand against your foes! You shall perish among the nations, swallowed up in your enemies’ country."

Forthright reflection indicates that certain "pro life" legislators and our "pro life" governor have shown minimal - if any - respect for Catholics and other authentically pro life voices.  Rather than giving them another opportunity for a shell game, we must challenge them and embolden them!

The week before Christmas provides an absolutely perfect time for us to demand that our Pennsylvania legislators and governor live up to their commitments with a special session for the House to vote on SB 3 and get it into Corbett's hands for a signature! 

We need our bishops and the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference to lead this charge!

Thank you,

Fwd: "Jindal's Witches' Brew: Deconstructing Catholic Teaching"

Governor Bobby Jindal - What a disappointment!

"a setback for people of faith"

Your Eminence:

Your November 15th column reminds us of our "duty to bring the values of faith to the political process" and rhetorically asks, "Did we, Tuesday a week ago?"  Though a well intentioned effort to take a broad look at all issues and to be conciliatory, your analysis can come across as weak and naive - at best:

"It gets touchy when we try to analyze the presidential election with the lens of faith. Some assume that the re-election of the president was a setback for people of faith. That may be an exaggeration. There is no denying that the president and his party are on record in promoting guidelines that gravely intrude upon religious freedom, and in their desire to expand unfettered access to abortion at all stages. These two issues are of towering import to people inspired by the principles of human dignity and the sanctity of life....

"Of course, through the eyes of faith, neither candidate was perfect, as no political leader ever can be [Your Eminence, the Obama/Biden ticket also took a vastly different position on marriage, than did Romney/Ryan!]."

Similar to 16th century England, we are faced with a ruler who is hostile to the Catholic Church and intent on its demise:

 "[King Henry VIII] inherited a country with a thriving Catholicism....All this, Henry would destroy....The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, prepared a stirring rejection of...suppression of Church authority, but he failed to deliver it in Parliament, prompting Bishop Fisher [i.e., Saint John Fisher] to tell More [i.e., Saint Thomas More] that the 'fort had been betrayed even by those who should have defended it' [emphasis added]....

"[In the end,] More than one thousand monasteries and convents were destroyed and monks and nuns turned out into the street....The suppression of the Church in England was the dress rehearsal for the French Revolution, the Italian Risorgimento, the Mexican Revolution, and the Spanish Civil War. Henry VIII's divorce is the reason America is a Protestant country" (Christopher Check, The Great Divorce: The Evil Fruits of Henry VIII's Adultery, This Rock, April 2007).

Responding to Governor Corbett's announcement that Pennsylvania will not set up a health exchange, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference (12/13/12) reports: "In consultation with the USCCB and other pro-life groups..., it appears that a legislative remedy can be found to assure that the federally administered insurance exchange can exclude elective abortion coverage."  While neither the USCCB nor the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference should have been caught flat footed, there has subsequently been an eerie silence as to a "legislative remedy...to assure that the federally administered insurance exchange can exclude elective abortion coverage."  I will pray that I am wrong and for the conversion of our president, but I am dumbfounded as to what motivation the Obama Administration would now have to be conciliatory.

Your Eminence, we need absolutely clear leadership from the head of America's flagship archdiocese and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Sincerely,

Special Session for SB 3: We need our bishops to lead this charge!

Your Excellencies:

As reported by the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference on 12/12/12 (the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe), "Governor Corbett announced...that Pennsylvania will not set up its own health insurance exchanges under the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) [i.e., "Obamacare"]....The Catholic Church has long and consistently advocated for the reform of the American health care system....Yet concerns raised during the health care reform debate about conscience protection and coverage of elective abortion are not resolved. Without a state exchange, Pennsylvanians who qualify will be enrolled in the federal exchange, which will cover elective abortions....If Pennsylvania had created its own exchange, it would have been able to opt out of this abortion coverage." 

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference (12/13/12) subsequently showed itself to have been disturbingly ill prepared for the governor's announcement: "it appears that a legislative remedy can be found to assure that the federally administered insurance exchange can exclude elective abortion coverage.... The PCC will continue to monitor the developments on this issue and will post updates as they are available. Please click here to send a message to your representatives in support of legislation that removes taxpayer funded abortions from health insurance exchanges."  Instead of facilitating contacts with members of the U.S. house and U.S. senators, that link sets up personalized emails for the governor, state rep, and state senator:

"Please pass legislation that prohibits insurance providers that participate in the insurance exchanges created by the federal health care reform law from covering elective abortion services.

"Favorable votes were taken in both chambers last session, indicating widespread support, but the bill did not make it to final passage.

"Taxpayer money should not fund abortions, please represent me by passing this legislation early in the 2013-2014 session!"

In my opinion, there are two issues:

1. A future governor CAN decide that she/he wants a state health exchange.  "Pro life" majorities in the Pennsylvania house and senate, as well as our "pro life" governor, have failed miserably in preventing abortion funding. 

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference's automated email states: "Favorable votes were taken in both chambers last session, indicating widespread support, but the bill did not make it to final passage."  That is quite an understatement! Pennsylvania Senate Bill 3 was designed to prevent tax payer funding of at least some "Obamacare" abortions.  After passing the Senate on 6/7/11, things looked good, provided that SB 3 passed the House, as Governor Corbett promised his signature. 
Instead of just running SB 3, an identical bill - HB 1977 - was put up in the House and passed on 12/12/11. Instead of reconciling SB 3 and HB 1977, it appears in retrospect that "pro life" Republicans in the house, senate, and governor's house subsequently played a shell game.

Rather than send sycophantic emails to the governor & Pennsylvania legislators, shouldn't we demand that they live up to their commitments by holding a special session for the House to vote on SB 3 and get it into Corbett's hands for a signature?  We need our bishops to lead this charge!


2. At this time, it is challenging to believe that a federal "legislative remedy can be found to assure that the federally administered insurance exchange can exclude elective abortion coverage."  What motivation would the Obama Administration now have to be conciliatory?  I will pray that I am wrong, and I will pray for the conversion of our president. 
   
   Governor Corbett's announcement was predictable and certainly should not have taken the Church by surprise.  We desperately need more and better research by both the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  At an absolute minimum, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference should be giving as much attention to sanctity of life issues and marriage/family issues, as it does to school choice legislation.

Thank you,

Today's Vote - The U.N.'s Disabilities Treaty has been hijacked by promoters of abortion and populaton control

Senator,

As it has been written, the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Optional Protocol is fatally flawed and contradicts its own wonderful 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the "Right to Life" (Article 10).  Tragically, it has been hijacked by promoters of abortion and populaton control:

• "The rights of persons with disabilities to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to age-appropriate information, reproductive and family planning education are recognized, and the means necessary to enable them to exercise these rights are provided" (Article 23, 1, b)
• "Provide persons with disabilities with the same range, quality and standard of free or affordable health care and programmes as provided to other persons, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based public health programmes" (Article 25, b)

How ironic that November 18th marked the 34th anniversary of the U.S. Catholic Bishops magnificent Pastoral Statement on Persons with Disabilities:

• "We see defense of the right to life of persons with disabilities as a matter of particular urgency,...because the presence of handicapping conditions is not infrequently used as a rationale for abortion. Moreover, those babies with severe disabilities who are permitted to be born are sometimes denied ordinary and usual medical procedures.

"All too often, abortion and postnatal neglect are promoted by arguing that the infant will survive only to suffer a life of pain and deprivation. We find this reasoning appalling. Society's frequent indifference to the plight of citizens with disabilities is a problem that cries aloud for solutions based on justice and conscience, not violence. All people have a clear duty to do what lies in their power to improve living conditions for people with disabilities, rather than ignoring them or attempting to eliminate them as a burden not worth dealing with."

Do not allow promotion of the well being of people with disabilities to be hijacked by promoters of abortion and populaton control.

Sincerely,

 

A Close Look at Bucks County's "Pro Life" Representation in Harrisburg

Before the 2010 elections, the Catholic Standard and Times, the Pennsylvania Pro Life Federation, and the Pro Life Union of Southeast Pennsylvania looked at candidates for the Pennsylvania House (including the 18th, 29th, 31st, 140th, 141st, 142nd , 143rd, 144th, 145th, and 178th districts from Bucks county) and the Pennsylvania Senate (including the 6th, 10th, 12th, and 24th districts from Bucks County....

• Of those who subsequently won election or re-election to the Pa Senate in 2010 and had even bothered to respond to Catholic Standard and Times questions, only Bob Mensch (24th) consistently answered in manners consistent with Catholic positions on the sanctity of human life, conscience protection, and marriage/family. Tommy Tomlinson (6th) was also identified by the Pro Life Federation and the Pro Life Union as "Pro Life."
• Of those who subsequently won election or re-election to the Pa House in 2010 and had even bothered to respond to Catholic Standard and Times questions, only John Galloway (140th) consistently answered in manners consistent with Catholic positions on the sanctity of human life, conscience protection, and marriage/family (Of Bucks County's "pro life" delegation in the House and Senate, Galloway is the lone Democrat.).  In addition to Galloway, Gene DiGirolamo (18th) and Paul Clymer (145th) were identified by the Pro Life Federation and the Pro Life Union as "Pro Life."

Pennsylvania Senate Bill 3 was designed to prevent tax payer funding of at least some "Obamacare" abortions.  Even though only Mensch and Tomlinson were thought to be "Pro Life," final passage of SB 3 enjoyed positive votes from all four Bucks County senators.  Assuming passage in the House, things were sure looking up, as there was a promise of Governor Corbett's signature!  Yet, it is more than curious that pro abortion Planned Parenthood gives Senator Greenleaf a fair rating and gives Senator McIlhinney a glowing rating! Is it legitimate to now wonder whether Greenleaf and McIlhinney knew that SB 3 would ultimately go no where?

Rather than just running SB 3, an identical bill - HB 1977 - was put up in the House and passed in December 2011. Even though only Clymer, DiGirolamo, Galloway, and Watson are thought to be "Pro Life," final passage of HB 1977 enjoyed positive votes from eight Bucks County representatives.  It should be noted that pro abortion Planned Parenthood gives Representatives Petri and Quinn fair ratings and gives Representatives Farry and O'Neill glowing ratings.  Is it legitimate to wonder whether Petri, Quinn, Farry, and O'Neill knew that HB 1977 would ultimately go no where?

Any Lessons Learned?

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai "effectively" blocked Senate Bill 3; Pennsylvania still lacks "opt out" legislation.  For the 2012 elections, the Pennsylvania Pro Life Federation listed Democrat John Galloway (140th) and Republicans Gene DiGirolamo (18th), Kathy Watson (144th), and Paul Clymer (145th) as "Pro Life"; Republicans Bernie O'Neill (29th), Marguerite Quinn (143rd), and Scott Petri (178th) were listed as "leaning Pro Life."  All seven enjoyed re-election.  The six Republicans said "thank you" by being part of the group that UNANIMOUSLY re-elected Mike Turzai as house majority leader. 

When "push came to shove," supposedly "pro life" Gene DiGirolamo, Kathy Watson, and Paul Clymer - as well as supposedly "leaning pro life" Bernie O'Neill, Marguerite Quinn, and Scott Petri - failed us.  Pennsylvania still lacks "opt out" legislation and our supposedly "pro life" Republican delegation shows an absolute disrespect for pro life Pennsylvanians.