Perhaps motivated by the Obama regime's assaults on religious liberty in the United States, the Canadian Catholic bishops yesterday released a major pastoral letter on freedom of conscience and religion. The letter addresses an "aggressive relativism" that seeks to relegate religion to the private sphere. |
| Frick and Frack |
From WorldNetDailyBy Joe Kovacs
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney flipped in 2005 to take a stance similar to the Obama administration on hospital mandates for the morning-after pill for rape victims, according to news reports from seven years ago.
According to a Boston Globe article dated Dec. 9, 2005, Romney reversed course on the state’s emergency-contraception law, saying all hospitals in Massachusetts would be obligated to provide the morning-after pill to rape victims.
Our many fellow Catholics now enchained for the Faith of our Fathers in such places as China, Syria, and Egypt are, as Father Faber’s hymn says, “in heart and conscience free.” But what happens when a government tries to chain the conscience itself?
The National Association of Evangelicals, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and evangelical publications were criticized for being silent on the lack of conscience protections in new health care regulations and federal grants in an article on the First Things “On the Square” blog. From Catholic World News
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic renowned for her support of legalized abortion, has criticized efforts by the US bishops and others in support of conscience-protection legislation for health care workers.
The Washington Post reports:
Catholic health-care providers in particular have long said they’d have to go out of business without the conscience protections that Pelosi says amount to letting hospitals “say to a woman, ‘I’m sorry you could die’ if you don’t get an abortion.” Those who dispute that characterization “may not like the language,’’ she said, “but the truth is what I said. I’m a devout Catholic and I honor my faith and love it...but they have this conscience thing’’ that she insists put women at physical risk, although Catholic providers strongly disagree.
On one occasion, she said, laughing, one of her critics on the topic of abortion, speaking on the House floor, said, “Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having babies than the Pope. They think like this. And of course I do — I think the Pope would agree — and I know more than you, too, mister.’’
The plenary room of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg (Photo: PA)The Council of Europe’s legislature considered a resolution calling for onerous restrictions on conscientious objection, including stripping protections for doctors who object to performing abortions.
Led by two politicians from Italy and Ireland, a coalition of legislators secured the passage of 29 amendments that transformed the resolution into one that upheld universally recognized rights to freedom of conscience.
The original resolution, known as the McCafferty report, sought to punish medical professionals for refusing to perform procedures against their conscience. It even called for a new registry of conscientious objectors.
Christian McCafferty, a British politician and main author of the original resolution, said during deliberations that she sought to force private and religious hospitals and clinics to perform abortions.
A committee voted for McCafferty’s original resolution, but was overruled by the final legislative vote. Most observers assumed the draft resolution would pass in substantially the same form, and the final resolution shocked nearly everyone, especially McCafferty. She ended up voting against her own resolution.
The adopted resolution says that no “hospital, institution or person may be subject to pressures, or be held liable or suffer discrimination of any kind for refusing to perform, allow or assist an abortion…”
“This resolution will have a real impact on case law of the European Court of Human Rights,” said Gregor Puppinck, Director of the European Centre for Law and Justice. He said the court often quotes resolutions of the European legislature as a reflection of opinion in the continent’s broader society.
Puppinck told the Friday Fax that the legislature often holds votes on the most contentious issues on Thursday evening or Friday. As more conservative members tend to live further than liberals from the Strasbourg meeting site, travel arrangements often make it more difficult for them to stay for votes late in the week. Puppinck credited much of the success of the final resolution to efforts to keep the conservative members in the room for the Thursday evening vote.
The amendments’ backers widely credited the final result to the leadership of Sen. Luca Volonte of Italy, chairman of the European People’s Party, and Sen. Ronan Mullen of Ireland.
“Mrs. McCafferty and her supporters should ask themselves why so many healthcare professionals object to being involved in abortions in the first place,” said a press release from Mullen. “It’s because they regard abortion itself as a breach of human rights, and not part of responsible medical treatment.”
Several binding international agreements guarantee the right to conscientious objection, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
A number of medical associations, including the French National Medical Council, condemned the original McCafferty report. Prominent figures, including a former judge of the European Court of Human Rights and a former professional conduct chairman of the United Kingdom’s chief medical council, spoke out against the original resolution at an event held the day before the vote.
