How the FOCA Threatens Our Church

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I've heard much talk in the past week about what plans our president-elect is making, and which moves he will make first. Talk show radio and television hosts are predicting all sorts of moves, some saying he will govern from the left, others saying he will govern from the left.

Of course, the pro-life community fears he will make it a priority to sign the FOCA, which has been waiting in Congress for a pro-choice president for years. This bill will have far-reaching effects on our country, some of which most Americans have absolutely no knowledge.

Besides preempting all state and federal laws restricting late-term abortions, and laws preventing minors from having abortions without parental consent, this bill threatens every Catholic hospital, not to mention physicians, in the nation.

If the FOCA is signed into law the way it is currently written, Catholic hospitals would be out of business.

In an article written by a LifeNews.com editor:

As Cardinal Justin Rigali of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia warned in September, the FOCA bill "forbids government at all levels to 'discriminate' against the exercise of this [abortion] right 'in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.'"

"For the first time, abortion on demand would be a national entitlement that government must condone and promote in all public programs affecting pregnant women," the Catholic official explained.

Michael Moses, a top attorney for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, adds that the language of FOCA is so far-reaching that it will remove any conscience clause measures from state laws that protect doctors, hospitals and medical professionals who don't want to be involved in abortions.

Moses' reading of the proposed legislation is that if abortion is a fundamental right that can't ever be infringed, then every hospital and medical center must do abortions -- including Catholic and other religious or private hospitals that object to do them.

Catholic hospitals would close before they would do abortions on demand. My husband is a fundraiser for a Catholic hospital system in our community and he's been asking fellow executives about the FOCA, wondering how others are feeling about it. Most of the colleagues he asked didn't even know what it was.

I can't help but wonder what our mother Church has been thinking? While many of our clergy across the country openly endorsed our president-elect, or at the very least, failed to discuss the issue with parishioners, the Catholic health care system could, as a result, fall apart around us. According to the USCCB website, 615 Catholic hospitals account for 12.5% of community hospitals in the United States, and over 15.5% of all U.S. hospital admissions.

There are Catholic hospitals in every state, and many communities, like ours have more than one hospital. Out of six hospitals in our capital city in Ohio, three are Catholic. I have heard pro-lifers prompting Americans to write to or call their national representatives. But, I have also heard that our president-elect is mobilizing "his people" to flood Congress with letters and phone calls to support his personal moves. What's an American to do?

I certainly don't have the answer, but I think Americans need to know what is at risk here. Besides the lives of millions of babies, the FOCA could also be threatening the lives of our sick and elderly who depend on Catholic physicians and hospitals for medical care. Clearly, saving the lives of the unborn isn't a priority to our new administration. But, since he has big plans for national healthcare, I can only hope that the prospect of losing 15 percent of hospital beds in this country will cause our president-elect to think twice on this one.




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