Cardinal Rigali to support health care bill if an amendment preserving the status quo for abortion is voted upon

Brown: "Faithful Catholics have a responsibility to vigorously oppose abortion in healthcare, not negotiate the status quo."

 American Life League president Judie Brown released the following statement on the news that Cardinal Justin Rigali will support Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962), provided an amendment preserving the status quo for abortion is voted upon.

"Our Catholic bishops should be fearlessly leading the way towards a culture of life. Fighting to maintain a status quo credited to the destruction of 51 million preborn children is wrong and confusing to 65 million Catholics united in the defense of life.

"What Cardinal Rigali has permitted by way of political maneuvering is to allow an amendment to be heard and watch it be defeated. While our Catholic bishops will scramble to define their opposition to abortion in the aftermath, Pelosi will wave Rigali's support for health care reform as evidence that lay Catholics would somehow be wrong in opposing her bill.

"In endorsing Pelosicare, our Catholic bishops have risked making themselves political pawns in advancing a culture of death that treats human life as disposable.

"Once again, this incrementalist approach to abortion will serve to enshrine in law grave injustices condemned unequivocally by the Catholic Church. Among these are rationed health care, In vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, human experimentation, euthanasia and birth control.

"Faithful Catholics have a responsibility to vigorously oppose abortion in healthcare, not negotiate the status quo.

"Our bishops, when they negotiate anything less than the full protection all human beings deserve, undermine the very principles of the Catholic Faith and destroy the confidence of faithful Catholics across America.

"Our Catholic bishops should point to the unchanging principles and doctrines of the Catholic Faith, not negotiate a status quo that ends human lives. Today's letter abrogates those principles. Americans should know that a truly Catholic position on health care protects human life at all stages and at all times.

"Negotiation on truth is never a Catholic principle. Truth alone should inform the consciences of faithful Catholics, and truth demands the full protection of human life."