President-elect Barack Obama telephoned Pope Benedict XVI last week to thank the Holy Father for his congratulatory message after the recent election.
It is a good sign that the president-elect acknowledged the Holy Father’s message, but it is only a beginning. Also last week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement focusing on the possible passage of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). President-elect Obama has said he would support the passage of FOCA.
The Bishops called upon the president-elect to use the powers of his office “to defend the most vulnerable among us and heal the divisions in our country and our world.”
FOCA, rather than defending the most vulnerable, eliminates all measures that in any way limit abortion and creates a “fundamental right” to abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. It would remove the choice of medical providers to refuse in good conscience to provide immoral medical services as well as state legislative efforts to regulate abortion, including parental consent and a 24-hour waiting period. FOCA would also ensure that taxpayer funds would pay for abortion on demand, and would overturn prohibitions of the horrific partial birth abortion procedures.
FOCA is a radical attempt by the agents of the culture of death to remove all restrictions from abortion and attack the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses, and health care workers who do not wish to participate in the killing of unborn children. It is a direct threat on the religious freedom of Catholic healthcare institutions.
President-elect Obama would do well to remember that he was not elected by Planned Parenthood and the other agents of death in our nation. The U.S. Conference of Bishops stated empathetically: “if the election is misinterpreted ideologically as a referendum on abortion, the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve.” We hope and pray that President-elect Obama will not use phone calls to the Holy Father as mere photo opportunities, but listen to his words and the words of his fellow bishops in the United States.
FOCA is not freedom. It is death.
