Planned Parenthood Bashes Catholic Bishops for Opposing Pro-Abortion Health Care
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 3, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — The president of Planned Parenthood has a bone to pick with the nation’s Catholic bishops: she is upset they would urge Catholics to oppose the House health care reform bill because it includes abortion funding. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood essentially admits that abortion funding is in the bill.
In two emails to supporters in recent days, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards admits that the bills in Congress all contain taxpayer funding of abortions.
"Because of relentless pressure from dedicated supporters like you, every version of the bills out there right now is free of the dangerous amendments anti-choice members of Congress tried to attach to health care reform," she says. "We’ve worked closely with pro-choice lawmakers to defeat dozens of proposed amendments."
She said as many as 220,000 abortion advocates wrote to Congress based on action alerts in its emails urging for abortion funding to remain in the bills. Congressional offices also received another 18,000 phone calls from the Planned Parenthood system for abortion funding.
However, after learning that the nation’s Catholics bishops are making good on their promise to wage an all-out campaign against the bills because they fund abortions, Richards is hopping mad.
"A few days ago, it felt as if we were holding strong in achieving health care reform" with abortion funding, she wrote in a follow-up email, "and then I received a copy of a memo that the Catholic bishops sent to their congregations."
"As I write this, the bishops have asked all the Catholics in the country to contact their legislators, asking them to alter current health care legislation to include anti-choice amendments. The bishops have inserted letters into church bulletins and asked priests to include their call to action in their sermons — and even in their prayers — during Sunday services," she complains.
"It’s clear that every group opposed to a woman’s right to choose is pulling out all the stops this week to bring all the progress we’ve made on health care reform to a grinding halt," she continued.
Richards says the results "could be devastating to everyone who" is a Planned Parenthood customer. "Once again, we urgently need your help."
Her letter even encourages Catholics to defy the Church’s pro-life teachings.
"If you’re Catholic and you disagree with the bishops, please let your legislators know when you send your message. Your voice as a pro-choice Catholic needs to be heard NOW," she says.
In an extraordinary call to Catholics to prevent health care reform from being derailed by the abortion lobby, the United Sates Conference of Catholic Bishops has sent bulletin inserts to almost 19,000 Catholic churches across the country.
"Health care reform should be about saving lives, not destroying them," the insert states. It urges readers to contact congressional leaders so they support efforts to "incorporate longstanding policies against abortion funding and in favor of conscience rights" in health reform legislation.
"If these serious concerns are not addressed, the final bill should be opposed," it adds.
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