Catholic hospitals might close their doors over FOCA

This is what happens when an abortion fanatic becomes president.

Some Catholic bishops are looking seriously at shuttering all 624 Catholic hospitals in the United States if the so-called "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA) becomes law.

Basically, the logical outgrowth of the bill's passage would be no federal funds for hospitals that did not perform abortions. And since the Catholic church would view the selling of hospitals to secular companies as "fostering evil," they would have no other choice except to close their doors.

This article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch lays out the grim reality of the choices people of faith will have to make in an age of unrestricted abortion:

The legislation has some Roman Catholic bishops threatening to shutter the country's 624 Catholic hospitals — including 11 in the Archdiocese of St. Louis — rather than comply.

Speaking in Baltimore in November at the bishops' fall meeting, Bishop Thomas Paprocki, a Chicago auxiliary bishop, took up the issue of what to do with Catholic hospitals if FOCA became law. "It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions," he said. "That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil."

But even within the Catholic community, there is disagreement about the effects FOCA might have on hospitals, with some health care professionals and bishops saying a strategy of ignoring the law, if it passes, would be more effective than closing hospitals.

They could ignore the law all they wanted but what about federal funds? And all it would take would be for one patient to sue -- no doubt put up to doing so by NARAL or some other fanatical group -- for the question regarding abortions to be answered.

Some hospital executives don't believe that FOCA would mandate abortions anyway. I believe that to be whistling past the graveyard. Even if it doesn't specifically do so, any hospital that denied abortions to a patient would be in the legal sights of the fanatics who couldn't care less about conscience:

Not all bishops or Catholic health care professionals see closing down hospitals as a realistic option. Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Fla., a member of CHA's board of trustees, wrote on his blog last month that "even in the worst-case scenario, Catholic hospitals will not close. We will not comply, but we will not close." Instead, he advocated a strategy of "civil disobedience."

Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO of CHA, said in an interview that she did not believe the language in the most recent version of FOCA — despite its definition of abortion as a fundamental right — would force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. But she also said that if it did, the church would look to the historical example of racial segregation as a model for civil disobedience.

"From the other side we hear consistent talk about being pro-choice," Keehan said. "If FOCA passes, the concept of being pro-choice will not be incompatible with our position — our choice would be not to participate."

Seven of the 11 hospitals in the Archdiocese of St. Louis are run by SSM Healthcare. In a statement, the company said it opposes FOCA "because it attempts to increase access to abortion and remove restrictions to abortion."

If FOCA were to become law, it continued, "We do not believe our Catholic hospitals would be forced to participate and we would advocate strongly for our right of conscience to refuse to provide abortion services."

With the repeal of the Mexico City rule on funding foreign abortions, this administration has shown it doesn't give a hoot about the individual's conscience and wishes to substitute collective group think on the matter of abortion.

Morality as dictated by the state. Welcome to Obamaland.
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