I’m going to say this JUST ONCE! You can not violate one deeply held tenant of your faith just because you aren’t violating another, more serious one. We good on that? We all understand?
So, allegedly, no abortions will be paid for in Pelosi Care. Yeah right. I’ll believe that when I see it. Which I won’t. But let’s just pretend, for after all, this whole nightmare is just based on pretend scenarios, pretend economics, and pretend victims… So let’s pretend that this round of Pelosi Care from the House will really stick and not end up “killing babies.” Does that make it morally pure for Catholics seeking Social Justice (please say it with a lisp… that’s the only way to really gather the full impact of what most people mean by Social Justice today)?
No… Catholics (and other Christians) who act like as long as the “A” word is not used you can do anything for the “greater good” of “social justice” are deluding themselves with one moral obligation and ignoring others.
First let’s look at simple slavery. Making citizens slaves to the government for the promise of healthcare violates the sanctity of a person’s free will. This is the main reason that John Paul II fought so hard against Communism. While free will is not license, it can not be curbed to the point where individuals can only perform actions blessed and allowed by an overarching central government. Universal Healthcare, with its finger in the pie of virtually every decision that people will make every day, takes away the freedom of an individual to be an individual.
And don’t give me that this isn’t Universal Healthcare because you will still have private insurance plans. Each one of those plans will have to be approved by the Kremlin… I mean a Government panel. So you will NOT be able to engage in private transactions on the most personal of decisions. I wonder if they regulated Porn this rigidly if that would get passed with a 5 vote margin? Oh… wait. No… That’s a 1st amendment issue. You picking your own healthcare is not. Funny how that mythical and vaunted “Right to privacy” is missing from this bill.
Next let’s look at the principle of Subsidiarity. The Church, possibly not individual priests and bishops, but the CHURCH has long held that decisions are best made as close to ground zero as possible. Meaning while there is a need for decisions to be made at “the top”; most decisions and power should fall to the lowest level possible so that the greatest needs are met with the least amount of bureaucracy and over head. You know… like The Constitution promotes. Limited Federal Government, Expanded State powers, and, by extension, the States letting local authorities deal with the minutia. Healthcare tramples all over Subsidiarity by letting a faceless bureaucracy tell each individual what is the best care for them.
Death panels anyone? Rationing healthcare is exactly what will happen and anyone who thinks otherwise probably thinks their bank account craps money every 2 weeks, they have $500 extra in their account cause the bank will cover that much overage, and they are making a wise financial move by buying an expensive enough car to spin the upside down loan amount of their old car into a new set of payments. Healthcare will be rationed. Individuals not deemed worthy enough either by age, economic value, social class, or financial obligation will have medical care withheld at some point because a closed system can not generate any new capital. When the end of the money is reached and there are still patients… those patients will not get care. Not exactly “Social Justice” even when pronounced with a lisp.
In Vitro Fertilization. Ok… those who are non Catholics or those who don’t have a large background in bio ethics won’t see the problem with this. But let me break it down for you. Some argue that this is “evil” because it’s not natural. Well, neither is a pace maker, but it’s such a simple procedure now that there’s nothing wrong with it. Those who argue the “not natural” aspect of In Vitro are missing the point. IVF is bad because it 1) opens up the making of babies to Market Forces, and 2) guarantees the death of children.
Let’s just ignore point 1 for a moment since that is an application issue and not truly one directly related to the procedure itself. In a perfect world, you could deal with that the way we deal with the death penalty. Capital punishment, in and of itself, is not immoral. But it can be applied immorally. Let’s instead focus on point 2 which is how morally offensive the procedure actually is.
I can hear the objections. How can giving a couple a baby be bad? Well… under normal circumstances, it isn’t. But let’s take a look at phases of the procedure. First we collect eggs from the woman and sperm from the man. The former is done with a lot of discomfort and the latter, while normally done in a way… um… “not consistent” with Catholic beliefs; it can, with certain steps, be done in accordance with teachings. So we are ok there.
Next, we have a “mixture” of the two specimens “outside” the womb. Many ethicists will look at this as gravely wrong. That anything that removes the creative/generative process from the intimate/unitive process is morally wrong. And they are right. But I’m probably going to lose 90% of the non-Catholic readers on that point, so I’m not even going to argue that one. Let’s just reserve that argument as an uncertainty at best.
If you are Catholic, however, (and that is whom I’m yelling at here) you can’t pass go. You can’t collect $200. If you claim to be Catholic, and an act is taught to be intrinsically evil. You have to stop and not do or support it. Period. Full Stop.
So now we have some little human beings floating around in a petri dish. We will take SOME, not all, but some (the genetically fit ones, Mein Fuhrer) and inject them into the womb to see what takes. The humans that are not injected into the womb are then kept for experimentation or killed as surplus. That’s right, but it’s OK because they don’t vote and don’t have little faces that can be put on late night commercials with Sally Struthers and the strange bearded guy.
The ones that ended up getting injected may or may not attach (which is why you have to use so many) and if “too many” attach then the “extra humans” are subject to “reduction”*. Meaning abortion. So we are still paying for abortions when we pay for IVF. And not only are we paying for abortions and killing of babies out of the womb, we are also paying for the enslavement of humans to medical experimentation.
I realize it’s really easy to dismiss this because these humans are cells rather than fully expressive semi-bipedal diaper wearing poop machines. But what else are they? You can use any amount of sophistry you want to call them a bio mass or a proto human or any other number of double speak phrases. But in the end, they are and will only be a human and left to natural means, they will not only be a human in cell form, but a human in voting form, as well.
So we have this bill that Catholics clamoring for “(lisp) Social Justice (/lisp)” think is the bee’s knees because it formally says it will not pay for abortions. It ignores economic realities, it denounces subsidiarity, it forced subservience to governmental monopoly, it violates the ethical distribution of medical services, and breaches the ethical boundaries of medial procedures all on OUR dime. Please… Grow up and read something more than “The Catholic Worker” or other Liberation Theology inspired writings.
Now the fun part is that Catholic Bishops will be meeting in about a week or so. This issue will (or at least better) be on the docket. Many have said the Bishops have blessed this bill. Many have said they have not. Either way, if the Senate stalls; this could be an interesting opportunity for Bishops to get their two cents in. As a Catholic, I’m very interested to see what happens. I really don’t know what they will do, if anything.
The Bishops have dropped the ball on a number of issues either through timidity or allowing their lay advisors to have too much say in policy making. I would not be surprised to see them fall in love with the bill. I would not be surprised to see them distance themselves. I would not be surprised to see them say it’s a governmental issue and as long as the Big “A” is off the table and while they have “concerns” about other issues, they will leave it up the conscience of the voters.
What I will be surprised to see is a bold statement that says, “THIS IS NOT SOCIAL JUSTICE!” And that is truly sad. This is a time when the Bishops, or even just a few of them, could stand up and sound the clarion call to defeat this abomination. The bill hangs by the weakest of threads and just one or two loud voices could send it back to the bowels of hell from whence it came.
I’m truly glad I’m not a Bishop in this day and age. I really would not want to meet death with all that is required of me and have to tell Jesus, “Well, I didn’t want to make waves. What would you have me do?” I bet He gets really fed up with that one.
One more thing. If I hear, “…well the current system…,” one more time; someone is getting a beat down. You don’t replace your functioning, if not perfect, car with a lemon just because your current one has times when it fails to start or sometimes takes longer than it should to warm up. You fix the current one. The only ones who win if you replace it with a lemon out of some misplaced sense of desperation and false sense of urgency are the Seller and the Mechanic. This is NOT “Social Justice!” It’s plain stupidity. When you have the authority and ability to stop it and do not, it’s malpractice. And any who participate in it, from the willing voter to the silent leaders to the greedy politician, are guilty, in some way, for all the lives affected. THAT is Social Justice, Comrade!
* or you have them all, get a hit show on TLC, have the public believe you are spineless wuss by not standing up to your wife, then prove you are a spineless wuss to all by leaving her for jail bait. But the AMA has not approved this procedure.
Conservative, educated, understands history, distrusts government, distrusts politicians, dislikes pop-culture, and carries a firearm. In short, I'm what The Framers of The Constitution were counting on and everything your government wants you to fear most.
