ReligionDispatches.org

Former NARAL Pro-Choice America president Kate Michelman and our own Frances Kissling have an excellent op-ed in today's New York Times, arguing that the setback for womens' reproductive freedom in the Stupak amendment is a result of the Democratic Party's pandering to religion as much as it is a product of religious right lobbying. In its quest to "get religion" and build a larger majority in Congress by recruiting anti-choice candidates to run in conservative districts, the party has cravenly punted on womens' freedom and health.

They are absolutely right, and although President Obama came out on Monday against Stupak*, I wonder if he has the gumption to get serious about fixing it in either the Senate or final version of the bill. Both candidate and president Obama have a history of backpedaling on abortion rights.

I think I agree with RD’s own Sarah Posner that denominations should disclose their in-house lobbying activities. If they’re not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to fear from disclosure. At the very least, it lets their members know what the church is doing in their name, which strikes me as a very democratic and very Christian standard.

In an op-ed in Politico, Catholics for Choice president Jon O'Brien and NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan question whether the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has a double standard when it comes to how to segregate public funds from private funds. On the one hand, the USCCB insisted on the Stupak amendment, claiming that accounting arrangements in the Capps amendment to the health care reform bill were inadequate to ensure that public money would not be used to cover an abortion. Yet on the other hand, many of its affiliates receive federal monies and grants, which they must segregate from private funds. The federal monies cannot constitutionally be used for inherently sectarian actvities, while they are free to use their private funds as they like.

In both the case of federal funding for abortion and separation of church and state, the conservative side makes broad, moral arguments for their position, while the more progressive side makes technical ones.

There is a fine but important line to be drawn between reasonable disagreement and irresponsible name-calling. It is thus surprising when a commenter baber begins with name-calling in response to a claim by Karen Armstrong with which he might simply have chosen to disagree.

Here, then, is Armstrong’s claim, via Brian McGrath Davis’ review here on RD:

When it came down to it last weekend, the House Democratic leadership believed that it needed a handful more votes from Democrats to pass the health care reform bill, and the only way to secure them was to consent to the wishes of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

"At the end of the day," says Jessica Arons, Director of the Women's Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress and a member of its Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative, "politicians still fall back on their own conventional wisdom and tried to privilege one religious perspective over another. It's the politician's perception of who commands more power."