What was that about "bearing false witness"?

FactCheck.org takes on the question, "Abortion: Which Side Is Fabricating?":

Will health care legislation mean "government funding of abortion"?

President Obama said Wednesday that’s "not true" and among several "fabrications" being spread by "people who are bearing false witness." But abortion foes say it’s the president who’s making a false claim. "President Obama today brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related component" of health care legislation, said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. So which side is right?

The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new "public" insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them. Obama has said in the past that "reproductive services" would be covered by his public plan, so it’s likely that any new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low- and moderate-income persons who would choose the "public plan" would qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal subsidies. Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions "fabrications."

Read the entire analysis.

In somewhat related news, Richard McBrien's most recent regurgitation of someone else's article (in this case, an essay by E. J. Dionne), includes the claim "that the Pope's new encyclical shows that President Obama is in accord with most of Catholic social teaching. Indeed, Barack Obama is more in accord with that teaching and with the substantial message of Caritas in Veritate than the many politically conservative Catholics who berated the University of Notre Dame and its president, Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, for inviting Obama to deliver this year's graduation address and receive an honorary degree."

That statement, it should be noted, came a few sentences after this: "This is not to say that President Obama and Pope Benedict XVI are in full agreement on all moral issues, such as abortion, contraception, or embryonic stem-cell research."

In other words, the President's positions on sexuality, conception, abortion, embryonic stem-cells, and related bio-ethical issues aren't compatible with Catholic teaching, but (and here I quote McBrien quoting Dionne) the President and the Pope have a "shared approach to a quest for peace in the Middle East, and the opening of a dialogue with Islam."

Ah ha! Why, if only President Bush would have pursued peace in the Middle East and dialogue with Islam, he, too, might have been in accord with Catholic teaching! Yep, if only...

Comments

[Dim Bulb]

Where does the Encyclical approve of a politician spending money like a drunken sailor in a whore house?

[Dan Deeny]

Our president is dissimulating. If Cecile Richards thinks abortion rights are in the health care bill, and is worried about those who oppose it for that reason, then we can assume that the health care bill includes abortion rights. Bill Donohue has a good article somewhere on this topic.

[Christine the Soccer Mom]

Don't forget that the White House has also filed a brief with the Supreme Court that states that DOMA ought to be overturned/repealed.

I linked to it here: http://catholicsoccermom.blogspot.com/2009/08/hes-not-in-favor-of-gay-marriage.html

[Catholic Femina]

The misreading of this encyclical has been evident from all levels of the Church. Universal health care is not the answer... I don't want a government responsible for the death of so many babies providing my health care!
http://www.catholicfemina.com/2009/07/pro-life-universal-healthcare-not.html

[achilles]

It really is scary how easy it has become to change definitions of words to such an extent that claims that Obama is in line with anything Catholic is believable (of course he is no). Any similiarity is only a semantic coincidence.
Read George Orwell's essay on language and Politics.
Thanks for all you do Carl.