Normally a Saturday night in the fall would find me in front of the TV watching a great college football game. Tonight, I've watched C-Span. And within the past hour, the ammendment known as the Stupak ammnedment passed. This is a huge pro-life victory. Basically, this ammendment keeps current law in effect meaning no additional federal coverage in the new health care bills for abortion. The ammendment also protects providers with conscience clauses.
The ammendment actually is named Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts-Kaptur-Dahlkemper-Lipinski-Smith Ammendment and had the overwhelming support of the USCCB and pro-life Catholics across this nation. It passed 240-194 with every Republican voting yes and 64 Democrats voting yes. Those Democrat votes helped make this happen. Unfortunately, 1 Republican voted present; a cop-out and 194 Democrats voted no. I'm afraid there will be many Catholic Democrats in that number.
I'm sure health care with a public option will pass. Many provisions in the health care bill are worthy of support from a Catholic social justice standpoint. But the most important news tonight is that this Pro-life ammendment passed.
As people of faith and goodwill, we must remain vigilant, pray hard and remember that abortion is still the law of the land. We must work to change that but more importantly, change hearts so no one would ever want to kill a beautiful child; a gift from God!
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