Charlie Camosy has spent more than the last decade as a professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University. He is the author of five books, including, most recently, “Resisting Throwaway Culture.” The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of BCNN1.
(RNS) — As a pro-life Roman Catholic, I firmly support the teaching of the Church that there is a fundamental right to health care. There is no way to decouple a defense of the dignity of the human person from that person’s right to life or the person’s right to basic and fundamental care. This is especially important for vulnerable human populations who have been unjustly pushed to the margins by those who hold power in a culture.
As a Catholic, then, I find it outrageous that the contemporary pro-life movement does not highlight the fact that, despite our massive wealth, the United States has the worst rate of maternal death in the developed world. Black women are most at risk, being nearly four times as likely to die during pregnancy than white women.
Some of the worst death rates are in states that have chosen not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. If we actually stand for what we say we do, pro-lifers ought to be pressuring these states to protect these vulnerable populations at every turn.
Pro-lifers have done particularly good work, however, in fighting so that perhaps the most vulnerable population of all gets health care: babies who survive abortions.
This issue came to the fore when Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, himself a former physician, was asked about what should happen to a baby in such a circumstance. His reaction was revealing: He very confidently insisted that the baby would be kept comfortable and “would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” (Even though he was not asked about specific kinds of babies who had survived abortion, a spokesperson later claimed, without evidence, that he was referring to babies with severe abnormalities.)
There are, of course, already laws against the direct killing of a child in such a circumstance. But there are no laws against a doctor and parents deciding that, because the abortion failed and what they wanted was a dead baby, the desired effect should be achieved by failing to give her the basic health care to which all human beings are entitled.
Pro-lifers have been trying to pass legislation to make sure babies who survive abortion get precisely the same care as any other baby born at the same gestational age. In the latest example of the incoherence of U.S. abortion politics, the party of “government staying out of our health care decisions” has been blocked in its attempts to pass the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act by the party of “health care for everyone.”
Democrats won’t even let the legislation come up for a vote in the House. And this week (Feb. 25), though three Democratic senators did vote for a bill in their chamber, 41 of their party blocked its passage via filibuster.
Source: Religion News Service
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