Boston's Forced Aborting

The National Catholic Register has picked up the story of Boston Catholic employees of Caritas Christi who will soon be forced into describing abortions and other unethical procedures to stream of women seeking them and covered for them under the insurance plan Cardinal O'Malley has guaranteed is consistent with Catholic moral ethics.

According to Dick Powers, spokesman for the Massachusetts Health Connector Authority Board, which awards the contracts for state-subsidized insurance for low-income residents, the board unanimously accepted the Caritas-Centene bid after regulators received written assurances that medical staff will inform people of all options, including abortion.

I hate to say what is painfully obvious to people who care about the salvation of everyone: What on earth would possess a Catholic Cardinal to believe it is morally ethical for his Catholic heathcare workers at Caritas to give out the number of the employees of "Centene" to bait them into formal cooperation with abortion?

Also, some faithful prolifers have suggested that Cardinal O'Malley was shocked and caught off guard by the Caritas Christi abortion referral contract.

Unfortunately, that just does not comport with the facts.

On March 4th, the Boston Globe published a story that quoted Caritas saying they will provide family planning services, including abortion "IN and out of the Caritas network".

Later that day, Caritas and Centene Corp. released a one-sentence statement that said the venture "will contract with providers, both in and out of the Caritas network, to ensure access to all services required by the authority, including confidential family planning services."

The Archdiocese of Boston has not yet commented, and the explanations from the health care providers have not clarified how exactly this venture would mesh with Catholic teaching. (UPDATE: Connector Authority spokesman Dick Powers, asked about the issue by the Globe, today said "Health plans must provide covered services. Covered services specifically include abortion services.")

The Cardinal furiously got to work emailing Boston priests, deacons and lay Catholics claiming that no women would be referred out of Caritas Christi for abortion services and on March 6th, the Cardinal put up a post on his blog that said:

To be perfectly clear, Caritas Christi will never do anything to promote abortions, to direct any patients to providers of abortion or in any way to participate in actions that are contrary to Catholic moral teaching and anyone who suggests otherwise is doing a great disservice to the Catholic Church.

These are simply not the actions of somebody who is caught off guard and went on a pursuit of truth. The facts had already been published in the Boston Globe.

Furthermore, on March 13th, the Globe published that Caritas had promised the Commonwealth in writing that the medical staff of Caritas would "inform women of their healthcare options, including abortion".

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/13/mass_regulators_ok_joint_caritas_centene_healthcare_venture/

The Connector Authority board, which oversees the Commonwealth Care program, voted unanimously in favor of the joint venture proposed by Centene Corp., a St. Louis-based health organization, and Caritas Christi Health Care Network.

The vote followed several closed-door sessions in which officials from Centene and Caritas, the minority partner in the joint venture, assured regulators that women will have "ready access" to family planning and reproductive services, an issue that sparked concerns from abortion foes and reproductive rights activists.

Among the written assurances are a pledge that medical staff operating under the Centene-Caritas insurance plan, known as Commonwealth Family Health Plan, will inform women of their healthcare options, including abortion.

Thereby ending the controversy about whether Caritas employees will be forced to inform women seeking abortions about abortions.

The Cardinal has not retracted his erroneous statements. The Cardinal is still posturing that people saying Caritas employees will be forced to talk about abortions in positive ways and send the women on her way with good wishes are "people doing a disservice to the Church".

Since we know he wasn't ignorant of the facts, the only other plausible explanation is that the Cardinal believes that if somebody approaches a Catholic expressing they want to kill somebody - we can't do ourselves but we can pass out information and instructions to somebody who can and will.

Prince of the Church or not, it is the duty of anyone baptized to inform the public of of the distortions coming out of the Boston Chancery, including the Cardinal's own blog.

The National Catholic Register story has dug up the political contribustions of Caritas CEO and Chairman of the Caritas Board of Governors. Not surprisingly, both officials support proabortion politicians.

Caritas spokeswoman Teresa Prego declined comment to Register questions, as did President Ralph de la Torre and James Karam, chairman of the board of governors. According to Federal Election Commission records, both officials have given generously to politicians who support abortion: Last year, de la Torre gave $2,300 to Barack Obama; from 2007-08, Karam gave $6,900 to Hillary Clinton for president and $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry.

Highly placed Catholics have made inquiries to clarify the Cardinals statement and the statements of Caritas and the Commonwealth which could not possibly co-exist and, the Cardinal, the diocese and Caritas has refused to answer those questions. Reporters have also asked questions and received no reply.

They've got something to hide. This is not how people act when they've been blindsided. This is not the conduct of people acting in good faith, including Cardinal O'Malley, whose credibility has been severely damaged.

The Register's reporter Gail Besse also found out that state regulators are finalizing the details of how Catholic employees will be "monitored"

If Caritas-Centene proceeds with its plan, state regulators and abortion advocates will be watching. “How compliance will be monitored is just being worked out now,” Massachusetts health authority spokesman Powers said March 16.

Andrea Miller, executive director of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) Pro-Choice Massachusetts, said her abortion advocacy group “vows to monitor” the Catholic hospitals to ensure that people have access to services to “protect them from pregnancy and disease …” In the past, NARAL operatives have made covert calls to hospitals, including Catholic ones, to see if personnel complied with a law to offer the abortifacient “morning after” pill.

We know that Cardinal O'Malley is already forcing Catholic employees to give out the morning after pill.

More confusing statements from Sister Carol Keehan, Catholic Health Association president.

The president of the Catholic Health Association, Sister Carol Keehan, has issued a response to the pro-life advocates who are upset with her statement praising two pro-abortion picks by incoming president Barack Obama.

She says nothing of whether a promotion of unlimited abortions performed at taxpayer expense degrades the competency of Obama's selections.

Keehan also claims that Obama and his selections will provide better health care for pregnant women and unborn children.

"They are committed to getting access to quality health care for all Americans, including pregnant women and their unborn babies," Keehan adds. "It is my belief that we ... will prevent more abortions by ensuring tangible health care for pregnant women and their unborn babies."

This is a great quote from a great prolife leader here in Boston:

William Cotter, head of Boston’s Operation Rescue, believes the archdiocese was taken off guard by the Caritas move. “But,” he said, “there’s been a terrible loss of credibility for the archdiocese. It must forego the potential financial gain and refuse this pact with the devil.”