Mr. Romney: Did you force Catholic Hospitals or Did they Volunteer to Hand Out Abortifacients?

The Boston Globe asked the Romney spokesperson to explain the discrepancy between the facts of record and Romney's assertions.

1. They evaded answering questions about the alleged volunteers:

Asked about Romney’s debate statement, Romney spokesman Ryan Williams did not address Romney’s claim that the requirement was voluntary, but stressed Romney’s opposition to the law.

It seems to me that they are trying to evade answering a critical question. Did the Governor force Catholic Hospitals into handing out abortifacients or did the the Cardinal volunteer?

And, it gets curiouser:

2. They lied; and 3. It appears Romney looked and looked in 2005 but could not find laws that provide Catholics with legal exemptions:

“Governor Romney – as Planned Parenthood complained at that time – fought at every stage against a state law that would have required Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraceptives despite objections based on religious conscience,” Williams said. “Facing an 85 percent Democrat legislature, he vetoed the bill and explored using his executive power to provide an exemption from the law based on conscience.”

Well now...I'm confused.

This explanation still leave us guessing whether Romney has figured it all out, or whether he is still...clueless.

Are we to assume that since the 2005 exploration, the GOP put the Constitution under Romney's nose?

If he didn't know the laws existed in 2005, and how to use them, how could he possibly have the intellect to put all the pieces together now?


Furthermore, he is not giving an accurate account of events in 2005.

His own health department and numerous attorneys on his staff and lawyers who are experts in the area of religious freedom, showed him the laws that provided exemption. Many meetings and phone calls took place. Yet, in spite of the discovery we know happened, what Romney did was use the power of his executive office to issue an edict that Catholics were not to be afforded their legal exemptions. Because, he had feelings in his heart of hearts that Catholics should be forced to give out abortifacients.

Why be evasive, Gov. Romney?

Did the Catholic Church volunteer or did you have a widdle feeling in your heart of hearts and issue the same illegal edict against Catholics you now say you oppose?

Catholics voters have a right to know.

Did Romney Lie About Cardinal O'Malley Volunteering with Emergency Abortifacients at Catholic Hospitals?

Excellent article and chronology at Boston Catholic Insider.

KING (Moderator): Governor Romney, both Senator Santorum and Speaker Gingrich have said during your tenure as governor, you required Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.

And Mr. Speaker, you compared the governor to President Obama, saying he infringed on Catholics’ rights.

Governor, did you do that?

ROMNEY: No, absolutely not. Of course not.

There was no requirement in Massachusetts for the Catholic Church to provide morning-after pills to rape victims. That was entirely voluntary on their part. There was no such requirement.”

I've spoken to numerous prolife grassroots leaders since last evening about Romney's assertions that Cardinal O'Malley volunteered to give Catholic doctors, nurses and pharmacists an order to hand about abortifacients at Catholic Hospitals.

Romney certainly lying about his public interpretation about how he would enforce the law. The official public policy machine of the Massachusetts Bishops, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, is on the record defending religious exemptions provided to us through both state and constitutional law.

Yet, when Romney made his assertions last night, I smelled the sulfur of Bryan Hehir, who was the Cardinal's representative and spokesperson for Caritas Christi and Secretariat for Health and Human Services.

While the Mass Catholic Conference and prolife Catholics were testifying against Romney's unlawful mandate, is it possible that Cardinal O'Malley sent Bryan Hehir under the radar to tell Romney that he would voluntarily order Catholic Hospitals to hand out abortifacients?

Is this what Bryan Hehir was eluding to when he testified to the 'fair adjudication' of Catholic conscience protections in a society?




Romney has made very serious allegations against Cardinal O'Malley.

Were our conscience protections adjudicated by Cardinal O'Malley?

I think we have a right to know the answer.

Is Romney accusing Cardinal O'Malley of voluntarily ordering Catholic Hospitals to give out abortifacients?

Did you hear it?

Romney said this evening, he never forced the Catholic Church to give out abortifacients. He said, that was all done voluntarily.

Really?

None of this happened then?

"In the end, neither amendment was included in the bill," said the Massachusetts Catholic Conference. "House Majority Leader John Rogers, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to defend the hospitals' right of conscience, made it clear during floor debate on July 21 that the House blocked the Senate amendment so that the 1975 conscience statute would continue to have full effect."

The conference provided me with a copy of this bulletin, and Rogers assured me its account was "accurate and true."

The Catholic Church still opposed the bill because it would facilitate abortions. But at least the religious liberty of Catholic hospitals had been preserved -- or so it seemed.

On July 25, 2005, Romney vetoed the bill -- even though it was clear his veto would be overridden.

He published an op-ed in the Boston Globe the next day explaining his decision. "The bill does not involve only the prevention of conception," he wrote. "The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception." Romney said the veto kept his pledge not to change the state's abortion laws.

Romney made no mention of the religious liberty issue in his op-ed. But then, the bill, as the Massachusetts Catholic Conference and the House majority leader understood it, did not allow coercion of Catholic hospitals.

On Dec. 7, 2005, a week before the law was to take effect, the Boston Globe ran a piece headlined: "Private Hospitals Exempt on Pill Law." The article said the state Department of Public Health had determined that the emergency contraception law "does not nullify a statute passed years ago that says privately run hospitals cannot be forced to provide abortions or contraception."

Public Health Commissioner Paul Cote Jr. told the Globe: "We felt very clearly that the two laws don't cancel each other out and basically work in harmony with each other."

Romney spokesman Fehrnstrom told the Globe that Romney agreed with the Department of Public Health on the issue. The governor, he said, "respects the views of health care facilities that are guided by moral principles on this issue."

"The staff of DPH did their own objective and unbiased legal analysis," Romney's spokesman told the Globe. "The brought it to us, and we concur in it."

The Globe itself ruefully bowed to this legal analysis. It ran an editorial headlined: "A Plan B Mistake." "The legislators failed, however," the Globe said, "to include wording in the bill explicitly repealing a clause in an older statute that gives hospitals the right, for reasons of conscience, not to offer birth control services."

Liberals joined in attacking Romney's defense of Catholic hospitals. But that defense did not last long.

The same day the Globe ran its editorial, Romney held a press conference. Now he said his legal counsel had advised him the new emergency contraception law did trump the 1975 conscience law.

"On that basis, I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view," Romney said. "In my personal view, it's the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape."

According to Romney tonight, he wasn't involved in the enforcement, enforcement was volunteered.

The only person with the authority to "volunteer" Catholic Hospitals, is Cardinal O'Malley.

Is Romney accusing Cardinal O'Malley of voluntarily ordering Catholic Hospitals to give out abortifacients or is this another one of his bold-faced lies?