Bishops to Congress: Defund Planned Parenthood

In an April 13 letter to the U.S. House of Representatives, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities urged Congress to vote for a resolution to ban federal funding of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

In the midst of a budget debate involving shared sacrifice and hard choices, Cardinal DiNardo wrote, “Whether to fund the largest abortion network in the country is not one of those hard choices.”

The cardinal cited a March 4 letter to Congress from Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, which expressed the hope that “funds now provided to organizations that perform abortions… will be redirected to meeting the basic needs of the poor.”

Cardinal DiNardo wrote that some, in an effort to divert the discussion away from abortion, have tried to make the debate about women’s access to basic health care. He noted that Catholic and other religiously affiliated health care providers generally do provide mammograms, prenatal and maternity care for women, while Planned Parenthood does not.

“To the extent that Planned Parenthood does provide any legitimate health services for women, however, those services can be provided by others, since [the congressional proposal] does not reduce funding for services by one cent,” Cardinal DiNardo wrote.  “Therefore the question at issue here is:  When low-income women need these legitimate health care services, should the federal government insist that they receive them from the local abortion provider?”

Full article at The Catholic Spirit