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Bishop:'Go Ahead, Arrest Me' - Arlington(Va.) Bishop Pledges To Defy Freedom Of Choice Act
By John P. Connolly,
The Bulletin
http://www.thebulletin.us/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2737&dept_id=576361&newsid=20213285
12/04/2008
A Roman Catholic Bishop has said that he would defy the most pro-abortion legislation in history if it ever came to be an issue in his diocese.
Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington, Va., spoke this week at a diocesan event for young adults, outlining his hypothetical reaction to the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), a bill that would establish abortion as a universal right if passed. Despite the fact that the Arlington Diocese does not have any Catholic hospitals, Bishop Loverde said he knows exactly what he would say if FOCA were enforced against hospitals in his care.
"I would say, 'Yeah, I'm not going to close the hospital, you're going to arrest me, go right ahead," he said. "'You'll have to drag me out, go right ahead. I'm not closing this hospital, we will not perform abortions, and you can go take a flying leap.'"
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued strong warnings to President-elect Barack Obama about FOCA. Mr. Obama promised in 2007 that his first act as president would be to sign FOCA into law. Among the bill's Senate cosponsors are Mr. Obama, U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. Bishop Loverde criticized the title of the bill.
"It's quite a title, let me tell you," he said. "It's a misnomer, it's neither free nor choice, so I don't know where they got the name of the act, because it's just crazy, because it has no freedom, and it has no choice."
The USCCB met in November, and issued statements reiterating the Catholic Church's stance against abortion.
"The fundamental good is life itself, a gift from God and our parents," said a statement by USCCB President, Cardinal Francis George. "A good state protects the lives of all. Legal protection for those members of the human family waiting to be born in this country was removed when the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973. This was bad law. The danger the Bishops see at this moment is that a bad court decision will be enshrined in bad legislation that is more radical than the 1973 Supreme Court decision itself."
Pressure has already been brought to bear on Catholic hospitals in an attempt to force them to perform abortions. In January, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed legislation forcing all hospitals, including those run by religious institutions, to offer "emergency contraception," even if such contraceptives would result in an abortion.
"FOCA establishes abortion as a 'fundamental right' throughout the nine months of pregnancy, and forbids any law or policy that could 'interfere' with that right or 'discriminate' against it in public funding and programs," wrote Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia in October.
"If FOCA became law, hundreds of reasonable, widely supported and constitutionally sound abortion regulations now in place would be invalidated. Gone would be laws providing for informed consent, and parental consent or notification in the case of minors. Laws protecting women from unsafe abortion clinics and from abortion practitioners who are not physicians would be overridden."
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