By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq.
Numerous religious and secular organizations are issuing statements, expressing concern and urging action as it becomes evident that the pending proposed health-care legislation contains provisions to fund and to mandate abortion. In its 1,991 pages - to date, lengthier tomorrow? - there, of course, also are many variations of other, wholly unrelated, trouble.
Among those many protesting entities is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which seldom takes a stand about pending Congressional legislation. A key paragraph of a letter from that organization reads as follows:
“No one should be required to pay for or participate in abortion. It is essential that the legislation clearly apply to this new program longstanding and widely supported [F]ederal restrictions on abortion funding and mandates, and protections for rights of conscience. No current bill meets this test . . .”
The following six-question quiz, of unknown origin, is apropos. Some personal disclosure: I was founding attorney, and for many years General Counsel of, American Life League, Inc; and performed similar legal work for other pro-life or anti-abortion organizations. The quiz very likely will sway nobody’s view on this delicate subject but it does offer some “might-have-been” history.
Q: A preacher and his wife were poor, with 14 children. The wife was pregnant. An abortion?
A: It would have been death to John Wesley.
Q: A father had syphilis, the mother tuberculosis. Of their three living children, a fourth having died, one was blind, one deaf, one with tuberculosis. Abortion?
A: Death to Ludwig van Beethoven.
Q: A baby was born crippled and a dwarf. Abortion?
A: Death to Alexander Pope.
Q: A White man raped and impregnated a young Black girl. Abortion?
A: Death to Ethel Waters, the Gospel singer.
Q: A poor teenage girl was unmarried and pregnant. Her father, a soldier, disowned mother and child.
A: Death to Father Joseph Mohr, lyricist and co-composer of Silent Night, Holy Night.
Q: An unmarried teenage girl was pregnant. According to Christian Doctrine her fiancé was not the father.
A: The Lord Jesus Christ.
As of today public opposition to sweeping and unprecedented Federal health-care legislation is mounting, affirmative votes are dwindling. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (I-CT, caucusing with the Democrats) has invoked what usually is termed the First Rule of Medical Practice in opposing the 1,991-page bill or any version of it: “First, do no harm.” Inside and outside Capitol Hill the prevailing prediction is there will be no bill in the 111th Congress, 1st Session, probably in the entire 111th Congress.
Marion Edwyn Harrison is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation.
