Church in the World

US bishops pledge to fight Obama on life issues

America's newly inaugurated president was told this week that the Catholic Church will fight his plans to make abortion more readily available, and will oppose any easing of current regulations restricting embryonic stem cell research.

The warning was contained in two letters from US bishops delivered to Barack Obama, the first dated 13 January and released on 15 January, and the second, more strongly worded, dated 16 January and released on 19 January, the eve of Mr Obama's swearing-in. The bishops said they wanted to work constructively with the new administration, but issued a tough challenge on life issues.

"We will work to protect the lives of the most vulnerable and voiceless members of the human family, especially unborn children and those who are disabled or terminally ill," the bishops said in the first letter signed by the president of the bishops' conference, Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago. "We will oppose legislative and other measures to expand abortion. We will work to ... protect the conscience rights of health-care providers and other Americans, and prevent government funding and promotion of abortion." One of the new president's first acts was expected to be the revoking of the so-called Mexico City policy that prevents federally funded agencies from providing or promoting abortion (see Michael Sean Winters, page 4). "Provisions which for many years have prevented federal funding of abortion have a proven record of reducing abortions," the bishops said. "Efforts to force Americans to fund abortions with their tax dollars would pose a serious moral challenge and jeopardise the passage of essential health-care reform." In the second letter Cardinal George was even more forthright. "I expect that some want you to take executive action soon to reverse current policies against government-sponsored destruction of unborn human life. I urge you to consider that this could be a terrible mistake - morally, politically and in terms of advancing the solidarity and well-being of our nation's people," he wrote. The cardinal went on to tell Mr Obama that the regulation to protect conscience rights of health care workers issued last month by the Bush administration had been the subject of "false and misleading criticisms" and urged Mr Obama to retain "this common-sense regulation". Defending the Mexico City policy in the context of foreign aid, Cardinal George argued that the reputation of the US in the developing world would be undermined if aid funds were diverted to pro-choice organisations. "A shift towards promoting abortion in developing nations would ... increase distrust of the United States in these nations, whose values and culture often reject abortion, at a time when we need their trust and respect," the cardinal said. He went on to point out that "expanded destruction of embryonic human beings for their stem cells" was "especially pointless at the present time" for a number of reasons, in particular the "startling" advances that had recently been made in reprogramming adult cells.

The message of the conference was due to be reinforced on Wednesday, the day after the inauguration, by an all-night prayer vigil commemorating the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion. More than 16,000 worshippers were expected to attend what has often been described as the "largest annual Catholic Mass in the United States" at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC, the country's biggest Catholic church.

Meanwhile, the US bishops' conference plans to launch a new initiative against capital punishment next week, called the Catholic Mobilising Network to End the Death Penalty. The network aims to "inform and activate" Catholics about capital punishment in the US and why its use must be ended.