WRONG IS STILL WRONG. I DO NOT CARE WHAT SOME UPSTART JUDGE SAYS....... WRONG IS STILL WRONG.
BLACK IS STILL BACK AND WHITE IS STILL WHITE. NO MATTER WHAT SOME SLICK TALKING LAWYER WHO TRIES TO CHANGE THE FACTS.....WRONG IS STILL WRONG, OH YES THERE ARE THE 10 COMMANDMENTS WHICH HAS BEEN AROUND A LOT LONGER THAN THESE SO CALLED BRILLANT MINDS.

Follow the money. The louder they talk about principles, the more important it is to follow the money.

The Catholic Church has a financial interest in hundreds of hospitals and other health care providers across the country. In many areas they run the only hospital, but in regions served by secular public hospitals as well, the Catholic institutions are at one big competitive disadvantage - availability of a full range of reproductive health services.

If the bishops can force the Stupak amendment into the Senate bill and through reconciliation, they can choke off funding for the biggest competitive advantage secular health care providers have over Catholic hospitals and gain an ever-fatter market share of literally trillions of new health care dollars over the coming years.

Nod politely at their piety...but follow the money.

Mark don't worry, this will be fought out in the courts and the Bishops will lose. Don't nod politely though--their piety always chokes women. Those damn bishops under their cassocks hate women. The bachelor boys are clever though. They want to nix any competitive advantage the secular institutions will have against them. By making sure that insurance companies-- that accept patients receiving government subsidies --will be in violation of a federal statute of they underwrite abortion, the bishops have shrewdly manipulated government to be fairly certain that insurance companies won't offer this procedure to any woman and women who now have this coverage will be in danger of losing it--but the good old boys of Catholicism talk morality as they are thinking money, money. Women can go get this coverage by paying for it separately say the misogynists who have been bedding down and torturing the nuns from centuries past. Guess what, women can't because the insurers cannot offer it thanks to the amendment. This of course is horrible discrimination--especially against poor women who won't have the financial power to make the separate purchase. Also it is denial of equal health care to women. After all Roe versus Wade is the law of the land. What happens if a woman wants to abort because her prenatal amniocentesis shows a fetus with a serious congenital malformation or a developmental or metabolic disability; need she wait around for the approval of the bishops and languish outside a Catholic Church, to be led in and be ministered to? For all the primal screams that will come from the throats of the Catholic crowd proclaiming it does not want its federal dollars going to the killing of babies, the rest of us can scream we want no federal dollars whatsoever in the form of tax exemptions going to the bishops and their vast holdings in the US.
Ravensfan Anon

You can worry about those so called "Catholic holdings" later. You can worry about taking down subsidized religious organizations later too. Right now it's about the REAL ISSUE of seeing the States through the horrible black cloud of abortion and the distruction of human life.
Lets prioritize here. Save lives then worry about the other monies.

If the Catholic Church is successful in killing health care reform over their desire to force their religious prejudices on the entire population, they better be prepared for the backlash that that unconstitutional action will cause. There will be hell to pay.

Robert - All the Catholic Church can do is the same as any other group and that's lobby for its views. The only issue for the Church in healthcare is abortion. In any event your "hell to pay" threat is a weak threat. It sounds rather childish even for a rationalizing rationalist like you. Why lay the blame at the Church if the legislation fails. Wouldn’t the members of Congress be to blame? The last time I checked the Church doesn’t get any votes in either the House or the Senate.

ravensfan - Perhaps you haven't read the news today, but it seems the Catholic Bishops are going full bore to sabotage health care reform over abortion. This intrusion is UNCONSTITUTIONAL and the "hell to pay", just may end up being meted out by the thousands of women angry enough to express that anger in ways not approved of by statute law, (considering how cheap matches are) over this attack against their rights. People who worship in wooden churches may not want to attack the Constitution when fire is not one of the great mysteries of life.

Robert - I'm quite up to date on what's going on with health care. What I'm questioning is why it's unconstitutional for the USCCB to lobby for its views. No where in the Constitution or case law is there anything that says that religious organizations can't lobby on secular matters. The hell to pay is an empty threat we both know it so don't flatter yourself to use your own term. If the issue did cause that kind of reaction it wouldn’t be better served by taking it out on the only people who actually can make laws? Why leave them in power if they knuckle under so easy to a group that doesn’t even wield that much political power. We both know if the vote on reform weren’t so close no one in congress would give two cents for the USCCB’s views. All this talk actually takes away from the bigger question. Is this reform economically going to work? Are we going to drive up the deficit further? Before you attack me as being against reform keep in mind I am for reform. I just want to make sure what ever reforms are made actually generate the desired effect and don’t bankrupt the country. I could really care less about the USCCB’s view.