I said, in my post on the fighting Catholics, that Archbishop Nienstedt's intemperate letter denouncing the University of Notre Dame for inviting President Obama to deliver this year's commencement address was not available on the Archdiocese's website. And it's not. But I don't want to give the impression that visitors to the website will be spared being subjected to all The Most Reverend Nienstedt's rantings. For example, there is something called The Catholic Spirit, to which Nienstedt contributes a regular column, the most recent of which, on the Department of Health and Human Service's "conscience clause," is here.
The Archbishop appears to assume readers will not know what he is talking about and so is unrestrained by facts. He writes,
This rule is one of the critically important legal protections currently offered to our nation’s health care workers — our doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others who care for the infirm and disabled.
The rule protects those who object to being involved in an abortion or other morally objectionable acts that are contrary to both their faith and their Hippocratic Oath....Images from ultrasound show prospective parents the living movements of their child in the womb. No government should force a doctor or nurse to act in a way that they know to be morally wrong.
Nienstedt here is clearly encouraging Catholics to believe that the "conscience clause" is all that prevents doctors who object to abortion from being forced to perform them. But the "conscience clause," which I hope President Obama is on the verge of repealing, is no older than the last days of the Bush administration. I would like Nienstedt to provide the names of doctors who have been forced to participate in abortions. Let us hear their stories.
He proceeds to paranoid expressions concerning how the repeal of the "conscience clause" would amount to the eclipse of democracy and a slide into "despotism." Apparently it is not hard to quote other Catholic churchmen in support of such a view. The Church would like to substitute its teachings for the laws of the United States.
Why all the emphasis on the conscience of the health care worker and so little on the needs of patients? It is a telling detail that patients appear in Nienstedt's column only as "the infirm and disabled"--helpless people in need of a guardian. No rape victims who might want emergency contraception, no scared teenagers or older women trapped in bad marriages who might want an abortion. Should part of caring for them involve information regarding the full range of available treatments? Not according to the Archbishop, who wants these unfortunate people, if they happen to stumble upon a health care worker who shares his views on contraception and abortion, to remain ignorant of options they might otherwise exercise. People are not independent agents but pawns of the Church's "infallible" paternalism.
For some enlightened commentary on the subject of the "conscience clause," check out this compendium of statements from religious organizations less benighted than the Catholic Church. And here is a learned take from Stanley Fish.
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