Lawmakers Feud Over Church's Role in Health Care Debate

The inclusion of a restrictive abortion clause in the House health care bill, and the Catholic Church's involvement in its passage, has legislators and others debating the extent to which religious organizations can appropriately delve into politics.

Anti-abortion rights lawmakers successfully added an amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) into the health care bill Saturday that would restrict some health insurance plans from offering coverage for abortion. The amendment came up for a vote after Democrats faced pressure from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the official leadership body for the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote an op-ed in Politico on Monday saying the IRS should pay closer attention to the Conference's involvement in efforts to influence legislation, given its tax-exempt status.

"The role the bishops played in the pushing the Stupak amendment, which unfairly restricts access for low-income women to insurance coverage for abortions, was more than mere advocacy," Woolsey wrote. "They seemed to dictate the finer points of the amendment, and managed to bully members of Congress to vote for added restrictions on a perfectly legal surgical procedure."

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According to the IRS, nonprofit organizations like the USCCB are prohibited from attempting to "influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities" and from all campaign activities.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who is Catholic, took to his Twitter account today to defend the USCCB, the Hill reports.

"The nerve of some citizens to petition their government," he wrote. "In Woolsey-land, free speech is cause for retribution."

"Apparently, exercising your right to petition your government is fine except when your point of view is different than Ms. Woolsey's," McHenry spokesman Brock McCleary told the Hill. "Then it's grounds for retribution by your government."

The influence the USCCB showed in the debate was considerable, the Wall Street Journal reports, calling the group "a major political force with the potential to upend a key piece of President Barack Obama's agenda."

The Journal reports that the USCCB swayed Congress with "behind-the-scenes lobbying, coupled with a grassroots mobilization of Catholic churches across the country." Along with conducting private meetings with lawmakers like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the group circulated to churches a prayer supporting health care reform that included the phrase, "We will raise our voices to protect the unborn."

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the USCCB, said in a statement issued late Monday that the group will "will remain vigilant ... to assure that these essential provisions are maintained and included in the final legislation," according to the Catholic News Service.

He added that the Catholic Church is concerned about how health reform "affects the poor and vulnerable, and those at the beginning and end of life."

John J. Pitney Jr., a government professor at Claremont McKenna College, took to the National Review Online to compare the backlash against the Church's current interference to the backlash it faced when it petitioned to end slavery."

Other groups saw some hypocrisy in the Church's message.

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"What we saw over the weekend was an act of unparalleled arrogance on the part of church officials," Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told NPR. "Basically, they were claiming they would kill health care for the sick and the poor if the Democrats didn't give them the votes to impose religious doctrine into law."

A reader of Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog objects to the logic the USCCB gave in its opposition to Democrats' original abortion compromise in the health care bill. Under that plan, any insurance plans that covered abortion procedures would have to use money from privately-paid premiums -- not federal funds --to pay for the procedure.

"The Catholic Bishops rejected the segregation plan as an accounting gimmick," the reader says. "This is the same method that is used when tax dollars go to parochial schools, many of which are Catholic. Tax money can buy pencils and desks, but not Bibles... I wonder if the Catholic Bishops even considered this point when slamming the abortion-segregation device as an accounting gimmick."