Washington Unplugged

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Unplugged: Stupak Amendment "Bitter Pill To Swallow"

November 9, 2009 11:04 AM

John Dickerson spoke with Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) about the House's passage of health care reform. Plus; CBS News' Jill Jackson and Washington Post's Lori Montgomery on what's next for the bill.

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by us_1776 November 10, 2009 1:23 AM EST
And the abortion issue is also about old Republican authoritarians wanting to tell everyone else how to live. These dark-age, throwback, Republicans have serious 'control' issues that require psychiatric treatment. Republicans are free to follow their own religious beliefs in their own affairs. But they have no right and no business trying to force their religious-based views on everyone else.
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by earlysaid November 10, 2009 12:15 AM EST
The people who are so against abortion and other women's private issues are not necessarily catholic. A lot of this is conservative republican men who are determined to apply their beliefs onto everyone. We must remember that as much as republicans want freedom for themselves. Democrats want freedoms for ourselves too. That includes women having the freedom of choice and privacy when dealing with very personal matters.
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by franksfo November 9, 2009 10:51 PM EST
As far as the position of the Catholic Church is concerned, in my experience it is better to go directly to the Catholic sources. For example, in matters like health care there is a huge amount of official documents collectively called "Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church". As far as I know, long story short, the Catholic Church strongly favors the idea of health care for everybody, under the guiding principle of subsidiarity. "Subsidiarity", very briefly is the idea that governments in general should intervene in social problems where the free creative spontaneous initiatives of the society at large have not covered some issues or parts of issues. The idea is that governments should not discourage the creative and free development of initiatives by the existing different cultural groups (not just the Catholics, could be some "progressive circles", humanitarians, environmentalists, associations of all sorts, faith based or not faith based) but act complementarily.

Useful links
for Social Doctrine:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html

For the u.s. conference of bishops documents about health:
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/health1.shtml
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by us_1776 November 9, 2009 8:03 PM EST
http://www.mixx.com/stories/9142512/unplugged_stupak_amendment_bitter_pill_to_swallow_cbs_news_video
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by us_1776 November 9, 2009 7:49 PM EST
The Catholic Church needs to stop trying to interfere in a woman's right to choose.

And if it is so interested in preserving 'life' then it should work to stop all wars around the world. In the past hundred years war has claimed hundreds of millions of lives.

And if it is so interested in preserving 'life' then it should be working 24x7 to end poverty and malaria. Malaria kills tens of millions of people every single year in a slow agonizing death.

And before it judges anyone else, it needs to clean its own house of all the child-molesters and deviants that it hides.
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by erich_1-2009 November 9, 2009 7:31 PM EST
This Pelosicare Bill must be pretty bad if she had to give up her golden cow to get it passed!
By the way, New York is by far the #1 abortion capitol in the U.S. That is why is is such a bitter bill for this pro-abortion New York Congressman. He was elected by abortion money.
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by msimamaji November 9, 2009 6:51 PM EST
Let's see what the Catholic Church is going to do now. The House gave in to the Catholic Church and let them dictate the anti-abortion amendment. Now is the Catholic Church going to join in the fight for health care reform?
Right now our infant mortality rate is twice as high as the infant mortality rate of Sweden or France, according to the 2009 CIA Fact Book available on Wikipedia. According to a report by CDC, inadequate pre-natal care is one of the major causes of infant deaths. The proposed health care reform would provide expectant mothers and their new born babes with the life-saving care they need. And one of the biggest reasons that desperte women seek abortions is a lack of pre-natal care.

If the Catholic church is really pro-life, then they must back health care reform. If the health care reform effort fails - in spite of the willingness of the House to accede to the demands of the Catholic church - we must hold the Catholic Church responsible for all abortion and infant deaths.
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