Bishops see Freedom of Choice Act as threat to health care

By G.M. Corrigan
Examiner correspondent
12/8/08

A controversial pro-abortion rights bill, co-sponsored by both of Maryland’s U.S. senators and tagged by President-elect Barack Obama as “the first thing I would do” as president, has the nation’s Catholic bishops mulling the shuttering of the Catholic health care system should the bill be enacted.

“We may need to consider taking the drastic step of closing our Catholic hospitals entirely,” Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki said at a recent general meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. “It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell [the hospitals] to someone who would perform abortions.”

Nationwide there are 614 Catholic hospitals, which treat more than 5 million patients a year, and 61 affiliated health care systems, according the Catholic Health Association, which opposes the Freedom of Choice Act. In the Baltimore area alone there are four Catholic hospitals, and there are three more throughout the state. the rest