Bishop Peter Sartain Calls for Defeat of Illinois FOCA - “Broad,” “Immoral,” “Disturbing” Bill

Posted by Research Team (March 16, 2009 at 5:49 pm)

Thank you to Bishop J. Peter Sartain of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet for his timely letter calling for the defeat of Illinois FOCA.  The Diocese of Joliet includes over 650,000 Catholics in DuPage, Will, Kendall, Kankakee, Grundy, Iroquois, and Ford counties.  Here are some key parts of the letter:

I am taking the extraordinary measure of communicating with you by letter this weekend because I believe we are faced with an urgent matter in the Illinois General Assembly.

Several weeks ago we learned of an extremely troubling bill, HB2354, that would create the “Reproductive Health and Access Act.” This bill has now passed the House Human Services Committee and will be debated on the floor.

Why should Catholics and others be concerned about this bill? … The bill seeks to:

• pre-empt any existing state restrictions on abortion or prevent any common-sense regulation such as parental notification
• expand public funding of abortion through Medicaid
• mandate comprehensive sex education for all children in public schools
• invalidate the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act protecting health care professionals and employers; in other words, it would violate the right of conscience of health care institutions and health care professionals when it comes to abortion

I feel a responsibility to bring this matter to your attention so that we will all understand the broad, immoral implications of this bill. It is not an exaggeration to say that the bill threatens our freedom of religion and conscience in Illinois. Why would I make such a strong claim?

Section 35 of the bill states, “Individual health care professionals who object to providing certain reproductive health care based on religion or personal conscience may refuse to provide such services only under the following conditions…” The conditions set forth include requiring the “objecting health care professional” to provide prior written notice of his or her objection to providing such services. Our State should be defending our freedom of religion, not requiring individual citizens to defend their own right to that freedom – against state law!

We must work for the defeat of HB2354, and I urge you to contact your state representative and let him or her know of your strong opposition to HB2354. …

Please join with me in prayer for the defeat of this disturbing bill and for those who support it. Don’t forget to thank those legislators who oppose it. Be assured of my daily prayers for each of you.

This letter is exceptional - read the whole thing for yourself and pass it on to your friends. Again, please ask your pastor to preach on Illinois FOCA - HB 2354 - this weekend!

Posted in Church Response. Follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.