The hopes of some Catholics that President Barack Obama would not pursue aggressively his pro-abortion agenda are now dissipated. Since taking office, the president (1) reversed the federal policy of the Bush administration against supporting foreign abortion programs with tax-payer’s money (the Mexico policy); (2) reversed the previous presidential directive guaranteeing all health workers conscience protection; (3) revoked the ban on using embryonic stem cells for experimentation; and (4) nominated Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). That was all done within the first 50 days of being in office.
The president’s directive to allow embryonic stem cell research was broader than people expected. The administrators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in anticipation of the directive, had begun preparing protocols for experimentation with unused embryos in fertility clinics (of which there are 400,000). Proposals during the Bill Clinton administration had already recommended this. But the current directive opened the door to even broader initiatives, such as creating new embryos for the express purpose of experimentation. (This raises the question: are we allowed to create human life for the purpose of killing it?) The new directive also it seems would open up the possibility of cloning embryos, so long as they would not be used for reproductive purposes. There are all sorts of moral arguments why we should not enter into human cloning endeavors.
The president also nominated Gov. Sebelius to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, the post which will supervise health care and the NIH initiatives in embryonic stem cell research. Sebelius, a Catholic, has never seen a pro-choice option she has not liked, it seems. While governor, she vetoed proposals for health standards for abortion clinics, supported pro-choice legislation, associated herself with Planned Parenthood and NARAL (the two most radical pro-abortion groups in the country), accepted money from the notorious abortionist Dr. George Tiller, and even vetoed legislation to forbid late-term abortion (in which babies brains are sucked out of the skull, while the child is partially born).
Her bishop, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., wrote in the archdiocesan newspaper after Sebelius was nominated: “On the fundamental moral issue of protecting innocent human life, Governor Sebelius, throughout her career, has been an outspoken advocate for legalized abortion. For this reason her appointment to HHS is troubling. She has been associated with Planned Parenthood, NOW, NARAL and others advocating for abortion to be considered a ‘health care right.’” Already some time ago, Archbishop Naumann explicitly requested Gov. Sebelius not to receive holy Communion.
The appointment of Gov. Sebelius reminds us of other Catholics who have been deliberately picked by President Obama for his Cabinet or close association, starting with Vice President Joe Biden. The president knows that large numbers of the American Catholic bishops were not supportive of his campaign, that many Catholic leaders came out strongly in opposition to him, that pro-life groups vigorously campaigned against him. The choosing of pro-choice Catholics to positions of prominence in the new administration is an acknowledgement, I suppose, of the fact that 54 percent of Catholics gave him their vote, despite the efforts of bishops and many Catholic leaders to the contrary. On March 3, a group of 25 Catholic scholars and theologians publicly endorsed Sebelius for HHS. Among the signatories of the statement were prominent Catholic intellectuals.
New tensions in the American Catholic Church over the abortion issue are surfacing, especially between bishops and some prominent leaders. How unfortunate.
Father John A. Leies, SM, STD, is president emeritus of St. Mary’s University and was formerly head of the Theology Department there.