Should catholic senators listen to the Catholic Church on abortion?

Thesis Statement

Should catholic senators listen to the catholic church on abortion?

Introduction

Most Catholics assume that the soul is infused at conception. They may take it as an article of faith. In fact it is not. Vatican II deliberately left the issue aside and for a very good reason. For fourteen hundred years until late in the nineteenth century, all Catholics, including the popes, took it for granted that the soul is not infused at conception. If the church was wholly opposed to abortion, as it was, it was not on the basis of the conceptus starting as a human being.

The Pope maintains that abortion at any time constitutes murder. However, he concedes that 'the texts of Sacred Scripture never address the question of deliberate abortion and so do not directly and specifically condemn it.' Indeed, although he doesn't discuss this, for more than 1500 years the position of the Catholic Church on abortion was very close to that of the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade: Early term abortion is not a mortal sin.

The Senate Finance Committee rejected two amendments to the Baucus health care bill proposed by Senator Orrin Hatch that would have restricted abortion funding and guaranteed conscience rights for health care workers. The committee voted mainly along party lines, 13-10, opposing the Hatch amendment #C14 (355), which "prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under this Mark from being used for elective abortions and plans that cover such abortions." (Brody, 15) This paper discusses that whether catholic senators Should listen to the catholic church on abortion?

Should catholic senators listen to the Catholic Church on abortion?

Only one Republican, Senator Olympia Snowe (ME) voted with the majority. Senator Kent Conrad (ND) was the only Democrat to support the pro-life amendment. Senator Hatch and other pro-life senators believe the present bill, without a specific abortion funding exclusion, would lead to federal funding of abortion through subsidies to private insurance plans. This vote puts three established pro-abortion Catholic lawmakers, Senators Kerry, Cantwell, and Menendez now on record supporting the federal expansion of abortion by opposing an abortion restriction amendment which would protect current federal policy that prohibits federal funds from covering elective abortions.

Abortions occurring prior to that moment constituted a less serious sin. Pope Gregory XIV's declaration in 1591 that early abortion was not grounds for excommunication guided Church policy until 1869. In that year, Pope Pius IX eliminated the distinction between the animated and non-animated fetus and insisted on excommunication for anyone having or providing an abortion at any stage of pregnancy. That instruction was written into the Canon Law in 1917.

So far sanctions have been applied in a decidedly partisan manner. While Catholic Democratic Governor McGreevey was sanctioned, in part for his support for abortions, Catholic Republican Governor Pataki of New York, who holds similar views on abortion, was not. Sacramento Bishop Wiegand chastised Catholic Democratic Governor Gray Davis for supporting abortion rights and recommended that he refrain from taking ...