Bishops Throw Out the Poor With the Abortion Bath Water.

For decades, the Catholic church has been petitioning the US government for universal health care coverage of the poor and uninsured. Yet in the past week, a number of prominent Bishops have strongly vocalized their opposition to HR 3200. Why abandon the poor now when true reform seems within reach? Abortion, of course.

At trueslant, Allison Kilkenny takes a strident look at church hipocracy.

A majority of America's poor are, after all, women. Refusing to allow women, particularly those clinging to the lowest rung of the economic ladder, access to easy and inexpensive health and reproductive services is a proven way to elevate their longevity, economic viability, and independence. Why the great hole in the church's logic? Equivocality. Life begins at conception (or maybe penetration?), they say, and any compromise of that - and here's the rub - let's women off the "whore" hook too easily. (Which makes us ask, is this really about "the baby?")

Throwing out health care reform with funding of abortion once again leaves poor women without options. Which apparently is right where society, and select bishops, want them.