Health Care Reform Is A Loaded Gun With Six Bullets.

From Dr. Jeff Mirus at Catholic Culture, another attempt to paint reform as perhaps necessary but only if it discriminates against minorities that the Catholic Right wishes to ignore.

I posted something from Mirus a few days ago because it so graphically displays conservative Catholic demonization of women, the elderly, and gays. His six bullets in the health reform gun, which he says should not be included in health care reform and which he says prove that Catholics must stand strong against actors for the "culture of death" (a menace to society hellbent on killing), are nothing more than cold discrimination.

The framing of choice advocates as death proponents is nothing new but it prevents the Catholic Right and other conservative actors from, as Dr. Mirus shows, objectively understanding the challenges faced by those he demonizes.

Instead of discussing how to best address the rights of women, elders and the gay community, he discounts any attempt at reform that includes them, working himself, on behalf of the "pro-life" movement into a position of persecution. Essentially, the provision of rights to others has become an argument that the religious right is persecuted.

It's a dishonest, immoral frame and one that, particularly in the US, indulges the privilege of one minority group, in this case "pro-life" Christians, over the needs of the entire community. Judging from the successes of this powerful, organized, well-funded and manipulative group to limit women's access to choice of health services and doctor-patient privacy, the state and the medical industry have given preference to loud "pro-life" activists over those who are being denied rights.

The resulting self-righteousness and claims of persecution from those like Dr. Mirus are alarming to me. And instructive if we want to understand what challenges we face as a nation to providing equal care to all of society's members. The blocks which continue to be put up against reform - and let me be clear, there is no reform in this administration's health care bill! - are predominantly from the religious and "fiscal conservative" segment of society.

Ideology has allowed our country to neglect millions of citizens. Forty thousand die each year without health care coverage. This is an epidemic that we fail to end because our courts and our legislature continue to honor industry profits, discrimination in patient care, to deny that unbiased health care is a right. Within our borders, social and economic minorities are - to use Mirus violent analogy - sacrificed (left to die) for the sake of prejudice.

If science can package and deliver Dr. Mirus food, can cure his disease, can deliver his drinking water, swell his national pride of American achievement, and even, as our medical industry now does, prolong death, how can he deny the use of that science to better meet the needs of those he has chosen to condemn simply because he personally opposes their lifestyle, ignores their lack of his same privilege, and denies the same financial benefits he holds.

It is discrimination and hatred, plainly on display in his writing. His lack of this understanding, his determination to paint the Christian right as morally just and even superior, and his claims of persecution are not only shameful, they are fatal. But this isn't about Dr. Mirus conscience in any way. He holds a place in society where he can choose how to address his own medical needs. This is about subjecting a needy segment of our population to his ideas of morality. When he takes seriously the hatred and suffering inflicted on women, gays and elders, by this sort of myopic selfishness, I will try to take his protestations more seriously.

I’m sorry, but I refuse to be blamed for the deliberate insertion of false ideas about the value of human life, including support for abortion, into the very packages and programs which should have a proper respect for life at their core—and which, in fact, lose their very meaning as “health care” without that fundamental respect for the life, rights and dignity of each person. I will not be backed into that corner. I will not stand accused of indifference to those less financially fortunate because I balk when somebody presses an ideological gun to my temple and calls it “concern for the poor.”

In that gun there are at least six bullets: Abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, harvesting of human embryonic materials, gender-change procedures, and medical rationing by those who serve an anti-life ethic. None of the major issues which are being debated, including the astronomically high cost of these Federal proposals, has very much to do with insuring the poor. There are far cheaper ways to get that done which do not carry all this ideological baggage. To my way of thinking, those who insist that the culture of death be injected into every health discussion are the ones who are showing a callous disregard of the poor.

They are, in fact, allowing their ideological passion to impede the process of helping the poor and (as Phil notes today in The abortion distortion) they are intent upon setting up a system that must be dismantled as soon as less ideological heads prevail. Look: With 85% of Americans already insured, and some portion of the remainder capable of, but opposed to, insuring themselves (for many young and healthy people choose not to use their income in this way), we find ourselves within striking distance of full coverage even through existing mechanisms. That striking distance is so close that it would apparently cost considerably less simply to insure the poor through existing carriers than to approve any of the sweeping Federal proposals to date. Tax incentives and other pressures and inducements could bring this about even more cheaply.

The Catholic Medical Association thinks the Federal government needs to start over, and to quit ignoring both life ethics and the benefits of subsidiarity. So let’s not kill any more poor people than necessary to get this done, shall we? And let’s stop calling a spade a heart, and a heart a spade.

Remonstrance of the Catholic Right.

Frank Cocozzelli at Talk2Action.org about the Catholic Right taking over the church:

Meanwhile, those of us who are uneasy about reactionary trends in the Church have yet to coalesce. There are those who do bravely speak up. But I believe that there are many more who remain silent not as much out of a sense of fear of retribution but more out of a sense of no support.

While many are tempted to just walk away, I say that doing so only empowers the reactionaries of the Catholic Right. It is exactly what they want. In fact, it is their plan for conquest throughschism. They want those of us who embrace religious pluralism in society and liberalization within the Church to leave a global religion, with its well-organized hierarchy and diplomatic nation-state status, and massive resources, property and prestige -- solely in their hands.

I say that now is the time for rank-and-file Catholic to revive the idea of remonstrance, and draw on the wisdom of James Madison, who provides us with timeless tools with which to understand and to combat theocratic wannabes. In this way, we can disrupt the disrupters, not rudely or condescendingly but with dignity and firmness.

Our remonstrance can help us confront clergy who use the pulpit as a vehicle to seek to restrict the rights and the freedom of conscience of others. Our remonstrance can remind the media that the dogmatically orthodox do not speak for Catholics, or for Catholicism, but for themselves. And our remonstrance can remind our elected officials that their allegiance is to safeguard the religious liberty of all from an increasingly out of touch Church hierarchy.

And our remonstrance is just the beginning.

Now is the time for bold action. Surrender or grudging compliance is unacceptable. Resistance in the form of a loyal thoughtfulness that seeks reform, not overthrow, is the only acceptable course of action. Arrogance and intolerance are our opponents' way, not ours'. But all the same, it is bold action that will give our remonstrance collective strength.

Our bold action will strengthen the hand of our allies within the hierarchy and hearten those clergy who are waiting to speak out for the Church we believe in. We will rebuke the reactionaries. Some of us may pay a price for our actions. But sometimes such prices must be paid in order to achieve progress.

There will be those who read this and accuse me of being ant-Catholic. But nothing can be further from the truth. I am a Catholic who desires a vibrant Church, one that exemplifies the tolerant, dissenting, and inquisitive nature of its Founder. I understand that a Catholicism that uses oppression via secular government to enforce its dogmas is itself insecure in its own position. And I know that when any one set of religious beliefs become dominant over others then the free practice of all faiths is also threatened.

That is why I am calling for remonstrance - now!