By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
Two prominent Senators have received public rebukes from their bishops for voting against the Nelson-Hatch Amendment which would have prohibited the use of public funds for abortion in the Senate’s health care reform bill.
The Daily Comet is reporting that after Catholic Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) cast her vote against the amendment, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond issued a statement saying that he will continue what he calls a “prayerful, open dialogue” with her.
“We agree on many things, but definitely do not agree on the issue of abortion,” he said. “I will continue to be in prayerful, open dialogue with Senator Landrieu, and I continue to pray that the sanctity of life will be protected always.”
Landrieu, who has an increasingly mixed voting record on abortion, said she voted against the amendment because she believed it would take legal abortion coverage out of private insurance policies.
“One of the pledges we made at the start of this debate was that we would ensure that Americans who like their current health coverage would get to keep it,” she said in a news release.
Landrieu’s vote was not popular in the heavily Catholic state where she has never won election by more than a few percentage points. During her 1996 Senate campaign, popular retired archbishop Philip Hannan of New Orleans said a vote for her or then-President Bill Clinton would be a sin because of their abortion rights support.
In Missouri, Catholic Senator Claire McCaskill is also facing criticism for her vote. A Catholic who claims she has not taken Communion since divorcing her first husband in the 1980s, she voted against the Nelson-Hatch Amendment in spite of saying that she is against federal funding of abortion.
She claims she voted against the measure because it goes beyond what is already the law. “The law as it stands right now says no federal money for abortion. I think most of the senators are comfortable with that,” she said, and went on to make the erroneous claim that the Nelson/Hatch amendment would have made it illegal for women to even use private money if they have a government plan to pay for abortion.
Michael Hoy of the Missouri Catholic Conference set the record straight. “The amendment clearly allows people to purchase abortion coverage with their own money” he said, and expressed the disappointment of the state’s bishops for breaking her promise to keep federally funded abortion out of healthcare reform.
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