Simplistic Stupak health reform amendment threatens religious freedom

Catholic-driven debate about the role of abortion in health reform legislation conceals "the fact that the foundational theologies among Jews, Muslims, and even many otherwise “conservative” Christians are more nuanced and complicated than the simplistic and absolutist stands taken by the “C Street” Democrats and their supporters," writes Gordon D. Newby,professor of Jewish, Islamic, and Comparative Studies at Emory University.

The House bill tramples the complex variety of American faith in favor of a particular view whose narrowness paves "the way to enact religious discrimination into law; on the important and fundamental issues of life and health, many religious Americans will be unable to live and act according to their own religious consciences and beliefs."

Read the entire piece here.

Have you read the health reform bills and proposals?

Here [.pdf] is a side-by-side comparison of the leading comprehensive health care reform proposals.

It is provided by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

Please read all 44 pages of it.

Then the next time someone asks whether you "have read the bill," you can correctly answer "bills," and discuss the key issues with confidence.

Both extremes of the is-abortion-covered argument are wrong

Beliefnet's Steve Waldman digs deep into the facts of this debate and returns agreeing with us:

To understand requires us to take a journey into the legislative weeds but here's my bottom line: those who claim abortion clearly is covered and those who say it clearly isn't are both wrong.

His conclusion, fully stated, is:

We often think of abortion as a black and white issue. But when it comes to the question of whether health care reform bills "cover" or provide "taxpayer support for" abortion, there are many shades of gray. As of now, neither side is entirely telling the truth about what the bills do; on some aspects, Obama and his allies have misled, on others pro-lifers have. More important, some of this does not involve matters of "fact" or "truth" or "lies" but rather subjective judgment calls, a land where ideologues don't function well but legislators must.

The entire column deserves a careful reading here.