The Episcopal Church has endorsed a letter to members of the United States Senate endorsing taxpayer funding of abortions.
On Dec 4, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice released a letter endorsed by the Episcopal Church, Catholics for Choice and other liberal religious groups expressing their opposition to an amendment to the health care reform bill before Congress that would remove abortion funding from the proposed legislation.
“We believe that it is our social and moral obligation to ensure access to high quality comprehensive health care services at every stage in an individual’s life,” the RCRC letter said, noting that “affordable and accessible care for all” was “necessary for the well-being of all people in our nation.”
Abortion was an essential element of this health care, the letter said. The RCRC claimed the “House-passed version of health reform includes language that imposes significant new restrictions on access to abortion services. This provision would result in women losing health coverage they currently have, an unfortunate contradiction to the basic guiding principle of health care reform.”
Providing abortion coverage in the bill was “a moral imperative” and the “selective withdrawal of critical health coverage from women is both a violation of this imperative and a betrayal of the public good.”
The RCRC claimed the current bill was “abortion neutral” and prohibited “federal funds from being used to pay for abortion services, while still allowing women the option to use their own private funds to pay for abortion care.” However, this claim cannot be substantiated by the language of the bill, Republicans and pro-life Democrats in the Senate have charged, rejecting claims it was “neutral.”
Neva Rae Fox, a spokesman for the Episcopal Church, denied the letter called for public funding of abortions, saying it “simply asks that the Senate maintain current language on abortion, which takes a neutral position.”
The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations endorsed the letter on behalf of the whole church “based on longstanding policies of the Church,” she said.
Hat tip: Anglican Mainstream