London, England, Aug 18, 2009 / 00:42 am
A Catholic newspaper in Britain has drawn harsh criticism for claiming that the U.S. bishops’ concerns about abortion coverage in proposed health care reforms are allowing a “specifically Catholic issue” to obstruct the legislation.
In an August 15 editorial, The Tablet said it was “unfortunate” that the U.S. bishops have concentrated on a “specifically Catholic issue” by working to exclude abortion from state funded-health care. Rather, The Tablet advised, they should concentrate on “the more general principle of the common good.”
The newspaper claimed in its editorial headlined, 'U.S. bishops must back obama,' that few other proposals are more clearly examples of the “preferential option for the poor,” claiming that nearly 50 million Americans do not have health coverage.
“The Church’s teaching is clear: health care is a basic right, derived from the right to life itself. Of course abortion is important, but the Catholic bishops have not put anything like equal stress on these other social justice dimensions of the health-care debate,” the Tablet argued.
The newspaper also claimed that “opponents of change” are “largely funded by the operators of the health insurance industry.”