Gender divide over the healthcare reform bill

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMar 22 2010

The historic healthcare reform bill has unearthed a strong difference between the Catholic nuns and Bishops. In short the great gender divide is at play again! While 59,000 nuns all over the country are in support of the bill, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops oppose it strongly.

The bishops have opposed President Obama’s healthcare reform plan on the grounds that it does too little to guard against public money being used for abortion. But the nuns have taken a broader view and supported the plan.

From the Nuns’ point of view

The nuns see no reason to support the Bishops in this move. Many of America's nuns supporting Obama's healthcare initiative were, until recently, among the "uninsured" that the bill addresses. Only in the past two decades have U.S. bishops taken up an annual collection to pay for basic health insurance for nuns, and for their decades of unpaid Social Security. The issue has divided Catholics all over the country, including South Florida.

"We've been waiting too long already for reform," Sister Diane said. "So many of the people we deal with are poor and don't have insurance at all. They've been putting around up there in Washington for a long time. I'm one of the 59,000 who want that bill passed. Or maybe I'm number 59,001."

More women are uninsured than men and when their children are born, they go uninsured too. The already born, according to the nuns need more care and compassion.

What do the Bishops say?

Under cover of this new bill people and their families who get federal subsidies to purchase their insurance policies will also get coverage for abortion. The bishops say that this means public financing of abortion because the subsidies will facilitate the purchase of the separate policy. They say no one receiving a subsidy should be able to buy abortion coverage.

The legislation "forces all of us to become involved in an act that profoundly violates the conscience of many, the deliberate destruction of unwanted members of the human family still waiting to be born," according to the official position statement of the bishops conference.

On Friday, the Diocese of Palm Beach released a statement that said Bishop Gerald Barbarito, who oversees 53 parishes spread over five counties, is in solidarity with his fellow prelates. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "as the moral authority to all Catholic faithful, instructs that health care reform should provide access to affordable and quality health care for all, and not advance a pro-abortion agenda in our country," the statement said.

In history these statements made by the bishop would have been followed without challenge by the faithful. But in the recent times Catholics have come out with their disagreements with their religious leaders especially on issues of birth control, contraception, abortion and role of women in the Church.