Examiner

A controversial pro-abortion rights bill, co-sponsored by both of Maryland’s U.S. senators and tagged by President-elect Barack Obama as “the first thing I would do” as president, has the nation’s Catholic bishops mulling the shuttering of the Catholic health care system should the bill be enacted.

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Nationwide there are 614 Catholic hospitals, which treat more than 5 million patients a year, and 61 affiliated health care systems, according the Catholic Health Association, which opposes the Freedom of Choice Act. In the Baltimore area alone there are four Catholic hospitals, and there are three more throughout the state.

The bill, which would bolster Roe v. Wade by legally establishing a fundamental right to abortion throughout pregnancy, would also, according to the Maryland Catholic Conference, force taxpayers to fund abortions and violate the conscience rights of nurses, doctors and hospitals by requiring them to perform abortions.

The Annapolis-based lobbying group also said FOCA would undermine a whole network of abortion-related state laws and regulations — including a recent Supreme Court-upheld ban on partial-birth abortions — now in effect.

“Obviously this is a challenge to the conscience of Catholic doctors and health care professionals,” said Dr. Marie Boursiquot, president of the Baltimore Guild of the Catholic Medical Association. “If it came down to [a law requiring abortions at Catholic hospitals], I don’t see how in good conscience I could practice.”

“Senator [Ben] Cardin is an original co-sponsor of FOCA and supports a woman’s right to choose,” said Cardin spokeswoman Sue Walitsky.

Walitsky added that she did not know Cardin’s position on the bishops’ assertions about the bill.

NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Abortion Federation also did not respond in the matter, nor did Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s office.

But Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, who doubts that FOCA’s passage would force closure of Catholic hospitals, said, “We will protect Catholic health care in this country without compromising our position on abortion.”

The bill, which has 119 co-sponsors in the House and 19 in the Senate, will have to be reintroduced in the 111th Congress.