Roundup: Abortion and Health Reform, Common Ground, Same Sex Adoption

Jul 28, 2009, 8:40am

Three themes repeated in today's news: abortion and health reform, reactions to the Ryan-DeLauro bill and calls for "common ground," and same sex adoption.

Three themes repeated in today’s news: abortion and health reform, reactions to the Ryan-DeLauro bill and calls for "common ground," and same sex adoption.

Abortion and health reform:

Is the President’s support for choice only rhetoric-deep? Bonnie Erbe argues it is in her post today at US News and World Report:

Rich and even middle-class women can always get [an abortion] from ob-gyn’s
or private hospitals that provide them. But poor women are denied
abortions by a combination of economics and the Christian right. Now,
our supposedly pro-choice president is signaling that federal funds for abortion is not the kind of issue over which he’s willing to wage a fight:

In an interview with Katie Couric, the president said, "I’m
pro-choice, but I also think we have a tradition in this town,
historically, of not financing abortions as part of government funded
healthcare."

Actually, President Obama
is about as pro-choice as he is anti-war, pro-environment, and
pro-women’s rights, which is to say, not so much or hardly at all when
it comes to action versus rhetoric.

Of course, as noted in Jonathan Allen’s column in CQ Politics, others, such as the National Right to Life Committee, want to prevent even private insurance companies from covering elective abortion, which would be a step backward as they already do today.

Ryan-DeLauro and Common Ground:

Bob Allen, reporting for Associated Baptist Press, writes that a number of religious leaders have lent their support to the revised and recently re-introduced Ryan-DeLauro bill.

More than three dozen faith leaders and organizations from across the
political spectrum announced support for the bill, which seeks to
redirect decades of debate away from abortion rights and toward the
reasons women have abortions.

"It emphasizes not the 10 percent of the issue, where we continue to
differ, but the 90 percent where we all agree," DeLauro said at a
Washington press conference announcing the bill July 23.

Supporters range from NARAL Pro-Choice America to Florida Pastor Joel Hunter, a one-time president-elect of the Christian Coalition.

Several Baptists submitted statements of support, including Frank Page,
former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who told the Associated Press he has concerns about the bill but that he tentatively supports it.

Same-sex Adoption:

In the United Kingdom, according to BBC News, a pediatrician was asked to resign from a county council after voting against same-sex adoption. The Northampshire County Council recently reinstated the doctor, though will prevent her from exercising voting rights on adoption issues.

Northamptonshire County Council said she can continue as a medical adviser.

But Dr Matthews will no longer be allowed to be a full voting member of the panel because of her views.

Dr Matthews is a community paediatrician with more than 18 years’ experience advising parents and children in Northamptonshire.

She had worked on the adoption panel for five years, before she was removed from it earlier this month.

Dr
Matthews said: "As a Christian and a paediatrician I believe that
children do best with a mother and father in a committed, long-term
relationship.

"Therefore, I cannot recommend a same-sex household to be in the best interest of a child."

At least one group has protested:

Andrea Minichiello Williams, from the Christian Legal Centre, has supported the 50-year-old in her fight to get her job back.

She
said: "It is entirely unsatisfactory that she is unable to remain a
panel member and vote on the adoption panel on cases where placement
with a heterosexual couple is the proposed outcome.

"We are
hoping the council will see further sense and allow Dr Matthews to
remain a voting panel member, giving advice on health matters but with
the freedom to abstain on the rare occasions where placement is
proposed with a same sex couple."

But according to a spokesman for Northamptonshire County Council:

We have told
Dr Matthews that the county council has no objection to her continuing
to provide medical advice to the adoption panel.

However we
have told Dr Matthews that she cannot continue to act as a full member
of the adoption panel with voting rights as she is not fulfilling the
full duties by refusing to vote on adoption issues regarding same sex
couples.

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