Check out this headine: “N.Y. Catholics: Dems Trying to Bankrupt Church.”
Sounds pretty bad, right? I mean, I’m not a huge fan of some of the Church hierarchy’s decisions, but I have no hate for the Church itself or the people who benefit from its services or the people who frequent its houses of worship. And I certainly have no desire to see the Church bankrupted.
Except, oops: Turns out that those mean old Democrats are trying to “bankrupt” the Church by making sure it’s accountable to people who were molested by priests as children. How terrible.
The NewsMax article lists three major points of “attack” on Catholic churches:
A proposal to require all hospitals to perform abortions, or lose their state license would put Catholic hospitals out of business.
Major funding cuts for Catholic schools by Gov. David Paterson, who continues to force the parochial schools to run state-mandated programs at their own expense.
An effort by Democratic lawmakers to abolish the statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits against the Church, allowing people to sue over decades-old cases in which the alleged perpetrators are dead.
Let’s go through point-by-point.
1. A proposal to require all hospitals to perform abortions, or lose their state license would put Catholic hospitals out of business.
They’re talking about the New York State Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act, but that’s not at all what the Act says. That Act seeks to ensure that abortion rights will be enshrined into New York law, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court. It doesn’t do a whole lot more than bring state law in line with the current national standard — the law basically says that the right to use or refuse contraception, the right to abortion, and the right to carry a pregnancy to term are all fundamental and should not be infringed upon by the state. It’s a pretty tame standard, and no different from the one we’re operating under — but it’s necessary because the current national standard is fairly tenuous. Currently, New York state law treats abortion as homicide, but with many exceptions; that law hasn’t mattered since Roe qualified abortion as a fundamental privacy right, but it would start to matter again if Roe were overturned. You can read the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act here (pdf). Nothing in the law says that Catholic hospitals (or any hospitals, for that matter) have to perform abortions. Of course, I’m of the personal opinion that if a hospital refuses to provide basic medical services to its patients, then it probably shouldn’t receive any state funding, and I would support a law requiring as much. It’s a huge problem that many Catholic hospitals won’t even terminate ectopic pregnancies — pregnancies that occur outside of the uterus, will never become babies, and risk the pregnant woman’s life. It’s a huge problem that many Catholic hospitals won’t give rape survivors emergency contraception. It’s a huge problem that many doctors at Catholic hospitals won’t prescribe birth control. I think they should lose state funding if they won’t care for their patients. But that isn’t what this law does. Not even close.
2. Major funding cuts for Catholic schools by Gov. David Paterson, who continues to force the parochial schools to run state-mandated programs at their own expense.
New York State is $13 billion in the hole. Budgets are being cut across the board, even for basics like public transportation. So while I’m always sorry to see education costs being cut, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the state to cut subsidies for private institutions when the state is already supporting a vast public school system that could use a whole lot more money. As for the “state-mandated” programs that Catholic schools are forced to run at their own expense… I suspect that means Catholic schools are expected to meet basic educational requrements. Boo. Hoo.
3. An effort by Democratic lawmakers to abolish the statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits against the Church, allowing people to sue over decades-old cases in which the alleged perpetrators are dead.
They actually aren’t abolishing the statute of limitations on sex abuse law suits against the Church. The proposed law — which the Catholic Church is rallying hard against — would open up a one-year window for abuse survivors to come forward and file suit. There are definitely problems with the proposal, and it would enable survivors to open up decades-old cases where there may not be adequate documentation or witnesses. Similar legal mechanisms have been used in California and Washington, and the Church did take a big financial hit. But the Church’s complicity in the sex abuse scandals helps to create a set of circumstances under which opening up this window doesn’t seem like a totally unreasonable idea; the abuse wasn’t a case of a few bad apples, it was an institutional problem that the Church itself fully enabled even when it knew better. So the idea that the Church will be held accountable even when the guilty individuals are dead or aged doesn’t bother me as much as it would under other circumstances. I still happen to think that the proposed law is problematic, but not because the Church is being “targeted” — and certainly not because it might be financially detrimental (since when is that an argument against someone’s right to sue you?).
And, call me cold-hearted, but I don’t have all that much sympathy for the Church’s complaints about how being sued for decades of sex abuse may be financially devastating. Sometimes you reap what you sow.
Thanks to Lance for the article.