From a column in
the NY Sun
The Spitzer bill S.5829 is
euphemistically
called the Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act. It would
raise abortion to the level of a fundamental right, like the freedom of
speech, and would therefore prohibit virtually any restrictions at all.
According to an urgent “news & action update” released by the
New York State Catholic Conference and distributed at all masses last
week, the act would force doctors to perform abortions; force Catholic
hospitals to perform abortions; force health care insurance plans to
cover them; force employers to purchase abortion coverage; authorize
non physicians to perform abortions, and undermine parental involvement
in the life decisions of their children.
In addition, the Conference warns that the state’s civil rights laws
protecting doctors and nurses who do not wish to be involved in
abortions would be in serious jeopardy. The state’s funding to abortion
alternative programs and agencies would be required to cover abortions.
Many regard this proposed law as ultra radical and beyond the pale, but
when it comes to abortion, Mr. Spitzer has consistently been loyal to
the abortion advocates who’ve helped fund his political career.
One of the first actions Mr. Spitzer took after narrowly winning the
attorney general race against Dennis Vacco in 1998 was to target the
crisis pregnancy clinics that rival abortion providers like Planned
Parenthood. In a speech at a NARAL luncheon in January 1999, he
announced that he would be establishing a reproductive rights unit
within the Bureau of Civil Rights. Ostensibly, the unit was to prevent
acts of violence and, Spitzer said, “the murder of doctors who simply
seek to fulfill their professional oath.” Now I wonder what oath he was
talking about, because the classical Hippocratic oath included a
commitment not to cause abortions. That oath, of course, has been
modified to meet the declining relevance of morality in the practice of
modern medicine involving reproductive rights.
This
