Earlier today The Freedom Federation held its press conference demanding “explicit exclusion” for abortion coverage in any legislation as well as protections “for those with debilitating or terminal illness and the elderly.”
That was too be expected … as was this sort of crassly moronic attempt to use Sen. Ted Kennedy’s passing to bolster their case, I suppose:
“When [Kennedy] faced a serious health problem he did not go to England, he did not go to Canada, he did not go to a country that has a government plan. He sought treatment in the country that he believed had the best treatment available, and that is America,” said Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women For America, during a news briefing at the National Press Club. “That is a lesson that we can take from Ted Kennedy.”
Of course, nobody is arguing that our healthcare treatments are not excellent; they are arguing that our method of getting people access to those treatments is in need of reform. Those are two completely different issues.
On a semi-related note, Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has announced the creation of what it calls “Political Responsibility Teams” that will be dedicated to getting churches to “speak out” on political issues and “educate and activate citizens to exercise their responsibility to participate in the electoral process.”
Again that is not particularly surprising, considering that new right-wing organization seems to be popping up every other week. But I don’t even know what to make of this statement:
Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, the Catholic Church’s largest pro-life ministry, stated today, “The reason for the mess we are in with the health care reform debate is the elections of 2008, and the way out of the mess will be the elections of 2010 and 2012.”
I honestly have no idea that that is even supposed to mean. Is he suggesting that if Barack Obama had not become President and Democrats had not taken control of Congress last year, the healthcare reform debate would be just swimming along all nice and peaceful like?
If you want to know what is really causing the “mess” in the healthcare reform debate, these sorts of inane statements from Religious Right groups pretty much exemplify it.
