Atom Feed (xml)Last week, in response to President Obama's speech on health-care reform, Richard Doerflinger-- a veteran staff member for the US bishops' pro-life committee-- said:
We especially welcome the President’s commitment to exclude federal funding of abortion, and to maintain existing federal laws protecting conscience rights in health care.
But if you read the President's speech carefully, you'll notice that the relevant section did not make any commitment. On the contrary, Obama was addressing what he described as misconceptions about the legislation that's now being considered:
One more misunderstanding I want to clear up - under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.
In context, then, President Obama didn't seem to be promising to exclude abortion funding from his health-care package; he seemed to be claiming that it was already excluded-- which, in fact, it isn't.
