Catholics for Choice

Key findings include:

• Latinos, Catholic women and Catholic millennials show the largest support for Clinton over Trump.
• Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that the views of the Catholic hierarchy are not important to them when they are deciding who to vote for in the presidential election.
• Six in ten Catholic voters do not feel an obligation to vote the way the bishops recommend.
• Sixty percent of Catholic voters say that abortion can be a moral choice.
• Seventy-two percent believe that abortion should be available to pregnant women who have contracted the Zika virus.
• Seventy percent of Catholics do not think that companies should be allowed to use the owner’s religious beliefs as a reason to deny services to a customer or employee.

Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice said, “The Catholic vote is like a jump ball in basketball—every election it comes into play and both parties try to claim it as their own. As it represents 25 percent of the electorate, considerable effort goes into trying to determine which team will grab it. However, as this new poll shows what we’ve always known: Catholics are concerned with social justice and compassion and do not vote with the bishops, no matter how much the bishops try to project their own beliefs onto this section of the electorate.”

The poll was conducted before the vice presidential debate between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence, where the two squared off on religious liberty and abortion, but in a statement released after the debate Catholics for Choice said, “Catholics act according to their own conscience and they do not stand with the Catholic hierarchy on abortion, access to healthcare or the rise of religious refusals backed by the bishops, and similarly do not think they nor Catholic politicians have an obligation to vote according to the Bishops. In fact, Senator Tim Kaine said it was not the role of a public servant to mandate their faith through government, and on fundamental issues of morality, like abortion, we should let women make those decisions.”

Rhode Island is routinely said to be the most Catholic of the United States.

We ask that the Hillary Clinton campaign withdraw this appointment. We believe it is crucial for the Hillary campaign to send a signal that they will not be considering Raimondo for any posts in a Hillary administration, an event that would place the even more right wing Dan McKee in power. McKee is such a far­ right Democrat that we took the completely unprecedented step of urging voters to support his Republican opponent Catherine Taylor, and the AFL-­CIO went further and openly endorsed Taylor.

Moreover, we urge Hillary to make it clear that she, the national Democratic party, and the DSCC will oppose Raimondo in the primary should she attempt to take a US Senate seat in the future. Raimondo is so unpopular in Rhode Islanders that she could easily lose to a Republican. In fact, she only won by four points against a weak GOP opponent in a state that Obama won by 27 points. A Raimondo nomination is the GOP’s only path to a US Senate seat from Rhode Island, and it is of utmost importance that the national party prevent such a debacle. The national party has often intervened in primaries to stop weak nominees from jeopardizing a Democratic US Senate seat, most recently in Pennsylvania. We urge Hillary Clinton to make clear she will do the same in Rhode Island to prevent a Raimondo nomination and a GOP victory, should Raimondo attempt to take a US Senate seat.

Local reactions to the Supreme Court decision Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, which is being hailed as the most important reproductive rights decision in decades, have started to come in. Arguing that “…it is beyond rational belief that H.B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law ‘would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions,” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Steven Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Anthony Kennedy and Elena Kagan in the 5-3 decision that struck down a controversial law that closed 75 percent of abortion clinics in Texas.

Breyer wrote the opinion, saying, “Both the admitting-privileges and the surgical-center requirements place a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion, constitute an undue burden on abortion access, and thus violate the Constitution.”

The full statement from Planned Parenthood Votes! Rhode Island:

Today, June 27, 2016, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Constitutional right to abortion. In its 5-3 ruling on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Court struck dangerous restrictions on abortion providers in Texas.

While the Court’s decision ultimately does not affect Rhode Island women and families today, Planned Parenthood Votes! Rhode Island warns that existing Rhode Island laws and an anti-abortion rights majority in the General Assembly threaten reproductive freedom for Rhode Island residents.

“The Supreme Court made it clear that politicians cannot pass laws to block access to safe, legal abortion. Yet today’s victory does not undo the past five years of damage and restrictions already written into law across the country and what is at stake this fall in Rhode Island,” said Craig O’Connor, Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, Rhode Island with Planned Parenthood Votes! Rhode Island. “We will continue to fight restrictions on safe, legal abortion on behalf of all people in Rhode Island. This year, Rhode Islanders will make it known at the polls that anti-abortion politicians have no place in the Rhode Island State House.”

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling protected access to safe, legal abortion by blocking two unconstitutional Texas restrictions. As the Court recognized, “neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes.”

In Rhode Island, several anti-abortion laws exist that have real world effects on abortion access, for example, the prohibition on state employee’s health insurance from covering abortion. In fact, language in Article 1, Section 2 of the Rhode Island Constitution explicitly states, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to grant or secure any right relating to abortion or the funding thereof.” Therefore, if ultimately the Supreme Court reverses its position on Roe v. Wade, there could be very real and very devastating repercussions throughout Rhode Island.

“Physicians and patients must be free to make informed and medically-appropriate decisions without interference from ill-informed legislation,” said Jennifer Villavicencio, MD, with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). “Abortion is a fundamental aspect of women’s health care and must be protected. Rhodes Islanders need to ask their State Senators and State Representatives where they stand on abortion rights and reproductive freedom.”

Steven Brown, Executive Director with the ACLU of Rhode Island, said that the ACLU of Rhode Island has sued the state more than six times over restrictive abortion laws since Roe v. Wade. Brown said that although each suit has been successful, “much work remains to be done to make our state a place that respects reproductive freedom.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America – in its annual “Who Decides” scorecard – labeled the RI House and Senate anti-abortion. NARAL also downgraded Rhode Island to an F rating on reproductive rights – from a previous D+ rating. NARAL awarded the same score to Texas.

According to The Guttmacher Institute, politicians have passed 316 restrictions on safe, legal abortion at the state level since 2011.

Rev. David A. Ames, Priest-in-Charge at All Saints’ Memorial Church in Providence and Member of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Clergy Advocacy Board said that all people have “an inherent right to reproductive health care.” Ames explained, “We must continue working to expand reproductive freedom in Rhode Island.”

The RI ACLU’s Steve Brown offered an additional statement, saying, “We are extremely pleased that the Supreme Court has struck down these cruel and insincere efforts to interfere with a woman’s basic constitutional right. But this is hardly the end of the matter. Since Roe v. Wade was handed down, the ACLU of Rhode Island has been forced to sue the state at least half a dozen times over restrictive abortion laws. Although every one of those suits has been successful, Rhode Island continues to impose significant barriers to a woman’s right to choose, allowable under other U.S. Supreme Court rulings.  As a result, much work remains to be done to make our state a place that respects reproductive freedom.”

A planned fund raising event for Bill Deware at the Knights of Columbus hall in North Providence was cancelled this week when the Knights of Columbus was informed that Deware, a candidate for State Rep House District 54, is pro-choice. It is not known who informed the Knights of Columbus of Deware’s pro-choice status. Deware says, “I am indeed pro-choice. I am an ardent supporter of a woman’s right to control her own body. I would argue any human being in any situation has a fundamental right to control their own body.”

Deware is a Progressive Democrat. “I got involved with the Bernie Sanders campaign regionally and it showed me I could be more active politically. Locally I was brought to action by the cuts to Medicaid (which impact me and my family directly due to my daughter having multiple handicaps) and the need for tax and ethics reform in RI. I feel people need to get involved in the political process and help restore faith in government. Then we can start to make government work for us again. What we have right now, is not working for us here in RI. We want and deserve better.”

As for his fundraiser being cancelled because of his pro-choice stance, Deware says that “There are many issues that unite us and I would like to focus on those issues rather than divisive ones. For instance; the Catholic Church believes in social justice, racial justice & economic justice, as do I. Jesus healed the sick, helped the poor and didn’t judge. These are areas I would like to focus on in my career and in my life.”

A new location, Lancellotta’s Banquet Restaurant in North Providence, has already been booked for the fundraiser and will take place on the same night, June 30th, as the original event.

Knights of Columbus did not respond to a request for comment.

“As we speak the defendants in that lawsuit are being served,” said Senator William Conley, who serves Pawtucket and East Providence. “The cities of Pawtucket and Central Falls have Filed a lawsuit against Care New England, The RI Department of Health and the Attorney General’s Office. Through that lawsuit we’re asking the court to enjoin the dismantling of Memorial Hospital and make sure that those services continue while we go through this process of restructuring South Coast.”

Care New England, which manages Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket,  announced the closing on March 2. Since then there have been public hearings and rallies, but the plan to close the hospital seems to be continuing. Over 200 jobs are threatened. Conley is working pro bono as the lawyer on the case, and his work will compliment rather than complicate the legal work of Attorney Chris Callaci, who is representing the nurses union, UNAP 5082 in their efforts to keep Memorial open.

“When Memorial was licensed,” said Senator Conley, “a determination was made that this hospital was providing vital medical services to a core service area with higher social deprivation demographics than any other place in the state of Rhode island.

“That alone should be enough to tell us that you can’t relocate those services to Kent County.”

I was preparing to give testimony at the annual RI House abortion / choice exercise (hearing) last week when two facts or arguments occurred to me that happen to support my pro-choice position. The first is that a potential-father’s contribution to the mass of a fetus just before birth is miniscule, so he has no say in what the woman decides to do. The second is that forcing a woman to give birth is a form of rape.

Hear me out.

To my first point, we can see that the man’s contribution to a potential birth is about nil by looking at the science. A sperm cell weighs about 4.9 x 10^-14 lbs (mass = 22 picograms). The weight of a just pre-birth fetus averages about 7.5 lbs. So the father’s ‘part’ of the fetus versus the Mother’s part is about one in 155 trillion. Put another way, about 99.999999999999% of the fetus is from the mother. Therefore it only makes sense that the man should have little to say about anything having to do with the fetus. Note: spousal consent is no longer required nationally, but a Rhode Island state law to that effect is still on the books. Should the national ruling be overturned by the US Supreme Court, the RI law would take affect.

To my second point, that forcing a woman to give birth is a form of rape, what else can we call it? The state would be forcing a woman to create human tissue against her will. And then forcing her to expel it via the vagina. The state would force something through a woman’s vagina? Doesn’t sound too good to me; sounds like rape. Either the creation-of-tissue aspect or the expulsion part is anathema to the nation’s fundamental sense of personal freedom.

Similarly, any attempt to aid in a forced birth makes someone an accessory to rape or guilty of attempted rape. This means that any regulation or law aiding or abetting forced birth makes the state complicit in rape. For example any law requiring “informed consent” before an abortion falls into this category.

No, it really wasn’t all that funny.

Uhtime No. 3

Zubik is the reason the anti-choice group RI Right to Life took over the main rotunda, holding what was essentially a religious service in the center of the State House.

Above the Mass being conducted on the rotunda, outside the House and Senate chambers, nearly two dozen millennials in bright pink Planned Parenthood tee shirts held signs and met with their representatives to make the case for preserving their reproductive health care choices. After the House and Senate went into session they marched to Governor Gina Raimondo’s office to deliver a letter encouraging her to support a woman’s right to choose.

Let’s be clear: As the Supreme Court case shows, for those opposed to reproductive rights, the issue is not simply about abortion. It’s about controlling women’s bodies, enforcing gender stereotypes and exerting religious control over all aspects of our healthcare. After the Mass in the rotunda and the Rise of the House, Barth Bracy, director of RI Right to Life, argued in the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee against legislation that would allow terminally ill patients to make important end-of-life decisions and against a bill expanding the duties of physician’s assistants.

There is no area of our lives, no decision we can make, that RI Right to Life and the Catholic Church do not want to control for us.

Fortunately a group of fearless millennials and long time supporters of a woman’s right to choose let our representatives know that our rights are not up for discussion or debate.

Hundreds of people rallied outside Care New England offices in Providence this morning to demand that the Birthing Center at Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket stay open. Organized by the Coalition to Save Memorial Hospital Birthing Center, nurses, community members, mothers and “bucket babies” carried signs and were enthusiastically supported by passing motorists blaring their horns.

I spoke to Rita Brennan, a nurse at the Birthing Center and the president of UNAP Local 5082, representing the nurses there. Brennan says that the loss of the birthing center and the other units at the hospital Care New England plans to shut down will cost the state over 200 jobs.

Implementing the shut down and restructurings has been delayed due to the the intercession of the RI Department of Health (RIDOH), which pointed out that the closing was a breach of contract with the state.

RIDOH Director Nicole Alexander-Scott wrote, “Memorial Hospital is obligated to continue providing all existing services to patients. Memorial Hospital is not permitted, until the process is complete, to make any changes to the primary or emergency services currently offered, including maternal and delivery services.”

Next week there will be three public meetings to allow the public a chance to speak out on Care New England’s plan.

According to the Coalition, the dates, times, and locations of the public meetings organized by the Department of Health are:

March 14th: Goff Junior High School, 974 Newport Avenue, Pawtucket (use the Vine St. entrance); 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

March 16th: Woodlawn Community Center, 210 West Avenue, Pawtucket; 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM

March 17th: Segue Institute for Learning, 325 Cowden Street, Central Falls (use the Hedley Ave. entrance); 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM

If you are unable to attend one of the public meetings in person, you can email comments to Paula.Pullano@health.ri.gov or mail them to: Rhode Island Department of Health, Center for Health Systems Policy and Regulation, 3 Capital Hill, Providence,RI 02908.

Comments will be accepted through March 25th. Comments can be submitted or shared anonymously. Although all comments from the public will be documented and considered carefully, the Department of Health will not be able to respond directly to any comments that are submitted or voiced.

Shawn Donahue is an attorney at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and last Tuesday he spoke at the House Corporations Committee meeting to oppose a bill that would ensure “no pregnant applicant for medical insurance coverage would be denied coverage due to her pregnancy.”

I want to stress at the outset that Donahue seems like a decent man, and I sensed that he was somewhat uncomfortable speaking out against this bill.

“No one believes in the importance of pre-natal care more than Blue Cross,” said Donohue, “We’ve invested in it.”

That’s true. “Getting early and regular prenatal care is one of the most important things you can do for the health of both you and your baby,” says Blue Cross on its website. The site contains a wealth of information and advice on healthy pregnancies. But we don’t have to assume that Blue Cross is promoting neonatal care out of any sense of public service. Healthy pregnancies are cheaper for insurance companies. An insured baby, with proper neonatal care, is less likely to have expensive health problems going forward.

The importance of prenatal care is underscored by the health risks associated with not having such care.

“Women in the United States who do not receive prenatal care have an increased risk of experiencing a neonatal death… Lack of prenatal care is associated with a 40 percent increase in the risk of neonatal death overall…” says the Guttmacher Institute, citing a study, “Black women are more than three times as likely as white women not to receive prenatal care, and regardless of their prenatal care status, their infants are significantly more likely to die within their first 27 days of life than are infants born to white women.”

Other risks from not receiving adequate prenatal care include low birth weight for the infant, and pre-eclampsia, a form of organ damage, that affects the mother. From a human perspective, this is terrible and unnecessary. From the perspective of an insurance company, such health problems are expensive.

Yet, said Donohue, speaking for Blue Cross at the Rhode Island State House, “The only way insurance works is if you purchase it when you don’t need it so it’s there for you when you do. If you allow people a special enrollment period, whether they’re diabetics, cancer patients or pregnant people, they won’t buy it until they need it.”

The Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) mandates that Rhode Islanders buy private insurance on the state run health insurance exchange, HealthSourceRI. “If you’ve missed the open enrollment period,” said Donohue, “ you’ve broken the law and now you are penalized for that, and the penalties start to grow.”

Donahue is talking about financial penalties of course, but the real penalties from a societal point of view are dead babies, or babies and mothers with terrible health outcomes. Suddenly the financial penalty for not complying with the ACA mandate seems rather small and meaningless, doesn’t it? But more to the point, it’s exactly these negative health outcomes that Obamacare was supposed to address.

“We don’t let people buy insurance on their way to the hospital in an ambulance,” said Donahue. I would say that having to worry about financial issues during a medical emergency is a major system failure, and further, these gaps in care for vulnerable Americans expose the weaknesses in today’s for-profit health insurance industry, of which Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island is a big part.

According to Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), “Single-payer national health insurance, also known as ‘Medicare for all,’ is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health care financing, but the delivery of care remains largely in private hands. Under a single-payer system, all residents of the U.S. would be covered for all medically necessary services, including doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs.

“The program would be funded by the savings obtained from replacing today’s inefficient, profit-oriented, multiple insurance payers with a single streamlined, nonprofit, public payer, and by modest new taxes based on ability to pay. Premiums would disappear; 95 percent of all households would save money. Patients would no longer face financial barriers to care such as co-pays and deductibles, and would regain free choice of doctor and hospital. Doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.”

On the national scene Bernie Sanders has championed single payer, calling it Medicare for All. “Health care must be recognized as a right, not a privilege,” says Sanders, “Every man, woman and child in our country should be able to access the health care they need regardless of their income. The only long-term solution to America’s health care crisis is a single-payer national health care program.”

State Representative Aaron Regunberg has introduced, for the second time, a bill to bring the benefits of a single payer health insurance program to Rhode Island. His bill would “act would repeal the ‘Rhode Island Health Care Reform Act of 2004 – Health Insurance Oversight’ as well as the ‘Rhode Island Health Benefit Exchange,’ and would establish the Rhode Island comprehensive health insurance program.”

His bill deserves our support.