Less than a week after defundit.org held a press conference in Charlottesville to highlight Rep. Tom Perriello’s broken promise not to support any healthcare bill that provides federal funding for abortion, Catholics United, a non-partisan Catholic lay organization dedicated to promoting social justice, has announced that it will spend $500,000 on a media campaign to defend Perriello and other vulnerable Democratic representatives in Ohio and Pennsylvania whom it claims “are now facing a coordinated misinformation campaign from a host of self-proclaimed pro-life groups intended to perpetuate the misconception that the health care reform bill passed earlier this year allowed for federal funding of elective abortion.” Perhaps Catholics United should read the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) before they attack its critics since the non-partisan Congressional Research Service concluded that the PPACA contains a loophole—not covered by President Obama’s March 24, 2010 executive order—allowing federal funding for abortion via state-based, high-risk insurance pools. Without knowing the true contents of the PPACA, Catholics United claims that actually Rep. Perriello is a victim of politically motivated attacks by the “religious right”:
The attacks are all about politics. The religious right knows that Rep. Perriello faces a tight re-election race. That’s why opposition groups are gearing up to spend millions to convince people of faith not to vote for him.
Rep. Perreillo has worked hard to support and defend the common good and to protect human life at all stages. People of faith, especially fellow Catholics, must stand up for public officials who vote their values, particularly when they come under attack by single-issue extremists.
Help us send a message that people of faith in Western Virginia support those who vote their values.
It is unclear how Catholics United believes asking legitimate questions about a loophole in a public law—a loophole acknowledged by both the non-partisan Congressional Research Service and the Secretary of Health and Human Services—constitutes a politically motivated attack, especially in light of the Roman Catholic Church’s admirable and longstanding commitment to the sanctity of life (Nancy Pelosi’s revisionist theology notwithstanding).
Furthermore, if Rep. Perriello is as devoted to his pro-life Catholic values as he insists when campaigning throughout the 5th District, he should be willing to co-sponsor the bipartisan “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” proposed by fellow pro-life Democrat Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) that would permanently close this loophole and prohibit any future federal efforts to fund abortion. To date, Rep. Perriello has refused to co-sponsor the bill.
