Life issues

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I write to you concerning an alarming and serious matter that negatively impacts the Church in the United States directly and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith. The federal government, which was formed to be "of, by, and for the people," has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people – the Catholic population – and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful.

File Attachment: 

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson's letter to the faithful regarding the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' mandate.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure has reversed its decision to halt grants to Planned Parenthood, leaving members of the local and national pro-life community dazed.

The organization apologized and has decided to revise its policy that led to its earlier decision to cut funding to the nation's largest abortion provider.

When the opportunity to help chaperone my son's pro-life club at St. Louis Priory School to the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. came along, I realized how many years had passed since I had last walked the streets of our nation's capital in witness to the cause for life.

Last week the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would not rescind its mandate that nearly all health plans provide, free of charge, contraceptives, sterilization procedures and abortifacients to "all women with reproductive capacity."

How important is the right of conscience in American tradition?

It has always been of paramount importance: "No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority" (Thomas Jefferson, 1809).

In the past, has the federal government respected conscientious objections to procedures such as sterilization that may violate religious beliefs or moral convictions?

According to newly released information from the Missouri Department of Health, Missouri women had 1,019 fewer abortions in 2010 than in the previous year -- a 9.4 percent decline.

The Missouri Catholic Conference, public policy agency of the state's bishops, stated that the decrease represented the fewest number of abortions performed in Missouri since 1973.