Market Idolatry, Conservative Catholics, and Undermining Pro-Life Efforts in Health Care Reform

National Catholic Reporter published some very insightful commentary by Michael Sean Winters yesterday on how “pro-lifers undermine their cause” in the health care debate. Winters writes,

…But, by demonstrating their determined opposition to any and all of the health care reform efforts pending before Congress, they [conservative Catholic critics of health care reform] undermine the pro-life part of their program. In fact, they play right into the hands of NARAL and NOW and those groups who do want to hijack health care reform to skirt around the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition of federal funds subsidizing abortion services. The administration and the leaders in Congress have no reason to listen to pro-life advocates on abortion if they are going to be opposed to the final bill on other grounds anyway…

He goes on to conclude,

It is strange indeed to see conservative Catholics unwittingly aiding and abetting the agenda of the pro-abortion organizations they oppose. And stranger still that conservatives who spent the last election cycle saying that no political issue mattered as much as abortion are suddenly putting their idolatry of the market before adopting a sound strategy for keeping abortion coverage out of the health care reform effort. They have provided ample reason for the administration and Congress to ignore their pleas on abortion. The may see themselves as the “loyal opposition” but they are not being loyal to the pro-life cause they espouse. They are undermining it.

It’s an important and well-made point, and one that such critics would do well to reflect upon.