The U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Conference (USCCB) is urging Catholics and people of good will to contact senators set to vote Wednesday on the Women’s Health Protection Act.
The bishops’ pro-life office sent a circular email Tuesday calling the proposed legislation the “most radical abortion bill ever seen” and appealing for a concerted response to defeat the bill.
The Senate has scheduled another vote “to impose nationwide abortion on demand through the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act,” the bishops note, in response to “the leak of a draft opinion in the Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.”
In their message, the bishops state that the act contains a series of “extreme actions,” including the imposition of “abortion on demand nationwide throughout every stage of pregnancy.”
If passed, the act would also eliminate “existing pro-life laws nationally AND in every state and local government,” they assert, as well as forcing Americans “to financially support abortions in the U.S. & abroad.”
Along with what the act would certainly do, the bishops add that it would likely “force health care providers to participate in abortions against their beliefs” and “force employers and insurers to cover or pay for abortion.”
“Please contact your Senators today to let them know this horrible bill must never become law,” they conclude.
Also on Tuesday, the bishops called for a day of prayer and fasting for an end to abortion in America, to be celebrated this Friday, May 13.
Students and parents from the Wickenberg Christian Academy, in Wickenberg, Arizona, pray in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on May 03, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Some abortion advocates “are calling for nationwide demonstrations, disruptions of church services, and the personal intimidation of specific Supreme Court justices” following the leak of the draft opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, they noted.
Pro-abortion activists protest outside of Manhattan’s Basilica of Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral on May 7, 2022 in New York City. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
“In the midst of current tensions, we invite Catholics around the country to join us in fasting and praying the Rosary on Friday, May 13, the Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima,” they said in a statement cosigned by Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, president of the USCCB, and Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
The first prayer intention is “for our nation” and “the integrity of our judicial system,” that all branches of government may be dedicated to seeking the common good and defending the dignity and rights of every person, “from conception to natural death,” they wrote.
The second intention explicitly asks for “the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in the Supreme Court’s final decision in Dobbs v. Jackson.”