Since 2006, HHS has used the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) as a sub-grantor for services to help human trafficking victims, paid for with taxpayer dollars. As our news release explains:
Through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the federal government distributes funds to cover an array of services needed by the more than 14,000 individuals, predominantly women, who are brought into the United States annually and exploited for their labor, including in the commercial sex industry. Many trafficking victims experience extreme violence and sexual assault at the hands of their traffickers. Some become pregnant as a result of rape and some contract sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, according to today’s legal papers.
That’s why it’s wrong for the government to accede to the USCCB’s policy of not supporting contraceptive or abortion services with the federal funds it administers — the victims of this mistreatment need to have their options open.
News coverage of the story has been strong. Maria Sacchetti at the Globe covers it here, Scott Malone for Reuters here, and Denise Lavoie for the Associated Press here.
going without any help. Wonderful.
or are you just pissed that someone is criticizing the church? the church is not beyond reproach simply because it is a religious organization.
and even more for evangelical denominations, but my pissed-offness isn’t over criticism. The ACLU knows that the Catholic Church would cancel all it’s operations in this field before it aids people in having abortions if told they must.
would be within its rights to do exactly what you say — but in that case, the government can and should find a different sub-grantor for these taxpayer funds.
Do they meet the normal high levels of efficiency per-dollar that Catholic Charitable organization and human-services normally have?
they should be allowed to use government money to advance their peculiar beliefs to the detriment of those they “serve” with that government dime?
then yes, they should be.
that those people would be unserved with the government gave the money to another organization to apply? the rcc isn’t the only game in town.
Charities are looking at the lowest levels of donations, ever. People are giving because they have trouble giving to themselves. The RCC has an established hand in helping these women. It’s set up, it’s working, it’s there. All this would do is take a player out of this and increase the burden on other organizations — ones that are typically understaffed.
<
p>Is there a line of qualified, effective organizations waiting for this money?
if your main argument is that “they’re the only game in town”, then you need to back it up.
on anyone making the “the Catholics are the only game in town” argument to back it up.
<
p>However, here’s something to consider:
<
p>The federal government doesn’t need to contract with anyone just to dole out the funds — it did so on its own before the contract with USCCB, and could do so again. The groups on the ground would then just each get a block grant to care for their clients, which is what happened before, and the federal government didn’t prohibit those funds from being used for abortion or contraceptive referrals.
<
p>Our concern is that the federal government has allowed USCCB to include this prohibition on reproductive health care referrals and services for ALL of its 80+ subgrantees, even if those subgrantees do not share their religious beliefs. We therefore seek to ensure that those organizations that want to provide reproductive health care referrals with federal funds are not prohibited from doing so, and it is up to the government to ensure that happens.
… the thing that disgusts me here is the notion that they are saying “wanna have a piece of my money? You have to play by my rules.”, when it’s not their money to begin with.
It’s ALL of our money, and that’s why it should be available to all without religious strings attached by the organization that the government chose to distribute it on our behalf.
The point of the case is that everyone possible should be helped, and that the government should ensure that its help for the victims of human trafficking should not be limited by any one particular religious view.
You are in a position to throw the “it’s taxpayer money!” card at me.
… conflict between the mission of planned parenthood and tax dollars. There is with proselytizing religious organizations.
…that since PP provides abortions and related services, that their tax dollars shouldn’t go to an organization that so blatantly violates their deeply held beliefs. I think we need to be careful. For all the screaming the prochoice side does about the prolifers trying to shove their morality down the throats of the rest of us (and I’ve done my share of the screaming), we should not get ourselves into a position of being accused of the same thing. My personal opinion is that abortion should be legal, but never publicly funded except in extreme circumstances.
Who’s tax dollars?
PP got a third of its funding from government grants and contracts in 2006/7.
<
p>Yes, my tax money went to an organization that payed for 305,310 abortions in 2007 and NO I’m not okay with it.
Your right to say how tax money gets spent is secured in the voting booth.
Teachers pray in schools: get sued.
Having a nativity in front of town hall: get sued.
Helping victims of the sex trade and don’t refer them to abortion clinics: get sued.
<
p>So my right to say how tax money gets spent is sued away, while year after year I’ve been paying for thousands of innocent people to go to the slaughter without any recourse. I’ve have my freedom of religion taken away because I’ve been forced into aiding and abetting a procedure that has no intent, no point, no reason to exist besides to take a life.
<
p>No, Mr. Lynne, I do not have my right to say secured in the voting booth in this regard. It has been sued away by decades of people living in their little fantasy world where God doesn’t exist and the secular, humanistic morality will (eventually, they hope!) bring the atheist utopia.
… taxes resides with free speech and the ballot. As with any tax spending, spending needs to be checked against laws. Your preferences are no exception. If your wondering about how you influence laws… see the ballot up above. You are, of course, free to try and change the law. In this case a constitutional amendment is in order.
<
p>Be my guest. In the meantime, I’d just as well have the law be obeyed.
<
p>Amazing what you call ridiculous… the fundamental workings of this country since its founding… that legislatures levy and spend taxes and pass laws, some of which restrict how tax money can be spent.
<
p>What country do you live in exactly and is it a country of laws?
I hold that using tax dollars to fund abortions prevents me from the free exercise of my religion. By forcing me to pay money that funds abortions, I am contributing to abortion which is a sin of extremely high order. Do we force Jehovah’s Witnesses to go off to war? There is a recognition that doing so would violate their freedom of religion, just as using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions do to mine.
Joe, I am forced to pay taxes that pay for the crime that is called the Iraq War. I am forced to pay taxes that pay for the crime that is call Guantanamo. I am forced to pay taxes that have paid the salaries of the war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Ashcroft, etc. I am forced to pay taxes that pay for state and federal programs that i am barred from because i’m gay. All of these things go against the very fiber of my being. They are as vile to my sense of justice and conscience as abortion is to yours. This is the price we pay by living in a pluralistic society. The only way to avoid such hardships is to live alone on an island.
as far as you deserving to be able to have every opportunity to be part of the programs that you are barred from because of your sexuality. Paying taxes to the military or to the federal government for the executive branch are part of living in the pluralism, that much I am aware.
<
p>However, I can see no reason that federal dollars should be funding abortions. None. At all. Even people here, like Christopher, who are abortion supporters don’t think federal monies should go to it.
<
p>It would be neigh impossible to stop federal money from going to the military or to George Bush and Co., but it wouldn’t be incredibly difficult to say “okay, PP, here is money you. You can use it for your sex ed programs and education and providing contraceptives, but this money can’t be used to perform abortions.”
Good luck with that.
are unfounded and show that you apparently cannot imagine my reaction.
As long as you’re complaining about teachers not being able to pray in school, you have to think about the impact of your child with an observant teacher of any religion other than your own.
… his assumptions to be?
but 19% on cancer screening and prevention
and 29% on STD testing and treatment
<
p>So, just think of the money they get as paying for solid non-partisan uncontroversial public health care for vulnerable citizens.
…the beliefs of a private company/religious organization are not allowed to override the basic human rights accorded to its citizens. If a religious organization is going to claim public moneys, it’s not too much to ask that it follow the principles of public law. PP is not impressing any religious beliefs upon its clients, the Catholic Church is.
If it becomes an issue of public funding, I’m OK with strings being attached to the funding. I wouldn’t take the argument that the Catholic Church is imposing religioius beliefs but PP isn’t too far, however. Obviously, one organization is OK with abortions and the other isn’t, and I believe both opinions should be held as neutral and equal by the government, even if one of the organizations is not literally a “religion”. If a prochoice person can say that giving public money to an organization with which they disagree is in appropriate then a prolife person has just as much right to say the same.
… and then dole it out to subcontractors, with restrictions that they not only adhere to their beliefs, but not even offer referrals for services outside of their beliefs. My tax money is ‘roadblocking’ referrals to legitimate legal services in the name of a religion I don’t believe in and certainly didn’t vote for.
PP does not attempt to “make” anyone get an abortion the way that the Catholic Church tries hard to “make” anyone not get one. That is a real difference. I am okay with my money going to an organization that seeks to avoid abortions (as both do), but I am not okay with my money going toward the promulgation of religious beliefs, the way that Bush and Obama want to do it.
I think the question from the government standpoint needs to be whether the good work done by the organization outweighs the tendency to use money for a narrow moral crusade. Personally, even as a non-Catholic, I’m OK with the Church getting money for the services it does provide even if abortion isn’t one of them. Hopefully the government would be diverse in its recipients so no single belief system is favored.
is locational. so a woman living in a region where the rcc holds the reins may have no way to obtain an abortion because there are no available provers in her area. it does her no good if the government is “diverse” by doling out money to a non-forced-birth agency two regions over. every woman deserves the same access to the same health care services.
The Church can’t control what services others decide to provide; abortion is legal and the US isn’t the Vatican. Even in MA, one of two states with a Catholic majority, I haven’t heard that finding an abortion facility is a problem. Of course, if our politicians are any indication, this is a hotbed of prochoice Catholicism. If the RCC is in fact the prominent charitable organization in an area, that’s all the more reason to fund their services if the alternative is no services.
because it’s a small state with a decent mass transit infrastructure. Frontline:
Mind you, that’s an old statistic from 2005. Mississippi in particular was recently down to 1 clinic. The rarity combined with the restrictions make the geography of access and the burdens access (travel time, time off from work, hotel in some cases, etc.) a real issue.
<
p>As far as the Church “…control[ing] what services others decide to provide;”, they have more control now than they did because of the way in which they are distributing funds. The taxpayer funds give them the control not just to provide the services they are willing to provide, but to prevent services that they want to regardless of their legal status. That’s the point.
Yes, the Church can control what services THEY provide, but what if I decided to set up an abortion clinic in the area? Certainly the church has no business telling me I can’t unless I were stupid enough to try it on property I leased from the archdiocese. The Church can’t tell me not to provide abortions and they can’t tell the government not to fund my clinic. That tactic would work in medieval Europe, but not the modern US.
<
p>I’m not sure what you propose to do about 87% of counties happening to not have providers. I certainly wouldn’t want to government intervening to make sure every county has one. The procedure should be legal, but the practicality of access shouldn’t be the government’s problem.
… and I want tax money given to the Church for purposes of distribution, I’m only allowed to provide services approved by the Church and not allowed to refer anyone to anyone else for services not approved by the Church. I’ve already covered this elsewhere in the post.
<
p>”I certainly wouldn’t want to government intervening to make sure every county has one.” You would, however want the government intervening to make sure that people from every county has access to basic health services, just not the health services you disapprove of. The “practicality of access” should be a concern for all kinds of health care. It should be a concern for government if people are effectively cut off from necessary health care. You are just not worried about abortion services because your religion can’t imagine it every being necessary.
If you set up a secular shelter, why would you want distribution to go through the church? Seems to me you should be lobbying the government to provide money to your agency directly. No middleman and thus no interference.
<
p>Yes, it would concern me if 87% of our counties didn’t have basic health care available, but I doubt that is true in ANY county in the US. Also, abortion generally does not fit my definition of “basic”. I’m fine with getting a woman the care she needs for her life and health, as well as if a rape is involved, but I’d rather focus on preventing the need. I definitely fall into the “safe, legal, and rare” camp, but please don’t assume anything about my religion. I’m not Catholic and my denomination, the United Church of Christ, is firmly prochoice.
… and watch the Frontline documentary I linked to earlier. The burden of geography will become clear.
<
p>I wholeheartedly agree with your notion that we should eliminate the middleman. Let the Church do it’s service and other organizations do theirs, all working directly from a government run, not a Church run, distribution system. Then when it is shown that certain services are inadequately benefiting from the distribution, nobody can blame the Church.
<
p>My bad about my assumptions.
they are preventing the flow of government money and information to them, because the government for some INANE reason uses them as distributors of gov’t money.
<
p>imagine that you have 5 kids. you give the oldest one (chuckie) all the allowance money for all 5, with instructions to distribute it fairly. but chuckie stiffs little johnny because, well, he hates that his kid brother sometimes spends his allowance on oranges. that’s about what’s happening here.
<
p>the government flat out needs to stop using faith-based organizations as money distributors. what a dumb idea.
…that government should diversify its own giving, not just rely on the church to sub-distribute. There are plenty of charities, etc NOT under the auspices of the RCC to which government can give money, at least in most places. The government can also attach strings. If the church doesn’t like the strings then the onus can be on THEM to sever the relationship with the state, kind of like what Catholic Charities did in MA when we insisted that agencies not discriminate against same-sex couples as potential adoptive parents.
I completely agree with the ACLU on most free speech cases, certainly on detainee rights, and certainly on most separation of church and state issues. But there are times when I am convinced that the ACLU in some instances clearly cares more about supporting its members secular progressive stances on the issues than about supporting and defending civil liberties.
<
p>I think you have a very high burden to prove that a woman’s right to an abortion is somehow violated by the fact that certain charities refuse to provide her with that service. Tax payer dollars go to Catholic groups to ensure that women who are victims of prostitution and sex trafficking are assisted, and I am sure assisting the victims with taxpayer funds is a cause the ACLU and the Catholic church agree with.
<
p>Now my taxes pay for Catholic services to provide housing, job training, counseling, healthcare, and all sorts of services to these victims. Similarly the Congress has determined that my tax dollars should pay for another private organization, Planned Parenthood, to fund abortions for women who cannot afford them. What is to stop a woman who lets say has gotten pregnant from sex trafficking to go to the Catholic group to obtain healthcare and treatment and then go to Planned Parenthood to obtain an abortion if she so chooses? Unless the Catholic group is actively preventing the women in its care from going to these other services I see no problem. The Catholic group due to its own policies of conscience regarding abortion and contraception should not be forced to provide services it opposes, nor should funding be cut off to one group that provides so many other great services especially when other groups receiving the same funding provide those services.
<
p>The only solution that would be fair in my estimation is to make it illegal for the government to fund ANY private group and simply integrate these victims into the care of the DHHS. Yet my suspicion is that it is more efficient and effective to use a combination of private and public groups and the ACLU is merely trying to force one group it doesnt like out and make the group it does like the only game in town. How are you protecting a woman’s civil liberties when you are in affect denying her life saving services and limiting her choices on where to receive them?
<
p>
<
p>They are empowered to distribute money to subcontractors, and then add riders to the money that handcuff the subcontractors into religious conformity. More to the point, these subcontractors are not even allowed to do referrals for religiously prohibited, but perfectly legal, services.
<
p>I have no problem with them providing services, but as the distribution point for funds for services they are acting as a choke point on cash. Their beliefs lead them to think that they don’t have a choice. If they can’t act in good faith then they shouldn’t be in this position.
While I admit I have more of a pro-life bias I am actually typically opposed to faith based initiatives on a variety of constitutional grounds and also to prevent situations just like this one where the state could be compelled to force religious organizations to provide services they do not want to for reason of conscience.
<
p>So again I reiterate my question, not rhetorically but as a legitimate question what is to stop victims of sex trafficking who get federally funded assistance through the USCCB from also using similarly federally funded assistance from abortion/contraception providers that are funded separately through other grants?
<
p>Or is the real issue that the USCCB was given a block grant by the feds to control the entire federal response to sex trafficking victims and was then put in the unfortunate position of refusing to fund abortion providers with the federal funds it was given?
<
p>Essentially it seems that either there was not a screw up in the first place and in fact victims are still free to use other providers that are covered under separate federal grants OR the feds screwed up and in fact forced their entire response through the USCCB in which case that’s just a really terrible idea all around and I can understand why the ACLU would stop that though I think they picked the wrong defendant to go after.
<
p>Again these are just points of clarification
… with religious organizations providing service. I have a problem when they use the service they provide to push a religious agenda. In this case they are doing so by compelling those they subcontract with, who do not subscribe to their religious restrictions, to comply with their religious restrictions. The ‘opportunity’ for the victims to receive religiously prohibited services elsewhere is further restricted by the mafia-like behavior of not just prohibiting service, but prohibiting referrals. The religion is getting ‘mixed up’ with the mission of the money. More specifically, the Church is pushing their religious mission by restricting access. In that way, the money is being used toward a religious, in addition to its secular, mission. The money is tax money and that’s why there is a constitutional issue. The public sector mission of the money isn’t allowed to be mixed up in a religious mission. That’s why it would be ok for the Church to supply services in principal… because it is possible (one would hope in theory, but probably be disappointed in reality) for the Church to provide services without entangling their religious mission into it.
<
p>I grant you that the damage this can cause is largely a function of how large the grants are and what the ‘market share’ of the overall distributive power the organization is given. That being said, why tolerate any damage at all if it isn’t necessary? And if there is an ‘only game in town problem’, then that points to the need for building or strengthening other institutions, not a need for compromising our legal principals. Let the church supply it’s services, let the subs supply theirs, and keep religion out of spending the money that’s not supposed to promote religion. In point of fact, we’ve had services before the ‘faith based’ initiatives so the notion that this ‘compromise’ is the world we have to live in is false.
None of the women seeking services should have their service options limited by the religious sensibilities of the tax-payer funded provider. That’s outrageous.
<
p>I’m attending a Jane Fund of Central Massachusetts fundraiser in a couple weeks. Their mission is to help women who cannot afford abortion services. I’ll be sure to throw them a few extra bucks.
There is nothing in the language of the law stopping victims from getting abortion services covered through another agency such as Planned Parenthood or this Jane Fund of yours.
<
p>The law is merely doling out money to a plethora of NGOs and NPOs, one of which, because it is religious won’t provide abortions but the federal government also funds plenty of abortion providers. Essentially there are two different services at work, one is counseling victims of sexual abuse and providing them with assistance to get back on their feet, and the other is a blanket service that provides abortion services to people that cannot afford them.
<
p>What is stopping a victim of sex trafficking who got pregnant from one of her ‘clients’ (more like rapists if you ask me) from going to the Catholic group to get the services they provide and then going to another group to get an abortion if so she chooses all on the federal governments dime?
<
p>Unless the ACLU can prove that there is somehow a burden placed on the women that prevents her from exercising this choice I really don’t see how they have a case here.
… the place where the victims receive services… they are also the places where they learn about their options. That is, of course, unless they are unlucky enough to be getting information from someone receiving tax funds from the Church. In those cases, they won’t hear all their choices… and even if they somehow had an inkling of what other options are out there from other sources (remember how deficient this population of former sex slaves is at interacting with institutions), they wouldn’t get any referral information from this source either. Note also the stealth way in which this religiously motivated restriction (of not just services but even information) is cloaked. The institution in question could very well be secular in all respects, but nonetheless religiously restricted in it’s interaction with victims.
<
p>That’s what stopping them. One of the most basic and effective tools for dictating behavior is the restriction of information. They are using the power that our tax dollars have given them to enhance their ability to restrict information and services.