Journalist Michael Kinsley once said that, “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.” Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley recently committed such a gaffe by telling the truth about what the Democratic Party stands for. In a radio interview this week Coakley said that devout Catholics probably shouldn’t work in emergency rooms:
Ken Pittman: Right, if you are a Catholic, and believe what the Pope teaches that any form of birth control is a sin. ah you don’t want to do that.Martha Coakley: No we have a seperation of church and state Ken, lets be clear.
Ken Pittman: In the emergency room you still have your religious freedom.
Martha Coakley: ( . . . . . . uh, eh . . . um..) The law says that people are allowed to have that. You can have religious freedom but you probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.
What is most surprising is not Coakley’s claim but rather that so many people are shocked by her statement. In her defense, she is a Democratic candidate and is merely following the logic of the Democratic Party’s platform . The platform’s position on this issue is clear—and consistent with Coakley’s remarks:
Reproductive Health Care. We oppose the current Administration’s consistent attempts to undermine a woman’s ability to make her own life choices and obtain reproductive health care, including birth control. We will end health insurance discrimination against contraception and provide compassionate care to rape victims. We will never put ideology above women’s health.
The Democratic Party’s position is that the right to be provided an abortifacient in an emergency room trumps the rights of pro-life medical worker to follow their consience and refuse to be complicit in the taking of an innocent human life. This is the reason some Catholic hospitals have warned that they will have to close their door is the Democrats suceed in removing conscience protection laws. To his credit, Obama has pledged to keep such protections in place. But in doing so, he is going against his own party. Coakley, on the other hand, is being true to what her party stands for by standing on the party’s platform.
(Sadly, Coakley’s Republican opponent Scott Brown is also pro-abortion rights, though to his credit, he also supports conscience protections laws.)
(Via: Gateway Pundit )
