In a move designed to reduce abortions in Australia, the government's health agency brought on board the Catholic Church to help offer pregnancy counseling services. A furor erupted, and now the health minister himself is running from the decision, saying it ws his agency -- not him -- that made the call. Meanwhile the church's welfare arm, Centacare, is saying it can provide bias-free counseling services -- regardless of a woman's decision to keep or abort a baby.
That just doesn't make sense. The whole idea behind the program is to reduce abortions. So the Catholic Church is brought in to offer counseling. And they're going to say what, exactly? Go for it! I don't think so.
Says a Centacare rep: "We're looking at making sure a client has all the information available and yes, some will definitely be making that choice to have a termination of pregnancy and we don't at that stage adopt any particular bias against that. We simply support them through that decision making and afterwards."
"At that stage"?
Translated, that sounds like: "We tell them they'll burn in hell if they have an abortion but if they ultimately decide to go through with it, we just shut up and think it."
Keep running, health minister, keep running.
