A proposed bill promising major changes in the U.S. abortion landscape has Roman Catholic bishops threatening to close Catholic hospitals if the Democratic Congress and White House make it law. The Freedom of Choice Act failed to get out of subcommittee in 2004, but its sponsor is poised to refile it now that former Senate co-sponsor Barack Obama occupies the Oval Office. A spokesman for Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the legislation ‘is among the congressman’s priorities. We expect to reintroduce it sooner rather than later.’ FOCA, as the bill is known, would make federal law out of the abortion protections established in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade ruling. The legislation has some Roman Catholic bishops threatening to shutter the country’s 624 Catholic hospitals - including 11 in the Archdiocese of St. Louis - rather than comply. Speaking in Baltimore in November at the bishops’ fall meeting, Bishop Thomas Paprocki, a Chicago auxiliary bishop, took up the issue of what to do with Catholic hospitals if FOCA became law. ‘It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions,’ he said. ‘That […]