WASHINGTON — For weeks, the Catholic Church has asked its U.S. parishioners to work toward ensuring that tough language restricting federal funding of abortion is included in healthcare overhaul legislation.
It has gone so far as to insert a prayer into the weekly bulletins of dioceses across the country, imploring Congress to "act to ensure that needed healthcare reform will truly protect the life, dignity and healthcare of all."
But as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the church's governing body in America, tries to rally its forces outside Congress, it is also using its leverage within.
A number of groups oppose abortion rights, but the church is one of the few to also support Democratic efforts to overhaul healthcare. That has given the church a seat at the negotiating table.
It used that influence this month as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the healthcare legislation. Negotiators for the church worked with lawmakers to add an amendment to ensure that federal insurance subsidies do not wind up funding elective abortion.
Supporters of abortion rights said that the amendment would in effect block coverage for abortion even when individuals paid for policies themselves. But the House adopted the amendment, and the bill passed.
The Catholic Church came to play a role in the legislation partly because it has long supported wider healthcare access for low-income Americans.
"Healthcare has been one of their basic goals out there for years," said Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, the Democratic sponsor of the abortion amendment and himself a Catholic.
The church also had amassed goodwill during years of working with Democrats on such issues as tax credits for the working poor, immigration, climate change and nutrition programs. It had built a level of trust that other antiabortion groups could not.
The church "played a critical role in a number of initiatives over many years that affect our most vulnerable people," said Ellen Nissenbaum, legislative director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which focuses on issues involving low- and moderate-income people. "Their work has made a tremendous difference on fundamental issues of poverty and economic justice."
As House floor action on the healthcare bill drew near, church leaders talked to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
