How Can They Call Themselves Catholic?

NOTE: I became aware of this situation via The Curt Jester's blog post.

Kathleen Sebelius is a governor who has openly, publicly, and overwhelmingly supported - even promoted - abortion as a preferred "choice".

She has been asked by her bishop NOT to present herself for Communion, due to her advocacy of abortion.

The 25 "Catholics" who support her nomination are apparently also the ones who defied the US bishops group to support pro-abortion candidate Obama. That group is examined here:

Catholics for the Common Good

Sebellius has had a long-time relationship with George Tiller, an abortionist who performs late-term abortions, and who has been investigated in the death of one of those patients. From Wikipedia:

the medical director of an abortion clinic in Wichita, Women's Health Care Services, which specializes in the provision of late-term procedures.

His clinic practices have been a subject of criminal investigation:

Christin Gilbert, a 19-year-old woman with Down Syndrome from Keller, Texas, died in January 2005 after a multi-day abortion procedure performed at Tiller's facility, though reports conflict as to whether the abortion was performed by Tiller himself or by LeRoy Carhart. Gilbert had been 28 weeks pregnant. The autopsy stated that Gilbert died of sepsis following the abortion.

Last time I checked into it, the mother having Down Syndrome doesn't qualify as a medical condition. In fact, in 2005, from the KS Dept. of Health, the mother's medical emergency wasn't a factor in ANY of the year's abortions. So, despite the arguable possibility that Ms. Gilbert had a heart problem (not unknown in Down Syndrome patients), that WASN'T the reason for the procedure. If it had been a reason, they would have listed it as an emergency. Which it wasn't.

Some stats available at this site (NOTE: haven't vetted the accuracy of them yet. Will do so later today)

From that site:

There also exists a common misconception that late-term abortions are limited to medical emergencies. Nothing could be further from the truth. From 1998 until 2000, only one out of the 1168 abortions that Tiller performed after viability was done during a medical emergency. Upwards of 97% of his late-term patients weren't even from Kansas—they flew in from other states to have abortions that they had scheduled in advance.

That statement would tend to negate any defense of Tiller as doing only medically necessary abortions. It would also explain how Sebellius could state that the Kansas abortion rate had gone down, if she discounted the out-of-staters from those statistics.

Why were those out-of-state abortions performed? [I'm adding the official KS web site for those stats.] According to the KS Dept. of Health,

The patient would suffer substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function if she were forced to continue the pregnancy.

Well, that ends that discussion, doesn't it? It certainly seems to, since only a heartless villain would cause that major damage to a woman when the remedy is so easy.

Well, again from the KS Dept. of Health, a downloadable pdf report for 2007. Click on it to enlarge.



NO Medical Emergency. Just the Financial Emergency - Doctor Tiller needs money.

And Tiller is a Major Donor to Sebelius.