ANTI-CATHOLIC, PRO-ABORTION BIAS AT SABELIUS' HHS

From FRC:

Starting Thursday morning, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) will try to get to the bottom of some pretty serious allegations at Health and Human Services (HHS). Did Kathleen Sebelius's Department give the order to slash funding from a Catholic program because of its pro-life views? The Committee on Government Oversight aims to find out in "HHS and the Catholic Church: Examining the Politicization of Grants." Chairman Issa has been pressing Sebelius for information on the controversy for weeks. In two letters--one from Rep. Issa and one from Senate Republicans--leaders asked the Secretary to turn over a series of internal documents on her agency's grant review process, which even HHS staffers called "unfair."

According to the Washington Post, the decision to pull the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) funding wasn't based on agency reviews, but on religious bias. Under HHS's own evaluation process, the USCCB scored "excellent" marks for its effectiveness. As it should. In just five years, its program helped more than 2,000 sex slaves find food, shelter, and medical care. But instead of renewing the contract, HHS redirected its grant to abortion-friendly organizations that scored "significantly below" the USCCB. When the President's political appointees suddenly inserted themselves in the funding process, suspicions grew. To the surprise (and later outrage) of agency officials who oversee the grants, their recommendations to partner with the bishops were ignored. "In the case of the trafficking contract, senior political appointees at HHS stepped in to award the new grants to the bishops' competitors, overriding an independent review board and career staffers who had recommended that the bishops be funded again..."

Enter Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. In an unusual move, her office also used its influence. Insiders say that "HHS staffers objected to the involvement of the Secretary's office, saying the goal was to exclude the Catholic bishops..." In other words, this administration not only manipulated the funding process. It was willing to give less qualified groups money just to satisfy their abortion agenda. If that means victims of sexual exploitation don't receive the best care possible, then that's a sacrifice this administration is willing to make. Ironically, it was President Obama who said funding decisions "must be free from political interference... and must be made on the basis of merit, not on the basis of the religious affiliation..." Obviously, his senior officials didn't get the memo, or they're reflective of a much bigger problem: an administration that's increasingly hostile to faith. Either way, they made a mistake--one we hope Darrell Issa can help correct.

See also:

Chuck Colson - "A Very Unhealth Situation"

Jason Tomassini - "Catholic bishops say religious freedom waning"   Reuters | November 14, 2011

Michael Gerson - "Obama turns his back on Catholics" Washington Post | November 14, 2011

Michelle Bachman - "Administration drops Catholic humanitarian work that provoked ACLU"  Catholic News Agency | October 13, 2011

Update:  Steven Wagner - "Kathleen Sebelius' Gruesome Moral Calculus"  Nov. 29, 2011  This article lays out the issues of sex trafficking and Sebelius' HHS with particular clarity. 

[...] The Church’s victims’ services program is not the only faith-based agency affected by HHS’ new requirement that victims receive the “full range of family-planning services,” including abortions and contraception. The Salvation Army — a huge presence in the trafficking-services arena — and the expanding membership of the Christian Trafficking Shelter Association also will undoubtedly decline to participate in the HHS program. Instead of expanding the pool of organizations working to “rescue and restore” victims of human trafficking, Kathleen Sebelius is advancing a policy that will diminish the reach of these vital services. But that’s okay with our secretary of Health and Human Services who holds that the “positive good” of abortion trumps all other considerations.