Catholics bring legislatures messages on life-and-death issues

Published: 2006-03-17

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In Washington, issues such as parental notification before an abortion, fetal pain and assisted suicide remained on the back burner in Congress and court observers wondered when a judicial challenge to Roe v. Wade might reach the Supreme Court. But around the country, state legislators were stepping up in defense of life. Although not every effort was successful, legislators in nearly every state were working to limit abortions, prohibit assisted suicide, improve health care access, eliminate the death penalty, achieve just immigration reform and enact a living wage for workers. In many places, Catholics were taking their message directly to the legislators. Catholics in Florida planned similar meetings with legislators during Catholic Days at the Capitol in Tallahassee March 21-22. Among topics cited as priorities by the Florida Catholic Conference were parental notification, the death penalty, farmworker safety, affordable housing, a sales tax exemption for textbooks and adoptions by homosexuals, currently banned in the state. In Illinois, parents and supporters of Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish and other nonpublic schools came together for a February rally in support of legislation expanding scholarship opportunities and after-school educational programs to low-income children attending public, private or religious schools. Legislators in California were preparing to debate whether that state should become the second to allow physician-assisted suicide, currently legal only in Oregon.

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