Counterpoint: Bishops, not Biden, are defending the rights of conscience

June 22, in the Catholic Church, is the memorial of St. Thomas More. His story is told in "A Man for All Seasons," an award-winning Broadway play and the Academy Awards' Best Picture of 1966. More was lord chancellor of England. He was beheaded by Henry VIII for asserting his conscience against the king's will.

More's fellow martyr, John Fisher, is also memorialized on June 22. Fisher was the sole English bishop courageous enough to oppose the king's takeover of the English church, his manipulations of Catholic doctrine and his casting-off of the first of his six wives.

Ironically, on June 22 this year, the Star Tribune's opinion pages bristled with attacks on America's Catholic bishops. The bishops are pondering whether President Joe Biden's support of abortion should bar him from taking communion.

A commentary headlined "Bishops betray a faithful president" (June 22), a fusillade of letters and subsequent items on these pages have vilified the bishops for this.

It takes more courage, of course, to expose one's neck to the ax than to expose oneself to a Steve Sack cartoon. But the bishops showed moral courage in speaking up with the knowledge that elite opinion would be ferocious against them. And they were right to call Biden out, for conduct remindful of Henry VIII and his suppression of conscience rights.

Biden doesn't merely disregard the humanity of unborn children. Nor does he merely want to compel us all to pay for abortions with tax money, by repealing the Hyde Amendment. He also wants to force pro-life doctors and nurses and Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, in violation of conscience.

Biden has promised to sign the so-called "Equality Act." That bill was introduced at the outset of this congressional term, and it would be law had Sen. Joe Manchin (one of the last pro-life Democrats) not steadfastly upheld the filibuster.

These laws would be undercut by stealthy terms in the Equality Act. It uses the opaque phrase "related medical condition" to signify abortion. It bans discrimination against the procedure, bars giving it "less favorable treatment" and forbids "any inference that any Federal law" protects against performing it. It applies these terms to "all federally assisted programs," overriding state laws. (For a detailed analysis, see Richard Doerflinger's article on the Charlotte Lozier Institute website.)

The Equality Act is driven aggressively by the abortion lobby. Two years ago, that lobby issued a manifesto which changed its messaging from "choice" to "abortion as health care." It called for abolishing conscience laws (which it now calls "refusal of care" laws).

This Orwellian language mirrors the terms of the Equality Act. It is abstract, bloodless and opaque. It draws a curtain over the moral status of unborn children and over the very fact of their existence.

From their first days, unborn children plainly are alive and human. They have a full human and uniquely individual genome. They metabolize and develop in an integrated manner. By six to eight weeks, when most abortions occur, ultrasound reveals a vigorous heartbeat.

Science thus supports the thousands of doctors and nurses, clinics and hospitals, who refuse to perform abortions. The abortion lobby wants to compel them to do so, on pain of losing their medical licenses if they refuse. This is conscience coercion, comparable to the coercions of Henry VIII.

When Biden took office, he heartened people of good will by promising to unify and govern from the center. On issues of life, however, his agenda is that of the abortion-maximizing left. Perhaps the bishops' rebuke will move him toward the center once again. Their moral courage in the face of elite opinion stands in the tradition of John Fisher and Thomas More.