Is the gravitational force of abortion politics about to consume President Obama's health care reform campaign? John Gehring, a spokesperson for the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, remains hopeful that a satisfactory conclusion to the health care debate could be still be worked out during the congressional summer recess, but he says there have been some "troubling signs" in some of the proposals currently floating around Washington that federal funding for abortion could be included in final health care reform package.

That would "gravely jeopardize" health care reform in the United States, he says. Gehring's group, like other major Catholic organizations in the United States including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been largely supportive of health care reform. He thinks the support of Catholic across the political spectrum in the United States for health care reform would largely evaporate if the reform effort were "being used as a back door to federal funding for abortion."

Getting a health care reform package through Congress "is going to be a huge and complicated challenge," says Gehring, and few of the details have been worked out, despite headlines to the contrary. Gehring remains encouraged by some of the president's recent remarks that suggest he is aware that abortion could derail health care reform. In a July 21 interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric, the president said: "As you know, I'm pro choice. But I think we also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government funded health care. Rather than wade into that issue at this point, I think that it's appropriate for us to figure out how to just deliver on the cost savings, and not get distracted by the abortion debate at this station."

Gehring reiterated his organization's position on health care reform and abortion: "Maintaining the current policy of not using federal taxpayer funds for abortion procedures and retaining responsible conscience protections for health care workers and providers is critical to achieving the broad consensus necessary for comprehensive reform."

Fifty million Americans without health care is a "moral failure," Gehring says. "Legislators have to keep their eyes on the prize and not get sidetracked by a divisive and complicated debate on abortion. [Passing reform] is going to require some heavy lifting. It's going to be difficult enough without injecting abortion politics into this."

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