Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Planned Parenthood and Faith-Based Organizations: Strange Bedfellows?

The new Catholic governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter, has announced his intention to restore state funding of Planned Parenthood provided that the group can show that the funds are limited to family planning and pregnancy prevention services.  Archbishop Chaput argues that it will be "difficult, if not impossible" to ensure that funds "don't materially support the killing of unborn children."  I assume that the Archbishop is referring to the fungibility problem of funding: more state money for the group's pregnancy prevention programs means the group can devote more private money to abortion programs. 

Joe Knippenberg hesitates to embrace the Archbishop's argument to the extent that it tracks the "pervasively sectarian" objection to the funding of faith-based organizations: "I find myself in a strange sort of sympathy with Planned Parenthood in this case, in large part because I want to preserve the possibility of a financial relationship between government and FBOs when their goals legitimately coincide."

UPDATE: Joe Knippenberg elaborates on this point here.

https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2007/01/planned_parenth.html

Vischer, Rob | Permalink

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