Originally published at Christ Medicus. You can find the original article here.

The mission of the Christ Medicus Foundation is to share Jesus Christ’s love in health care through advancing and protecting medical conscience and religious freedom, and by providing pro-life health care options in the marketplace. Our work is intended to help bring about a true culture of life in America.  The elimination of abortion is the preeminent public policy priority of our nation because it deals with the protection of life itself, and because well over 600,000 babies in the womb are murdered through abortion every year. The elimination of abortion greatly hinges on the kind of health care system we have in America. As we join with thousands of other Americans in today’s 48^th annual March for Life, it is important that we address the unique issues that the incoming Presidential Administration presents to a culture of life.

As with any President, our response must be to earnestly pray for President Joseph Biden. Therefore, we are praying for his success on those governmental policies and actions that truly advance the common good. Likewise, we pray for the President’s change of heart on public policy issues and prospective governmental policies that would do grave harm to our country.

On the issue of health care, we believe that President Biden has the opportunity to advance the common good by improving patient-centered access to medical care through more options and choices for the urban and rural poor. We further believe that the Biden Administration can do important, valuable work to protect the dignity and health care civil rights of persons with disabilities, the aged, communities of color, and materially impoverished families. His Administration also has the opportunity to protect the dignity and human rights of immigrants and their access to medical care. These are important issues that Catholic social teaching encourages the new President to address.

Unfortunately, however, President Biden, his Administration, and the new Congress, have already begun to take actions that are seriously opposed to the common good. As Archbishop Jose Gomez noted in the recent U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop’s statement on the inauguration, President Biden “has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.” President Biden has already issued executive orders and policy communications that gravely harm babies in the womb and their pregnant mothers, and which undermine human dignity, the right of medical conscience and religious freedom, and the foundations of health care civil rights. The President has stated that he would codify abortion’s legality into federal law and has already reversed the Mexico City Policy. He has pledged to establish federal government funding of abortion by removing the Hyde Amendment and to roll back the right of conscience and religious freedom in health care by eliminating the religious exemptions afforded to the Little Sisters of the Poor and others. When our President and government encourage abortion as a social good or seek to undermine the conscience and religious freedoms of religious institutions and citizens, they further a culture that does not truly value human life or human freedom.

As President Biden’s time in office progresses, the Christ Medicus Foundation is committed to upholding inherent human dignity, the right to life, conscience protection, and religious freedom in health care. When the Administration protects that dignity and those God-given rights, the Christ Medicus Foundation will support its actions. However, when the Administration undermines or attacks that dignity and those rights, the Christ Medicus Foundation will oppose those policies in defense of babies in the womb, the marginalized, and the vulnerable.

We encourage the pro-life community to pray with us today for an end to abortion, to pray for protection for all those whose lives and dignity are threatened, including the aged, those with disabilities, communities of color, and impoverished communities, and to pray for our new President, his new Administration, and the new Congress and a change of their hearts and minds so that they may truly advance the common good of all Americans, unborn and born.

Learn more:

https://mcdfoundation.wpengine.com/louis-brown/