In my last column I addressed a bill, LB 586, that the Nebraska Catholic Conference (representing the bishops in Nebraska) strongly opposes. In this column, I will highlight some of the bills we are supporting.
LB 268 would repeal the death penalty in favor of incarceration for life. The teaching of the Catholic Church, as presented in the Modern Catechism, does not condemn use of the death penalty in principle because it is not regarded as intrinsically immoral. Recourse to it is not excluded from the right and duty the State has to defend society from unjust aggressors.
Nevertheless, Catholic teaching also applies an extremely important condition to use of the death penalty; namely, if non-lethal means are sufficient to defend the innocent and preserve public order and safety, then public authority must limit itself to such means, as they are more in keeping with the common good and more in conformity with the inherent dignity of each human being.
As the bishops said in their recent statement on the death penalty, “Catholic teaching allows the use of the death penalty under certain clear and specific conditions. We do not believe that those conditions exist in Nebraska at this time.”
LB 268 is awaiting the first round of debate in the Legislature which will likely begin this week and carry into next week. We ask Nebraskans to contact their state senator and urge him/her to support LB 268. This can be done easily on the Nebraska Catholic Conference website, www.necatholic.org, by clicking on “Take Action.”
LB 89 would raise the maximum payment level for Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) for the first time in 30 years. Since its inception in 1968, the Nebraska Catholic Conference has urged support for a meaningful ADC program as a means for assisting Nebraska families who every day face the challenges and hardships of poverty, especially children. The Catholic Church believes there is a common social obligation to respond to the needs of those who are materially poor.
The Nebraska Aid to Dependent Children program is vital for the poor and working poor in Nebraska. Inflation strikes hardest at the poor and disadvantaged who have to spend large portions of their limited resources on basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter. Unfortunately, children usually bear the brunt of this hardship.
Thankfully, LB 89 has advanced to the final stage of debate in the Legislature and is likely to be enacted into law this session.
LB 114 would categorize abortion facilities as ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) for the purpose of regulation by the state. For 30 years abortion facilities have been regulated as health clinics—a classification that has lower safety standards than ambulatory surgical centers—even though they perform surgical procedures similar in nature to procedures done in other ASCs.
The fact that surgical (and chemical) abortion procedures have real potential for life-threatening complications is reason enough for abortion facilities to be subject to the same regulatory oversight as other similar surgical centers. The fact that there are several actual and recent cases in Nebraska—and many more such cases nationally—in which women were victims of botched abortions and shoddy medical practices only makes the need for LB 114 more compelling.
LB 114 received a late public hearing and, as a result, wasn’t prioritized for this session. This means that if it is voted out of the Judiciary Committee before the end of this year’s session it will not likely be scheduled for debate this year but would likely be prioritized and debated next year.
Other bills that the Nebraska Catholic Conference (NCC) supports are LB 187, LB 623, LB 358, LB 495 and LB 26, the scholarship tax credit bill that I featured in a previous column. All of the bills NCC supports and opposes can be seen on our website at www.necatholic.org under Public Policy.
