In a press release today, Catholics United strongly condemns "a new television attack ad campaign by the Family Research Council’s FRC Action lobbying operation that misinforms the U.S. public about health care reform." 

The Family Research Council’s efforts are part of a broader “Stop the Abortion Mandate” campaign that is using abortion scare tactics to turn pro-life voters against health reform.

FRC’s ad, “After a Government Takeover,” includes actors playing a husband and wife, and as reported earlier on Rewire, claims that draft health reform proposals now being debated would provide public funding for abortions.

However, as CU notes in its release, and as has also been widely reported here, by CNN.com and elsewhere:

Currently, no health care bill contains any reference to abortion, let alone a mandate for public funding of abortion.  In a rebuttal to the attack ad, CNN.com notes that “the current bill does not contain any provision for taxpayer-funded abortions.”

[See also this article on Rewire today by Jessica Arons of the Center for American Progress and this piece by Brady Swenson of Rewire.]

“Either the Family Research Council is seriously misinformed, or it is intentionally distorting the truth in order to derail health care reform,” said Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United. 

“If the Family Research Council was truly committed to human life it would focus its efforts on ensuring that the tens of millions of Americans who currently lack heath insurance can get the care they need.  This attack ad is unhelpful, untruthful, and not at all pro-life.”

"The actions of the Family Research Council and the ‘Stop the Abortion Mandate’ campaign pose perhaps the single greatest threat to the passage of health care reform,” said Korzen.  “We urge them to do the right thing and suspend these efforts immediately.”