Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, just published a new book called Pro-life Reflections for Every Day.  The “minute meditation” for October 9 was based on a quote from Pope John Paul’s 1995 encyclical, The Gospel of Life. Here is the meditation from the book published by Catholic Book Publishing Corp. in New Jersey.

Physicians and health care workers are also responsible, when the skills they acquired to promote life are placed at the service of death. – The Gospel of Life, 59

Reflection. Pro-abortion politicians will often say to us, “Legislators should not be practicing medicine.” But we’re not asking them to practice medicine, but to prevent the abuse of medicine.

Medicine is for the purpose of preserving life; abortion takes life. There is no disease that abortion cures, and no proven medical benefit.

I thought the meditation was apropos since August 1, 2012 is the beginning of implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) the massive so-called “healthcare reform” that the Congress and President Obama passed in 2010. The first implementation is the requirement that all health plans pay for contraception and potentially abortion-causing drugs such as Plan B–a.k.a. the morning after pill or Ella–with a very narrow exception for religious organizations.

But of course, this is but the beginning of the rules that lead to death that the PPACA, for example, all health plans will be required to collect $1 per person per month to be applied to a special fund that will pay for abortions. By the way, the PPACA also states that the employee doesn’t need to be informed that their premiums will include this $1 per month charge nor will you have an opportunity to opt out of it.