Lawmaker supports Kennedy abortion stand


November 24, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Pennsylvania lawmaker defended Rep. Patrick Kennedy on Monday against a bishop who has acknowledged asking the Rhode Island congressman not to receive Holy Communion because of his support for abortion rights.

“We don’t legislate at the orders of the Vatican; we legislate what is in our conscience and what we think is good for our country,” said Rep. Patrick Murphy, a pro-choice Democrat and Catholic like Kennedy. Murphy spoke at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., where he received a John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award from the late president’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy.

Patrick Kennedy is the nephew of John F. Kennedy, the first Roman Catholic president. He and Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence have clashed for weeks over health-care reform and publicly financed abortion.

Tobin was bishop of the Youngstown diocese from 1996 to 2005.

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