Stop funding Planned Parenthood, the nation’s Catholic bishops told the Senate today. The attempt to de-fund the nation’s largest abortion provider failed late Monday afternoon, getting only 53 of the 60 votes it needed to proceed. Speaking for his peers, Sean Cardinal O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, wrote in an open letters to the senators :

The most recent revelations about Planned Parenthood’s willingness to traffic in fetal tissue from abortions, and to alter abortion methods not for any reason related to women’s health but to obtain more “intact” organs, is the latest demonstration of a callousness toward women and their unborn children that is shocking to many Americans

O’Malley is the Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities. Last week he issued a statement on the Planned Parenthood videos, quoting Pope Francis’s description of abortion as the product of a “widespread mentality of profit, the throwaway culture, which has today enslaved the hearts and minds of so many.” Both abortion and the sale of body parts “fail to respect the humanity and dignity of human life.” He also pointed anyone reminded of their own involvement in abortion to the ministry of Project Rachel.

The president of the USCCB said he was “appalled” by the videos and “the reality of abortion, the taking of the life itself.” Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville told a Catholic radio program that “Our culture is becoming increasingly utilitarian. It’s very easy when you get into that mindset to see people as objects.” The videos should encourage Catholics to renew their commitment to defending life and promoting a culture of life.

The Catholic bishops have long opposed the public funding of Planned Parenthood. O’Malley’s predecessor as chairman of the pro-life committee, Cardinal Daniel N. DeNardo, wrote Congress in 2011 asking that language be added to a budget resolution preventing Planned Parenthood from receiving government monies. “To the extent that Planned Parenthood does provide any legitimate health services for women, those services can be provided by others,” he wrote.

When lower-income women need these legitimate health care services, should the federal government insist they receive them from the local abortion provider? Here it is worth nothing that low-income women generally oppose abortion more than other Americans, therefore more deeply oppose being told that an abortion clinic is a “good enough” place for them to receive their health care.

The Church’s teaching, as given in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, unequivocally opposes abortion from the moment of conception.