Integrity is hard to find...

But evidently not impossible;

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, August 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Like his fellow conservative delegates from Louisiana, one U.S. Representative has vowed not to support Obama's health care overhaul. But Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao (R-New Orleans) says that his primary motivation stems from a desire to preserve his own soul from the danger of participating in the destruction of "thousands of innocent lives" that are threatened by the vast expansion of abortion embedded in the bill.

"At the end of the day if the health care reform bill does not have strong language prohibiting the use of federal funding for abortion, then the bill is really a no-go for me," Cao, the first Vietnamese-American Congressman and a Catholic, told the Times-Picayune this weekend.

Cao once studied to become a Jesuit priest before turning to a career in politics.

"Being a Jesuit, I very much adhere to the notion of social justice," Cao said. "I do fully understand the need of providing everyone with access to health care, but to me personally, I cannot be privy to a law that will allow the potential of destroying thousands of innocent lives."

"I know that voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career," he continued, "but I have to live with myself, and I always reflect on the phrase of the New Testament, 'How does it profit a man's life to gain the world but to lose his soul.'"

The abortion mandate may not be the only thing preventing Cao's support for the bill: he also told the newspaper that he is wary of the formation of a public health insurance option, which Cao believes could end up crippling the private insurance market and facilitating a "government takeover" of health insurance.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, a Louisiana Blue Dog Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, says he voted against the committee's version of the bill Friday night due to in part to his concerns over the abortion mandate.

"I am concerned that the public option, as designed, would unfairly undercut anything the private sector could offer," Melancon said. "As someone who is personally pro-life and represents a deeply pro-life constituency, I am also concerned that this bill does not do enough to ensure taxpayer dollars do not fund abortion."

I hope he was born in this country, that'd make him a possible Presidential candidate.