Catholic Hospital – Fetuses Are Not People

A woman seven months pregnant with twins dies in the hospital emergency room. This is America. There is a lawsuit. And here is where it gets interesting.

Those rules have stirred controversy for decades, mainly for forbidding non-natural birth control and abortions. “Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death,’” the directives state. “The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn.”

The directives can complicate business deals for Catholic Health, as they can for other Catholic health care providers, partly by spurring political resistance. In 2011, the Kentucky attorney general and governor nixed a plan in which Catholic Health sought to merge with and ultimately gain control of publicly funded hospitals in Louisville. The officials were reacting to citizen concerns that access to reproductive and end-of-life services would be curtailed. According to The Denver Post, similar fears slowed the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth’s plan over the last few years to buy out Exempla Lutheran Medical Center and Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in the Denver metro area.

But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

Well isn’t that interesting. But there is more. If you are a woman and need an abortion to save your life you will not get one from a Catholic hospital. Because you know – life is sacred. This Catholic Bishop put it in writing.

Yes really. This isn’t my usual hyperbole, it’s exactly what the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, tells the president of Catholic Healthcare West in an official letter dated November 22, 2010.

I now ask that CHW agree to the following requirements by Friday, December 17, 2010. Only if all of these items are agreed to, will I postpone any action against CHW and St. Joseph’s Hospital. Specifically, I require the following in order for me to postpone any further canonical action directed against St. Joseph’s Hospital:

1. CHW must acknowledge in writing that the medical procedure that resulted in the abortion at St. Josephs’ hospital was a violation of ERD 47, and so will never occur again at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

The medical procedure that resulted in the abortion at St. Josephs’ hospital was done to save the life of the mother when the only alternative was that both the mother and the fetus would die.

People don’t believe this when you tell them.

Jewish hospitals are different. The life of the mother comes first.

Here is one from Ireland.

Last month, Savita Halappanavar died after University Hospital Galway (in Ireland) denied her an abortion.

The hospital denied the termination despite the fact that the fetus was dying because the country’s anti-abortion Catholic beliefs extend to cases like this.

This seems very similar to the Church’s stance on marijuana. And especially medical marijuana. Similar in that it makes no sense. Alcohol is OK for Catholics, but the safer drug marijuana is not. Except for limited medical purposes. But since drug stores do not sell it it is not kosher. You can read about it at: The Pope Hates Dope.

Well back to Catholic hospitals. Where in some cases you will be diagnosed by the local priest.

…if a woman is having a miscarriage or a difficult pregnancy and she visits a Catholic hospital, chances are a priest will diagnose and recommend treatment based on Vatican dogma and the bible, and not obstetrics and gynecological medicine.

In October 2012, many Americans were outraged at news a 31-year old woman died of sepsis after being denied her request for the termination of a nonviable pregnancy because “Ireland is a Catholic country” and Vatican policy forbids abortions. The woman, Savita Halappanavar, was 17 weeks pregnant and miscarrying when she was admitted to a hospital on October 21 complaining of back pain, and the consulting obstetrician and gynecologist that treated her indicated she made a written request to terminate her pregnancy; religion won and she died a week later. In America, a woman who was 16 weeks pregnant with twins was diagnosed as a “molar pregnancy” which can lead to cancer and the woman “didn’t want to carry the pregnancy further.” When she presented with vaginal bleeding, because it was a Catholic hospital, an ethics committee decided uterine evacuation was tantamount to abortion, and because there was a minute chance one of the fetuses would survive, the woman was “transferred out.” A real doctor who witnessed the woman’s case said, “The clergy who made the decision Googled molar pregnancy despite the fact that terminating a bleeding molar pregnancy is safer in the hospital setting due to a high risk of hemorrhage,” but she was sent away nonetheless.

Evidently killing women whose lives do not match church dogma is no problem.

The 2009 “Ethical and Religious Directives” issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops warns that Catholic institutions should avoid entering into partnerships “that would involve them in cooperation with the wrongdoing of other providers.” Catholic hospitals have refused to terminate pregnancies, provide contraceptive services, offer a standard treatment for ectopic pregnancies, or allow sterilization after caesarean sections (women seeking tubal ligations are then forced to have a second operation elsewhere, exposing them to additional risks).

In one case, the sole hospital in a rural area in southeastern Arizona announced in 2010 that it would partner with an out-of-state Catholic health system, and would immediately adhere to Catholic directives that forbid certain reproductive health services. As a result, a woman whose doctors wanted to terminate a pregnancy to save her life had to be sent 80 miles away for treatment. A coalition of residents, physicians and activists campaigned against the merger and it was called off before it was finalized.

If it wasn’t for some people Making War On Abortion I would have never looked this information up. Funny what you find when you start looking into things.