ACLU Files Sweeping Suit Against
Catholic Hospitals' Anti-Abortion Policies
Monday, 02 Dec 2013 07:52 PM
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a sweeping federal lawsuit
against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops over its ethical guidelines for
Roman Catholic hospitals, arguing the directives were to blame for negligent
care of a pregnant woman who went into early labor and whose baby died within
hours.
The ACLU alleges the bishops were
negligent because their religious directives prevented Tamesha Means from being
told that continuing her pregnancy posed grave risks to her health and her
child was not likely to survive. She was treated at Mercy Health Muskegon, a
Catholic hospital in Michigan.
"It's not just about one
woman," said Kary Moss, executive director of the Michigan ACLU.
"It's about a nationwide policy created by nonmedical professionals
putting patients in harms' way."
The lawsuit comes amid a wave of
mergers between Catholic and secular hospital systems throughout the United States,
raising questions about how much religious identity the hospitals will retain
and whether they will provide medical services that conflict with church
teaching. Advocates for abortion rights and others fear the mergers will limit
access to a full range of medical care for women. About 13 percent of U.S. hospitals
are Catholic.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a
spokeswoman for the bishops' conference in Washington, said it hadn't been officially
notified of the lawsuit and couldn't comment until it received the complaint.
Neither Mercy Health Muskegon nor its corporate parent, Trinity Health in Livonia, would comment
Monday. Earlier this year, Trinity Health and Catholic Health East completed a
merger, combining more than 80 nonprofit hospitals across about 21 states.
According to the lawsuit, filed
Friday in U.S. District Court in Michigan,
Means was 18 weeks pregnant in 2010 when her water broke and she went to the
nearest hospital in Muskegon.
The ACLU said that over several emergency visits, Means was never told that
"the safest treatment option was to induce labor and terminate the
pregnancy" because the hospital was following the conference's ethical
directives. She eventually delivered the baby, which died after less than three
hours. The ACLU says the pathology report found that Means had infections that
can result in infertility and other damage.
Under the conference's
"Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,"
abortion is barred, along with other procedures that go against Catholic
doctrine, such as specific infertility treatments or sterilization. However,
each bishop has the authority to interpret the directives within his diocese
and it is common to find some variation in how the guidelines are applied among
dioceses or according to individual cases.
For example, the directives allow
for treatments to cure a grave illness in a pregnant woman even if they result
in the death of the child. That issue drew national attention in 2010 with the
case of a nun and administrator at a Phoenix
hospital who, in her role on the hospital ethics committee, approved an
abortion to save the life of a pregnant woman. Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted
said the decision meant automatic excommunication for the nun and the hospital
could no longer identify itself as Catholic.
Robin Fretwell Wilson, a University of Illinois professor who specializes in
family and health law, said a negligence claim would hinge in part on whether
the ACLU can establish that the conference has some direct control in this case
or in hospitals in general. The bishops have moral authority over local
Catholic hospitals but are not involved in the day-to-day business of
administration.
"It's so many layers
removed," Fretwell Wilson said, that she has "a difficult time
buying" that the bishops' conference is legally responsible in this case.
American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU)
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Note: George Soros is the
chairman for the Foundation to Promote
Open Society, and the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Planned Parenthood
Abortion is a safe and legal way
to end pregnancy.
There are two kinds of abortion
in the U.S.
— in-clinic abortion and the abortion pill.
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