Judge Rejects Order to Block Catholic Hospitals Denying Women Tubal Ligations

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

A San Francisco Superior Court judge declined to issue an emergency order that would prevent Mercy Medical Center, a Catholic hospital, from refusing a women's request for a tubal ligation. According to the hospital, the sterilization procedure violates Catholic doctrine.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the law firm, Covington & Burling LLP, filed a lawsuit against San Francisco's Dignity Health-a healthcare network of which Mercy Medical is a part-following the hospital's denial of patient Rebecca Chamorro's request for a tubal ligation.

Chamorro is scheduled to undergo a Cesarean section on January 28 at Mercy Medical. She decided, after consultation with her doctor, to get a tubal ligation after the surgery. The hospital, however, has refused the doctor's request to perform the surgery at Mercy Medical, citing a 2009 directive issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops calling the procedure "intrinsically immoral" and "evil."

http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=15777

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Since this is obviously already past I suspect they failed to the tubal.

As far as I'm concerned the administrator should be charged with medical malpractice.

 

[credoconsolans]

As I recall I think the woman went elsewhere to get her tubal ligation.

 

[RavenSky]

This is the key issue, in my opinion - and one that affects all of women's reproductive choices:

"The refusal of hospitals to allow doctors to perform basic health procedures based solely on religious doctrine presents a real threat to a woman's ability to access health care," said Elizabeth Gill, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. "Patients seeking medical care from public institutions should not have to worry that religious doctrine rather than medical judgment will dictate what care they receive."

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This is the key issue, in my opinion - and one that affects all of women's reproductive choices:

"The refusal of hospitals to allow doctors to perform basic health procedures based solely on religious doctrine presents a real threat to a woman's ability to access health care," said Elizabeth Gill, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. "Patients seeking medical care from public institutions should not have to worry that religious doctrine rather than medical judgment will dictate what care they receive."

Yes, I have to agree. If churches want to help hospitals that's fine but they shouldn't be totally in charge of them and thus undermining patients with their doctrines. I mean, imagine if Jehovah's Witnesses were in charge of a hospital and refused to let patients get blood transfusions to their detriment.

In the case of the Catholic hospital, it's actually part of a greater network of hospitals...some 40 in number, more than half of which are Catholic. It makes it more difficult to get around their obstructions to women getting medical care they want or need.