The following comes from a December 28 SF Chronicle article by Bob Egelko:
A physicians group and a woman who was denied a tubal ligation at a Catholic hospital in Northern California on religious grounds filed suit Monday, saying the rejection was sex discrimination and an illegal refusal of medical care.
The suit against Mercy Medical Center of Redding and its parent company, Dignity Health of San Francisco — the state’s largest owner of private hospitals — could test the dividing line between the right to reproductive care and a provider’s religious objections.
The woman, Rebecca Chamorro, 33, of Redding, has two children and is due to give birth to her third by cesarean section in late January. She and her husband say they have decided not to have more children, and their doctor has agreed to perform the tubal ligation immediately after delivery, when the operation is most commonly carried out.
Lawyers for Chamorro and the doctors group told Mercy Medical Center officials in a letter that California law “does not permit hospitals open to the general public and supported by public funds to deny patients medically indicated pregnancy-related care. Nor does it permit corporate entities to elevate their theological tenets over patient health.”
The hospital denied the same surgery to another Redding woman, Lynsie Brushett, who was initially part of the case but then suffered a miscarriage, the ACLU said.
The government had NO business being involved in hospitals. In the past the hospitals were privately run, except for some county hospitals. Look at the post office; see how inefficient it is run; now we are seeing how badly the medical facilities are being run, especially the Veterans Administration. Small wonder why fewer Americans are becoming physicians.
In the past, everyone died by 40.
The RC church has no business dictating women’s health and reproductive rights. Look at all the gay priests and ipriests with girlfriends and children and sex lives of their own. Who are they kidding ? There are no celibate priests!
To generalize this to all priests is baseless. And unjust. And unChristian. Can’t you please just go away before you spew more unjustified hate-speech?
The Catholic hospitals are getting government funding. So long as my tax money gives there I want a say as to what is done there and tubal ligation so is OK with me. When will men abs priests stop controlling women?
The Catholic church has been the leader in establishing non profit hospitals for the care of individuals of all or no faith since this country was founded. No atheists stepped up to the plate to provide that kind of care. For decades Catholics provided care for all without profit and continue to do so today.
Don’t go whining about your tax dollar Reggie; my tax dollar and my contributions go to Catholic hospitals as well. If you don’t like the care you receive in a Catholic facility why don’t you go to a corporate or non-Catholic hospital for care?
No one questioned Catholic ethics in this country until the immorality of tubals, abortion and contraception unfortunately became acceptable to women, who now want to call it their…
cont…”right” or their “reproductive health care” It is neither.
When are women going to stop believing that there is something wrong with how God made their bodies? You complain about Priests, when ti is society that has told you that you need tubals, etc.
When are women going to become responsible for their own behaviors and stop blaming others? Mutilating your body is not the answer and I do not want to pay for it with my dollars either!
The left wing hate groups are alive and well in California. California has thrown the religious exemption in the trash can. Fake Catholics like California Governor Jerry Brown obviously think that’s okay.
A tubal ligation is not “medical care” nor is it “medically indicated” for family planning. If, though, a patient wishes this procedure, she can always go to a non-Catholic hospital. The Left is always “baiting” — they are so transparent!
This will lead to martyrdom of those who insist, in words and actions, on the truth.
They should just close down the hospital.