ACLU Lawsuit Against Trinity Health Corporation

  • Thread starter Thread starter the2112
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

the2112

Guest
I know there’s an another thread on this issue, but it’s old, and I want a more straight to the point answer.

Anyway, here’s the description of the lawsuit directly from the ACLU’s website:

aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/fighting-emergency-care-pregnant-women-catholic-hospitals

The ACLU claims, “Today we announced a lawsuit against one of the nation’s largest Catholic health care systems, for imposing religious rules on its staff that prevent doctors from performing an abortion in emergency cases involving miscarriage or other pregnancy complications—even when a woman’s life is at risk. We’re suing Trinity Health Corporation after discovering that it has repeatedly failed to provide women suffering pregnancy complications with appropriate emergency abortion care as required by federal law.”

It further goes on to say “…A public health educator in Michigan discovered that at one of Trinity’s hospitals alone, at least five women who were suffering from miscarriages and needed urgent care were denied that care because of the Catholic directives.”

From what I understand, abortion (i.e. the intentional killing of a fetus) is never needed to save the life of the mother. In every case a pregnant woman’s life may be in danger, the fetus has no chance of living, and the medical operation that must be performed to save the mother’s life will result in the indirect death of the fetus. So these procedures don’t really count as abortions, and are not banned by the Catholic Church.

However, the lawsuit makes it sound like Trinity hospitals are even denying women medical procedures that would result in the indirect death of the fetus (which it refers to as “abortions”). If this is truly the case, then it sounds like Trinity hospitals truly are being unreasonable, and the ACLU’s lawsuit may have merit.

So what I’m asking here is what is Trinity hospital’s side of the story? It has to be more complex that what the ACLU is letting on to. Something I notice is the ACLU is putting a lot of emphasis on miscarriages. But don’t miscarriages just happen naturally? Why would an abortion need to be done in the case of a miscarriage? Does the ACLU want Trinity hospitals to perform abortions on miscarriages to simply speed up the process? And what of those 5 women who were suffering miscarriages and were denied care? If they were already miscarrying, what care would they be denied?

The ACLU article also states, “…you’re in the middle of your pregnancy when all of a sudden your amniotic fluid starts to leak. You’re in extreme pain. You start to bleed. You start to get a fever. You rush to the nearest hospital. You’d expect that any hospital emergency room would provide you the proper care.” But in how many of these health problems absolutely require abortion? It seems like they’re bringing up pregnancy problems that would very rarely or never require an abortion in order to bolster their case.

Anyway, what are your thoughts?
 
…holding my place and my peace while I do some reading. I may have more to add later, but I think this is to lay groundwork against the ERD (Ethical & Religious Directives).

I am a L&D RN in another Catholic Health System. Women who are having miscarriages do not need abortions. Women who have unfortunately had preterm premature rupture of membranes (water broke way too early)…sometimes things can be held off until baby will make it outside and sometimes nature takes her course and the baby has to be born, passing away. That is also not an abortion.
 
Part of the problem comes because of differences in understandings about what abortions actually are. Pro-lifers do not consider the removal of a fetus that has died in utero of natural causes (in other words, miscarried) to be an abortion; pro-“choicers” generally do. In fact, pro-“choicers” generally consider miscarriages to be abortions in and of themselves (in fact, the scientific name for a miscarriage is “spontaneous abortion”) and so sometimes seem to promote the idea pro-lifers are shaming women who have had miscarriages.

Also, pro-lifers do not consider specific medical procedures that kill an unborn child due to the rule of double effect to be abortions. Pro-“choicers” figure that since the end result is the same, a dead baby, then such procedures are abortions, and so figure, “If a dead baby is going to be the result anyway, why not just kill the baby directly? It’d be a much less invasive procedure!”
 
Savita Halappanavar (see here) is an example of a pregnant Irish woman who died because abortion was illegal there.
 
Thanks for the replies to far.

But if the ACLU is defining “miscarriages” as “abortions”, then what kind of care would Catholic hospitals be denying women? The ACLU claims 5 women suffering miscarriages were denied urgent care because of religious beliefs, but what kind of care would they have not been given because of religious beliefs?
 
The ACLU just wants to promote their radical secular agenda. They do not truly represent liberty.
 
The ACLU just wants to promote their radical secular agenda. They do not truly represent liberty.
I think that they would like to force Catholic institutions like hospitals and schools, to become totally secular, abandoning their relgious commitment, or be forced out of business.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top