Appeals court rejects Michigan woman's lawsuit over Catholic hospital care

[_Abyssinia]

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected a woman’s appeal in a lawsuit that alleged a Roman Catholic hospital in Michigan denied her adequate treatment during a painful miscarriage because of a policy banning even the discussion of abortion as an option.

Tamesha Means said she went to a Mercy Health Partners facility in Muskegon, Michigan, the only hospital within 30 minutes of her home, when her water broke after only 18 weeks of pregnancy, according to the lawsuit filed against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2013.

Despite her being in excruciating pain and with virtually no chance her pregnancy could survive, Mercy Health Partners told Means there was nothing they could do and did not tell her that terminating her pregnancy was an option and the safest course for her condition, the lawsuit said.

mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N1BK276

 

[Ojo_Feliz]

U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell in Grand Rapids, Michigan, dismissed the case in June 2015, ruling that the court did not have jurisdiction over the [US Conference of Catholic Bishops] and that reviewing Means’ negligence claim would “impermissibly intrude upon ecclesiastical matters.” Means appealed the ruling.

On Thursday, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati upheld the district court’s ruling, saying the court did not have jurisdiction over the defendants and that Means could not prove negligence.

It sounds as if the ACLU screwed up, not once, but twice.