Catholic hospital issues statement on woman's sterilization [CWN]

[CWN_News]

A California Catholic hospital that decided to permit a mother to be sterilized after the ACLU threatened a lawsuit has issued a statement on the case.In initially declining to permit …

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[jediliz]

The hospital should have refused. And the woman should not have let her husband decide what only GOD should decide.

 

[Tim_D]

That is a very bare article. I wonder what the full story is?

 

[Burt_Macklin]

Don’t most hospitals perform sterilizations? Why not pick one of them to give birth in and leave the Catholic hospital out of it?

 

[captainrick]

Don’t most hospitals perform sterilizations? Why not pick one of them to give birth in and leave the Catholic hospital out of it?

Yes, or the husband could have had a vasectomy at the doctor’s office of his choice. Hmmm… Guess it was easier to put the burden on the woman, resulting in involving the hospital, the Church, and the ACLU.

 

[zz912]

I don’t understand their statement at all. They quote the Church teaching that sterilization is intrinsically immoral, and then said that all cases would be reviewed on a case-by-case decision. What is there to review?

 

[phil19034]

I don’t understand their statement at all. They quote the Church teaching that sterilization is intrinsically immoral, and then said that all cases would be reviewed on a case-by-case decision. What is there to review?

agreed. when Catholic hospitals, schools, colleges, etc make exceptions which are not approved by the Magisterium, they create a slippery slope and make the secular arguments of “hypocrisy” and “inconsistency” appear to be valid.

The these organizations need to be schooled in Natural Law and stick that, in addition to the Faith.

 

[on_the_hill]

I don’t understand their statement at all. They quote the Church teaching that sterilization is intrinsically immoral, and then said that all cases would be reviewed on a case-by-case decision. What is there to review?

I didn’t read the article. . . . but maybe medical treatments for problems like cancer would necessitate the removal of reproductive organs? If a woman has uterine cancer and the uterus is removed, wouldn’t that be considered sterilization, to an extent?

 

[nodito]

I didn’t read the article. . . . but maybe medical treatments for problems like cancer would necessitate the removal of reproductive organs? If a woman has uterine cancer and the uterus is removed, wouldn’t that be considered sterilization, to an extent?

As far as I’m aware, there are no medical indications (other than pregenancy prevention) for a tubal ligation, which was the procedure in question was.

Removal of the uterus or ovaries because of cancer would not usually be called a “sterilization,” though that would be an effect of the surgery.

 

[Burt_Macklin]

I didn’t read the article. . . . but maybe medical treatments for problems like cancer would necessitate the removal of reproductive organs? If a woman has uterine cancer and the uterus is removed, wouldn’t that be considered sterilization, to an extent?

I would guess something more like drug addiction. That would explain why she can’t pick her own hospital and can’t depend on her partner to get sterilized.

 

[anthony022071]

sfgate.com/health/article/Catholic-hospital-backs-down-on-tubal-ligation-6463205.php

Facing a possible sex-discrimination lawsuit, a Catholic hospital in Redding reversed its position Monday and agreed to let a woman’s doctor sterilize her after she gives birth next month.

Mercy Medical Center, owned by Dignity Health of San Francisco, the state’s largest private health care company, had previously refused to allow Rachel Miller to undergo a tubal ligation, citing Catholic hospitals’ Ethical and Religious Directives against sterilization.

After attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union said they would file a discrimination suit if Miller was being denied pregnancy-based care” on religious grounds, the hospital notified her doctor that it was reconsidering based on additional information the physician had provided. On Monday, the deadline the lawyers had set for a response, the ACLU said Mercy Medical Center had agreed to the surgery…>

Notice the deceptive words of the first sentence below.

sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/08/25/norcal-catholic-hospital-to-allow-tubal-ligation-after-previous-refusal/

<…According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, common reproductive health procedures are considered “intrinsically evil,” and “legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).”

“While we’re grateful Mercy Medical has agreed to provide medical care in this instance for Ms. Miller, the reality remains that there is a clear conflict between the best interests of patients and the directives of the Catholic hospital system,” said ACLU of Northern California attorney Elizabeth Gill in a prepared statement. “Religious institutions that provide services to the general public should not be allowed to hold religion as an excuse to discriminate or deny important health care.” …>

 

[_Abyssinia]

Legal pressure does not make sterilization moral

It is just plain wrong. I mean the decision of Mercy Medical Center Redding in California to perform a sterilization on Rachel Miller only after the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the Center’s initial refusal.

Earlier, when refusing the sterilization, the Center cited the US Bishops’ healthcare directive that direct sterilization is intrinsically evil. Upon changing its mind, however, a spokesperson said that this did not alter the hospital’s policies in any way, because “tubal ligations are not performed in Catholic hospitals except on a case-by-case basis.”

So does intrinsic evil become good on a case-by-case basis?

Of course not. What may change case by case is the determination as to whether there is some condition which actually requires sterilization as a curative measure, which would mean that the intrinsic evil of directly-intended sterilization is not involved. For example, the same principle governs an ectopic pregnancy, which requires an operation to save the mother’s life that inescapably, but intentionally only indirectly, results in the death of the child.

So what might have happened on further reviuew in the case of Rachel Miller is that the hospital became aware of a pathological condition for which the known remedy was tubal ligation. That, and only that, is the kind of valid “case by case” consideration that morally bypasses the intrinsic evil of direct sterilization.

Sadly, as far as we know, this is not the case. Rather, Miller and her husband had decided that she should be sterilized after the birth of their second child, because they did not intend to have any more children. Moreover, her insurance would not cover the sterilization at a different medical center.

In making moral decisions concerning intrinsic evils, “case by case” does not mean “depending upon the amount of pressure applied”, nor on a cost-benefit analysis, or the risk of negative publicity, or the likelihood of fines or forced closure or imprisonment. “Case by case” means discerning whether the intrinsic evil in question is really operative in a particular situation or not.

This is, then, just another instance of a medical facility upholding Catholic teaching when it is easy, and paying only lip service when it is hard. Do the key personnel at Mercy Medical Center Redding actually understand and embrace the moral realities elucidated by Catholic teaching? Perhaps they merely regard these things as “Church rules” which make Catholic institutional life quirky, and more troublesome.

catholicculture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1131

 

[mjs2001]

It’s reprehensible that a Catholic hospital would cast aside morality to appease the ACLU.

 

[zz912]

I didn’t read the article. . . . but maybe medical treatments for problems like cancer would necessitate the removal of reproductive organs? If a woman has uterine cancer and the uterus is removed, wouldn’t that be considered sterilization, to an extent?

Removal or treatment of an organ that is diseased is treating the disease. Sterilization may be an outcome of such treatment, but it is not the goal of the treatment. It is an unintended outcome for a necessary, licit treatment.

This would be the same as a hospital having to deliver a baby early because of danger to the mother’s life. They deliver the baby and hope he/she lives, but if the baby dies, it was not an intended result of the treatment.

In this instance, her reproductive organs are functioning fine and are not diseased. She simply wants to be sterilized. This is a mortal sin.