Author Topic: Catholic Hospital Permits Sterilization (Read 841 times)

poche · « **on:** August 27, 2015, 12:39:44 AM »

A Catholic hospital in California has agreed to permit a doctor to sterilize a woman after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to file a lawsuit, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

"Rachel Miller, due to have her second child in late September, agreed with her husband that this would be her last pregnancy and decided she would be sterilized by tubal ligation after giving birth," the newspaper reported. Miller says that her insurance will not cover both childbirth and sterilization at any other hospital in a 150-mile radius.

Citing the US bishops’ healthcare directives, Mercy Medical Center in Redding initially refused to agree to the sterilization, but after the filing of the lawsuit "notified her doctor that it was reconsidering based on additional information the physician had provided," the newspaper reported. Subsequently, the hospital agreed to permit the sterilization.

An ACLU attorney welcomed the hospital’s decision. “That’s great that they are willing to do that for some women,” said Elizabeth Gill, who described Miller as “just one of many women who risk being denied care because Catholic bishops are telling medical professionals how to operate.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “the regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception)” (no. 2399).

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=25920

poche · « **Reply #1 on:** August 27, 2015, 12:50:53 AM »

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 the sterilization, Mercy Medical Center Redding cited the US bishops’ healthcare directives, which state that direct sterilization is intrinsically evil.

The Redding Record Searchlight reported:

Lauren Davis, representative from Dignity Health’s Mercy Medical Redding, said the decision made in [Rachel] Miller’s case would not affect any of its policies in the future and that the hospital would always operate within the [Ethical and Religious Directives].

In a prepared statement, she said that “tubal ligations are not performed in Catholic hospitals except on a case-by-case basis.” If the procedure is not approved, the physician must help the patient make arrangements at a facility that provides accommodation.

When asked if Miller’s case would have been reviewed had the ACLU not sent the demand letter, citing patient privacy issues, she declined to comment.

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=25934

poche · « **Reply #2 on:** August 27, 2015, 12:52:54 AM »

Facing the threat of a lawsuit, Mercy Medical Center in Redding, California—a Catholic hospital— allowed doctors to perform a tubal ligation, sterilizing a woman, in what appears to have been a direct violation of Catholic moral teaching and the US bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.

We don’t have all the details of the case; the hospital’s administrators, quite rightly citing the demands of confidentiality, declined to make them public. But we do have a puzzling statement from the hospital, saying that “it is our practice not to provide sterilization services.” Which is puzzling, since the hospital did provide sterilization services. The statement goes on:

As such, tubal ligations are not performed in Catholic hospitals except on a case-by-case basis where a formal review by a committee of physicians and others gives permission to perform the procedure.
Does this committee of physicians and others () have veto power over the Church teaching, then? Or are they evaluating cases from a purely medical perspective?

If doctors determine that a patient requires a surgical procedure that will have the unintended side-effect of sterilizing the patient, that procedure can be justified under the Church’s moral norms; it is not direct (i.e. intentional) sterilization. There’s no need for a special committee to evaluate the case.

On the other hand if a healthy patient wants her tubes tied simply to prevent pregnancy, there’s really nothing to discuss, so again the committee of physicians would serve no purpose. If direct sterilization is intrinsically immoral—which is what the Church teaches—then there’s no reason to evaluate things on a case-by-case basis; it’s always wrong.

http://www.catholic culture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1129

TKGS · « **Reply #3 on:** August 27, 2015, 06:28:14 AM »

I don't know the geography of California, but, since this is being reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, is this so-called "Catholic" hospital in the San Francisco Archdiocese? Is this how the archbishop requires his hospitals to uphold the Catholic faith?

In view of the pseudo-controversy in the Catholic schools there, it would seem so.

songbird · « **Reply #4 on:** August 27, 2015, 04:04:16 PM »

If it is like Phx, AZ St. Joe's, the Bishop Olmstead knew that St. Joe's was accepting of abortion, besides sterilization, before he came down on the abortion issue. He knew, because it was in their Hand Book of Services! He knew and I even told Judi Brown of HLI and gave her copies of the hand book that anyone could read on line. I told her, because of the media making Bishop Olmstead look good for getting down on the hospital. It was a dog and pony show.

In fact, before Bishop Olmstead came on to Phx, it was in the hand book for contraceptives and sterilization. Plus, St. Vincent De Paul does the same, it advertises state/gov't phone numbers which refer for abortions and such.

Remember, the New Order, is Marxist. They know that these hospitals get money from the feds and the dioceses know that they must follow the rules to take the money. They keep their identity, meaning the name that implies catholic, whether it be a Saints name, or the word catholic. It keeps the money coming in because those words are soothing to the ear and people give money to such places, not knowing that this is the case.

The dioceses sure put on good shows, don't they?!

poche · « **Reply #5 on:** August 28, 2015, 12:39:16 AM »

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.

http://www.catholic culture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1131