Michigan woman with brain tumor denied sterilization procedure by Catholic

The woman involved in the current dispute, 33-year-old Jessica Mann, was planning to have her third child at the hospital next month. The ACLU says Genesys hospital in Grand Blanc won’t allow it.

For Mann, a Flushing resident, having her fallopian tubes tied to prevent another pregnancy isn’t about not wanting more kids – getting pregnant again could kill her.

Jessica says she can’t just go to another hospital, because her doctor only has admitting privileges at this one hospital. It’s the hospital’s history that Mann pinned her hope to as she brought her case to the hospital’s board.

So, she reached out to the ACLU of Michigan, which sent a letter to the hospital asking the board to reconsider its decision, and giving it until this Friday to do so.

“These ethical and religious directives”, claims one ACLU lawyer, “single out women and care that women need”.

“I was surprised and upset,” said Mann. Hospital administrators said she could go through the birth and have the sterilization at a different hospital, but Mann said another surgery after a Caesarean could be equally as threatening to her life. The facility is governed by religious rules called the Ethical and Religious Directives, which are written by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and that classify common reproductive health procedures as “intrinsically evil”. Ultimately, she contracted an infection and miscarried.

“If it’s not an emergency, why should you wash out the religious character of that hospital?” she said. But here’s where their stories differ: Because of a unsafe tumor in her brain, the procedure was specifically recommended by her doctor. The online headline was “A pregnant woman wanted her tubes tied”.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contacted the hospital on Mann’s behalf saying that her medical condition warrants the procedure in spite of the hospital’s religious objections.

“They’re certainly violating medical ethics and possibly malpractice laws”, Tucker said, adding that the larger issue is waiting until a woman is in her third trimester before telling her they are not going to perform the procedure because of religious reasons.

Mann had heard that Genesys had changed their policies previous year and that the tubal ligation would have to be specially requested. She will have to deliver with a doctor she’s not familiar with.

The ACLU has investigated the growing influence of the Catholic Church on hospital practices, producing a 2013 report with MergerWatch that showed Catholic acute-care nonprofit hospitals increased 16 percent between 2001 and 2011, even as the total number of hospitals in the USA was declining.

“The feeling of the unknown is stressful and disheartening”, said Mann, whose mother and grandmother were staunch Catholics and who herself identifies as a Christian.

Jessica is now looking for another doctor who will allow her to get her tubes tied in the safest manner possible. “But I have the support of my husband and my doctor, so I can’t let it affect me too much”.