Reproductive health conflicts in religiously-affiliated hospitals raise concerns

Because all of the surrounding hospitals with labor and delivery wards are also Catholic, Rachel would have needed to travel over 160 miles to get her tubal ligation covered by her insurance at the same time as her C-section.

Mercy Medical Center in San Francisco is a Catholic hospital, operated as a subsidiary of Dignity Health, California’s largest private health care provider.

Mercy Medical Center is a Catholic-affiliated hospital and the only hospital in the area that specializes in labor and delivery.

Miller, now an attorney residing in Redding, California, in alliance with the ACLU initiated a protest to show their disapproval to the decision that was eventually voiced to her doctor. “Nor does it permit corporate entities to elevate their theological tenets over patient health”.

Dr. Samuel Van Kirk requested that a tubal ligation be performed for Miller after her CS, but Sister Brenda O’Keeffe, vice president Mission Integration and Spiritual Care Services, denied the service in a letter dated April 10. Who knew that God deems care after birth as “evil”? The hospital is a part of Dignity Health, a nonprofit that operates 40 hospitals – 22 of which are Catholic – in California, Nevada and Arizona. She enlisted the help of attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, who said they would file a discrimination suit if the woman was denied pregnancy-related care on religious grounds. Had Miller not gone through the ACLU she would have had to go to a different hospital much farther than her Redding home. The public corporation argued on the fact that Miller’s request did not conform to the Catholic Church’s sterilization policy which only gives such consent on procedures to cure or alleviate serious pathological cases when a relatively simpler treatment unavailable.

“That’s great that they are willing to do that for some women”, Gill said.

In the August 25 statement, the ACLU stated, “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”.

“This is a decision that I made with my family and my doctor and no one else should be involved in that process”, said Miller in a statement. According to the ERD document, “Direct sterilization of either men or women, whether permanent or temporary, is not permitted in a Catholic health care institution”.

The number of Catholic hospitals from United States that ban sterilization procedures are on the rise, according to a chart featured in ProPublica earlier this year. The shift has anxious many ob-gyns.