A recent article in the New York Times expressed concern that the wave of consolidation in the health-care sector initiated by the enactment of Obamacare has resulted in Catholic hospitals affiliating with secular systems thereby restricting access to abortion, sterilization, and contraception. The article mentions the recent affiliation between Providence Health and Services (one of the largest Catholic systems) and Swedish Health Services (a secular non-profit) in Seattle and the promise by Swedish to refrain from performing elective abortions. Criticism of this affiliation persists notwithstanding the announcement by Swedish that it will “help underwrite” with Planned Parenthood a clinic in a neighboring building to provide a full range of “reproductive services including elective abortions.” Indeed, it is unlikely that the promise is enforceable: Swedish made a similar promise to refrain from performing elective abortions when it took control of the former Providence hospital several years ago, but nonetheless continued to perform elective abortions in the hospital.
The Times article also accurately notes that “the restrictions at any given [Catholic] hospital may not be clear.” And further that ‘the confusion is likely to increase.” Until recently, it could be assumed that Catholic hospitals adhered to Catholic teaching in providing health-care services. Their Catholic identity was preserved by the presence of the members of the sponsoring order, maintenance of a close link with the Diocesan bishop, and adherence to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs). But now the Catholic identity of these hospitals is eroding. The membership of these religious orders has declined precipitously and these same hospitals are now managed by lay people many of whom are not Catholic. The connection with the bishop is more remote. And adherence to the ERDs is problematic particularly when it comes to direct sterilizations.
In 2008, after a story by Ann Carey identified Catholic hospitals in Texas that were performing direct sterilizations, Bishop Corrada of Tyler, Texas, insisted that those hospitals stop performing direct sterilizations, and one hospital challenged his interpretation of the ERDs. In 2010, Bishop Robert Vasa revoked his recognition of St. Charles Hospital in Bend, Ore., as a Catholic hospital, after he determined the hospital was providing direct sterilizations. In 2010, Bishop Olmsted revoked his recognition of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, Ariz., as a Catholic hospital because of its continuing non-compliance with the ERDs’ prohibitions on direct abortions and direct sterilizations. Subsequently, Catholic Healthcare West, the owner of St. Joseph’s Hospital, a 40-hospital Catholic system, decided to drop its Catholic affiliation to facilitate mergers with non-Catholic entities. And a recent dissertation by Sandra Hapenney, a Doctoral candidate at Baylor University, found that based on her analysis of data from the National Center for Health Statistics, 48 percent of the 176 Catholic hospitals that she studied with obstetrical services were performing direct sterilizations.
There is also a growing rift between the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association (CHA). Sister Carol Keehan, CEO of the CHA, defied the bishops and backed Obamacare despite its lack of adequate conscience protection, even receiving a signing pen from the president. And although she initially supported the bishops’ objection to the preventive-services mandate requiring Catholic institutions to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacient drugs, she later split with them by endorsing the accommodation offered by the Obama administration despite the fact that it is meaningless. The Times article notes that when questioned about the difficulty of remaining true to Catholic doctrine and serving the broader community, Sister Carol referred to it is “a constant challenge.” While acknowledging that the hospitals should adhere to the ERDs, she emphasized that the hospital viewed “their mission much more broadly, including caring for those who are less fortunate and treating patients with respect.”
Obviously, Sister Carol has her own agenda and is not coordinating her activities with the bishops. Taking her at her word, Sister Carol is an enthusiastic supporter of Obamacare because she is a “social justice” Catholic who believes that the primary role of Catholic hospitals is to provide access to health care for the poor. She knows that, in order to survive and prosper, Catholic hospitals need additional resources to compete with other hospitals so they can’t afford to provide significant amounts of free care. And she believes the best way to provide health care for the poor is through a federal entitlement program. The difficulty with this approach is that once the federal government has in effect turned the health-insurance industry into an arm of the federal government it has total control over the future of Catholic hospitals. These hospitals cannot afford to say no to the government. Not only will they have to provide insurance coverage for their employees for contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacient drugs, but eventually they could be forced to provide a full range of “reproductive services” to their patients.
Ironically, however, as the gulf between the bishops and Catholic hospitals continues to grow, and despite the fact that it is increasingly clear that some Catholic hospitals are providing sterilizations and maybe even abortions in violation of the ERDs, the Left will continue oppose acquisitions of non-Catholic facilities by Catholic systems because of the potential impact on access to sterilization and abortion services. And while Catholic hospitals have been willing to enter into complicated arrangements to accommodate the demands of those seeking to preserve access to abortions and sterilizations, it appears that the only accommodation that will be acceptable to the New York Times, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU is total capitulation. Left-wing advocacy groups will continue to oppose the expansion of Catholic health systems as long as these systems continue to promise adherence to the ERDs notwithstanding the actual impact of these affiliations on the availability of sterilization and abortion services. Even Catholic hospitals with a diluted Catholic identity are still too Catholic for the New York Times and its allies.
— Leonard J. Nelson, III, is a Professor at Cumberland School of Law, Samford University and the author of Diagnosis Critical: the Urgent Threats Confronting Catholic Healthcare (OSV 2009).
Your opinion doesn't count because you don't have a virgina (censors). At least that's what the Left says. Only women, wanting free birth control, can have an opinion on whether or not their future provider of said free birth control is having their liberties quashed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think Obamacare should provide us all with free Bowflex TreadClimbers. Our health is at stake here! And how about a six-pack of Bud Light when I want it. The filtered water, hops and barley gotta be healthy and life extending.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have no problem with Catholic hospitals being forced to provide contraception, abortion, and sterilization.
Individuals should have the right to worship as they see fit, and churches should have some advantages. But those rights should apply only to the individual, and an individual should not be allowed to force their beliefs on another
But once a religion starts operating in fields where they perform non-religious functions (health care, education, adoption, etc.), they should be bound by the rule of the land.
I would oppose forced sterilization/abortion/etc. That interferes with the right of an individual to make decisions regarding their own health and welfare.
But I do not believe that a hospital should be allowed to decide not to perform acts against their religion. They should provide all legal services and follow medical regulations issued by bodies that have appropriate oversight.
If Jehovah's Witnesses opened a hospital, I think they should be forced to provide blood transfusions if medically warranted. That their religion prohibits blood transfusions means to me they should not open a hospital if they cannot abide by modern medical standards.
I also don't support conscience protections for doctors and pharmacists. They should either follow the standards set forth for their profession, or change fields.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn other words, you have a problem with the 1st Amendment's "free exercise clause".
Your contention that an individual should be respected for their religous beliefs and therefore not compelled to perform or behave in a manner objectional to their religious beliefs. But the instant a group of like religious individuals begin acting in concert as an expression of their religious beliefs -- for instance, nuns running a hospital -- those individuals lose that right the instant they cooperate with one another in conforming to their religious beliefs.
Truly Orwellian "logic".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe 1st Amendment only protects your right to believe in whatever you wish. It doesn't grant you the right to practice the religion however you wish, especially if it has any undesired effects on others. There are people who died in hospitals because of religious idiots employed by medical facilities.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat's next? Firemen refusing to extinguish fires in buildings they believe to be "possessed?"Police officers refusing to arrest thieves who steal from satanists?
The 1st Amendment only protects your right to believe in whatever you wish. It doesn't grant you the right to practice the religion however you wish, especially if it has any undesired effects on others. There are people who died in hospitals because of religious idiots employed by medical facilities.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat's next? Firemen refusing to extinguish fires in buildings they believe to be "possessed?"Police officers refusing to arrest thieves who steal from satanists?
Your argument is applicable if we are talking about healing the ill, .ie. true healthcare. What Catholics object to are contraception, sterilization and abortion. Neither of those three have anything to do with one's health. They are all elective procedures or prescriptions. A women who has health problems during a pregnancy can treat the health problems but cannot directly kill the child in doing so. Also, I believe a Catholic can take the birth control pill if she is not sexually active to treat a medical problem, although there are other drugs that are better than the pill to treat underlying medical problems.
It is a difference with a major distinction.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuseso I should be forced to murder another human being? If you came to the ER seeking care what standard should I be held to, one that forces someone to murder or one that allows me to care for the sick and injured?
I did not get into medicine to kill other humans but to try and saves lives, though at times I am unsuccessful, and that is a difficult moment. In our current health care system it is quickly overshadowed by the needs of so many other people seeking help. I hope never to see the day when a life is so simply discarded and you should hope you are never on the receiving end of the value you have placed on life.
If you do not want to get pregnant then take precautions, we expect this behavior from people when they drink (don't drive, fly, or operate....), we understand the damage cigarettes inflect on those who use them and those unlucky enough to be exposed to the smoke (asthma, cancer, COPD...) and we have enacted a plethora or laws to restrict peoples behavior (no smoking laws), why is it so hard to take responsibility for one's behaviors?
I am all for contraception, and even the "morning after pill" (taken after intercourse it prevents pregnancy and does not abort an actual pregnancy), but I have seen all to often the elective abortion, and not to save the life of the mother but maybe to prevent the inconvenience of having a child. If there was a true emergency (and they do happen) then that is a very difficult decision and one fraught with many repercussions. I have been there once, and it all happened to fast for me to process, and I wish that experience on no one.
If you actually watched a medical video on the procedure for late term abortions and still thought it was okay then there is no hope for you. I will still place a high value on all life and when the young and very old come to me for help, I will speak for them and do my best to preserve life. I cannot embrace this idea that life has little value or maybe it is just a "it is not me so who cares" attitude but one day you will find yourself in need of health care and I will still stand up and speak for you even though you have place so little value on life.
I will not forget some of the sentinel events in my life; resuscitation of the four year old child that had fell in to a pond due to a momentary lapse of parental attention and the deep sorrow I felt for the parents and my meager efforts to "keep it together" to help them get through this tragedy. I also will not forget the ultrasound images of a four month old fetus as the mother left the facility on her way to an abortion because she did not want to be burdened with a child - another senseless death!
I did not get into medicine to kill people and your suggestion that I find another job because I am not okay with murder is ridiculous. I have dedicated a large part of my life to save lives maybe you should reconsider your reasons for thinking a fetus in a womb is disposable.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree whole heartedly with the other two comments, but wish to add a little. The Catholic Church as an entity has been providing health care and other services to the poor centuries before Obamacare was ever a glimmer in ODamien's scheming brain. It is part and parcel of the religion. For Catholics, it is a religious function. And, I daresay, health care for the poor would never have become part of secular society's conscience had it not been introduced by the Christian religion.
Bodies that have appropriate oversight = politicians. That is how our health care is to be governed? Last time, I looked the health profession did not have an oath for all doctors to swear to killl babies to be in the profession. Politicians are the ones pushing that insanity.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow. If this is what passes for a logical argument (not to mention a mature perspective) nowadays, our country faces a very dark future indeed. This is the second such "argument" I've read today relating to individual freedom. I now understand why the left was so dedicated to dismantling and watering down education in this country during the past century. Really, it makes perfect sense. "Nobody can tell me what to do!" That's really what this argument boils down to. And it's the prevailing one among the 18- to 30-year-old demographic today. We're raising a nation of perpetual self-centered toddlers in this country.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Church's entrance in to the fields of medicine and school etc has and is part of its mission and long pre-dates the Pro(re)gressive takeover (and destruction of the standards) of theses fields. It is an act of public pronouncement of the faith of members of the Catholic Church.
This is a free country that prevents "professions" from dictating conscience matters. Remember it is these professions that (a) profit and promote the murder of children, the old etc. and (b) with out any factual basis "decided" that homosexuality was normal - talk about your fundamentatlists.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe contraception issue is a Red Herring. The issue is about Religious freedom. The Catholic Church did not change their view. The federal government added a new mandate that is adhorant to foundational Catholic and Christian beliefs.
Case in point, all 65 Bishops of The Eastern Orthodox Churches in North America(Greek, Antiochian, Russian, Ukrainian etc.), which represents about 3,000,000 people have issued a joint statement condemning the mandate. Contraception is ALLOWED by the Eastern Orthodox. They oppose the dictation of morality by threat of penalty from the state. The Russian and Ukrainian Christians have about 15 million reasons to not trust the state and morality.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." Matthew 6;24.
It applies to "Catholic" hospital administrators as much as anyone else.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm glad to read your callout of the Catholic Health Care Association and Sister Carol Keehan.
Three more points. The amount of charity care provided by Catholic Health Care hospitals is not as great as you think. In fact, they usually calculate it based on the full chargemaster price for a a service, and not the actual costs.
Second, not for profit hospitals in many states have access to tax free municipal bonds. There is little oversight or questioning for the money they get...so if you wonder how hospitals are building some of the palatial facilities they do and how it is paid for...that's how. And those costs are built into hospital charges.
Finally...Obamacare seeks to drive private practice doctors out of business in favor of an employed physician model. In this model, doctors work for the hospital and not the patient. It is already the case that hospitals determine what medical care is provided in a hospital and who provides it. Quality is not job one. Cost is.
Obamacare hands the keys of the healthcare kingdom over to plutocrats like Sister Carol Keehan and her merry band of administrators. The doctor patient relationship is replaced by an organization patient relationship...to the detriment of patients and the empowerment of government.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Social Justice" Catholics like Sister Carol are merely Marxists who want to go to Heaven. Often their zeal leads them down the road of apostasy. It doesn't matter how many "Catholics" share their beliefs either. Anyone who thinks the Catholic Church is a democracy is seriously confused.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI agree with your analysis as to what "social justice" Catholics are but as to where they want to go, it is probably more accurate to say they want to go to Heaven on earth, that mythical perfect society that Marx and his minions have promised us. And sad to say, I blame the Church in part for this situation. Ever since the (in)famous social justice encyclical of 1891 (a sort of rhetorical "catch-up" ploy the Pope back then issued in an attempt to compete with the secular left in the struggle for the minds of men), many Catholics have either been confused or have deliberately equated Catholicism with leftism. The result is today's large crop of Catholic who are activists on behalf of causes completely at odds with authentic Catholic teaching on faith and morals. A real hard and very painful look as to just what makes a Catholic a Catholic is now needed by the American church.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVery much agree - all good points.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think he means "She knows that, in order to survive and prosper, Catholic hospitals need additional resources to compete with other hospitals so they can afford to provide significant amounts of free care." And in the last paragraph, he means "continue to oppose...."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet me ask a few dumb questions:
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse1. What order is Sister Keehan that they allow her to take a pro-abortion, pro-sterilization, pro-contraception position and remain in the order?
2.Why do the other members of the Catholic Health Care Association allow her to take this position?
2. If the American bishops have so little control over Catholic hospitals that someone openly defiant of their positions can remain in charge, they why do they allow any of those hospitals to use the identifier "Catholic"?
Obviously, the only logical conclusion of the current controversy is for the Catholic Church to get out of the business of running hospitals (in the United States). Render unto Obama the things that are Obama's, and to God the things that are God's. The two are getting further apart all the time.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVery little of what Obamacare entails has anything to do with "helping the sick" as Scripture exhorts us to do anyway.