Service to the poor and marginalized drives the church’s mission in all things.
These institutions serve those most in need, yet that’s not good enough for their detractors.
C atholic hospitals ministering to the neediest on the margins of society are the latest targets of ideological attacks from the abortion lobby and its allies.
The fearmongering fantasies of those carrying water for the abortion industry say that the prevalence of Catholic hospital systems will somehow endanger women’s health. They will keep repeating this lie until they run out of air. In fact, smearing Catholic hospitals is part of a thinly veiled attempt to force Catholic health-care workers to violate their religious beliefs and ultimately to shut Catholic hospitals down.
“I don’t want your god in charge of my health care,” was the title of one hateful piece maliciously accusing Catholic hospitals of establishing “a Commonwealth of Religious Deference, where . . . citizens can be denied basic services as long as someone has decided that’s the way God wants it.” Another recent piece, titled “Spread of Catholic hospitals limits reproductive care across the U.S.,” claims that “their ascendancy has broad implications for the evolving national battle over reproductive rights beyond abortion,” and regurgitates the bald-faced lie that Catholic religious beliefs about abortion translate to “limited treatment options for obstetric care during miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.”
The president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association was quick to respond in a letter, stating that not only do “Catholic health clinicians provide medically indicated treatment, even if it poses a threat to the unborn child or might result in the unintended death of the child” when there is a pregnancy emergency, they are “both clinically and ethically required” to do so. In other words, the ethical principles guiding Catholic hospitals in no way compromise women’s health, as elective abortion is never part of medically indicated care.
Critics are certainly correct to note the preponderance of Catholic hospitals, though this is hardly a new phenomenon. Considering that the Catholic Church pioneered the modern-day hospital system, it’s almost surprising that only one in six hospital beds in America are found in a Catholic hospital. But given that service to the poor and marginalized drives the church’s mission in all things, it’s not surprising that the poor are overwhelmingly served by Catholic hospitals in many low-income and rural areas.
Catholic hospitals have certainly made good on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ guidance, outlined in its “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” which states that “particular attention should be given to the health care needs of the poor, the uninsured, and the underinsured.” Much of rural America would have limited access to basic health care were it not for Catholic hospitals. And while the total number of hospitals open for low-income patients has fallen in recent years, the number of Catholic hospitals available to them has increased.
This stands in stark contrast with the approach of abortion clinics, which boast concern for women’s health, often even in their names, but, when barred from performing abortions, suddenly shutter their doors altogether. Why do they lose interest in “women’s health care” when the lucrative abortion conveyer belt comes to a halt?
The Catholic hospital system stands in the void, acting as the largest nongovernmental, nonprofit provider of health care to low-income women. Furthermore, larger Catholic health systems reinvest a significant portion of their funding — as high as 20 percent — back into the community and health-care services for the poor. For-profit hospitals, by contrast, reinvest an average of 1 percent of their earnings back into health-care charity. And then there are the nearly 1 million low-income Americans, one-fourth of them children, aided annually by the work of Catholic Charities that provides health services like dental clinics, psychiatric care, and addiction counseling.
The reason Catholic hospitals and health services are so prevalent in places where secular options are not is that their deepest motivation is to meet the needs of those who would otherwise go without. The abortion lobby, meanwhile, reveals its motivations in its readiness to cut off health-care access to millions of the poorest Americans over abortion.