Oh, Susan, how I wish I could say that was new to me. There could be an entire think tank devoted to finding this kind of stuff in the women’s mag world (though I can see how it was a jolt from your friendly Shape). I learned of mergerwatch’s existence–it’s wildly popular among the liberal feminist and abortion (sorry to be redundant) groups—from Glamour or one of the other glossy’s a few year’s ago. Here’s another instance when women’s health proves to be of little consequence to some of these groups when abortion is at all involved: In many of these merger instances, the secular hospital would have closed if the Catholic hospital was not there and willing and able to merge (the Catholic hospital most often the solvent partner). One would think, especially in some of these middle-of-nowhere places anti-Catholic-hospital types cite, it would be better to have a hospital that doesn’t do abortion and doesn’t pass out contraception or do IVF than to have no hospital at all! Whatever you think of Catholics, the Catholic healthcare system is a big deal in the U.S., for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Rather than seen as the enemy, you’d think some of these folks would give credit where it is due here. (I get into this all a bit here.)