{"id":130506,"date":"2016-04-28T09:15:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T15:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/28\/religious-freedom-vs-medical-freedom.html"},"modified":"2016-05-02T22:03:31","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T04:03:31","slug":"religious-freedom-vs-medical-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/28\/religious-freedom-vs-medical-freedom.html","title":{"rendered":"Religious freedom vs medical freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

While most of the "religious freedom" noises the last year or two have been about individuals and mom-and-pop stores wanting to deny service to sinners<\/del> gay people, up at the large organization level it's been religious-owned (or -imaged) companies fighting the previous culture war around reproductive issues.<\/p>\n

One story that has flown under the radar for many has been the significant degree to which US hospitals have been taken over by religiously-affiliated organizations, the Catholic Church most prominently: almost half of the largest hospital systems are Catholic "sponsored," translating to 1 in 9 hospital beds being in a Catholic hospital.<\/p>\n

This, in turn, has led to a variety of cases, some of them tragic, where church doctrine has trumped medical needs. And while folk in the big cities may have a variety of options to shop between for hospitals[1], in more rural and smaller cities, there may be only one or two hospitals in easy reach, and both may be bound by Church limitations on sterilization, abortion, and birth control.<\/p>\n

And this, in turn, has led to a California law suit by the ACLU, now joined in by the 41K-member California Medical Association, against the fifth largest hospital system in the nation, Dignity Health.<\/p>\n

'The ACLU lawsuit stems from the case of a Dignity Health patient who was denied a tubal ligation. The patient’s physician agreed to perform the procedure during her cesarean section, but the hospital refused the doctor’s request, citing religious directives written by Catholic bishops that classify sterilization as “intrinsically evil.” The plaintiffs argue that forcing doctors to deny basic health care on the basis of religious objections creates a conflict between the medical well-being of patients and the directives of the Catholic hospital system. They also contend that withholding medical care for reasons unrelated to medicine is illegal in California.'<\/i><\/p>\n

I will be interested to see where this goes.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

[1] Though those options may be illusory, if your physician only has admitting privileges in a few hospitals, or if your insurance is restricted in where it covers treatment, or if you cannot easily tell in advance (without grilling hospital staff) what religious-based limitations your care will be bound by.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\n
\n<\/a>
\n41,000 Doctors to Join Lawsuit Against Catholic Hospital Over Denial of Care – Rewire<\/a><\/span>
\nReligious directives, written by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, forbid doctors at Catholic facilities from providing birth control and performing common reproductive health procedures.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While most of the "religious freedom" noises the last year or two have been about individuals and mom-and-pop stores wanting to deny service to sinners gay people, up at the large organization level it's been religious-owned (or -imaged) companies fighting the previous culture war around reproductive issues. One story that has flown under the radar … Continue reading “Religious freedom vs medical freedom”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,134,378,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-health-care","category-intolerance-persecution","category-religious-zanies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129164,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/17\/religious-restrictions-on-hiring-have-limits.html","url_meta":{"origin":130506,"position":0},"title":"Religious restrictions on hiring have limits","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 17-Dec-15 6:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's pretty long-standing law that, while religious institutions have some freedoms when it comes to hiring, those freedoms have strict boundaries. To wit, restrictions on what constitutions a \"religious institution,\" and for what job we're talking about.So take the extreme case: it is considered legal (and morally defensible) that someone\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26410,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/15\/no-retreat-no-surrender-on-contraception.html","url_meta":{"origin":130506,"position":1},"title":"No retreat, no surrender (on contraception)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 15-Feb-12 5:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"So, let's see if I have this straight:1. Consider a company owned by the Catholic Church. It might be a college, or a hospital, or whatever. It employs folks from a variety of backgrounds and faiths.2. The current mandate for minimal insurance plans from insurers, per the federal government, includes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27296,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/02\/religiously-limited-medical-care.html","url_meta":{"origin":130506,"position":2},"title":"Religiously Limited Medical Care","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 2-Apr-12 12:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"During the recent Birth Control Coverage Kerfuffle, what was left unstated in the question of whether Church-owned or -controlled hospitals should be required to provide contraceptive care (etc.) for women was what the overall impact was. This article notes how much of our nation's medical care (and governmental medical spending)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24935,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/30\/is-discriminating-against-discrimination-discrimination.html","url_meta":{"origin":130506,"position":3},"title":"Is discriminating against discrimination discrimination?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 30-Dec-11 10:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"Not when it's Your Tax Dollars At Work, in my opinion. 'Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel and associate general secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, disagreed. \u201cIt\u2019s true that the church doesn\u2019t have a First Amendment right to have a government contract,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29859,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/16\/more-religious-assault-twaddle-from-rick-santorum.html","url_meta":{"origin":130506,"position":4},"title":"More "religious assault" twaddle from Rick Santorum","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Aug-12 11:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"\"We have a president who, for the first time in American history, is directly assaulting the First Amendment and freedom of religion. He is going to tell you what to do in the practice of your faith. He is forcing business people right now to do things that are against\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F07%2Frick-santorum-440-300x224.jpeg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":27269,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/28\/freedom-of-practice-isnt-freedom-of-receiving-money.html","url_meta":{"origin":130506,"position":5},"title":"Freedom of practice isn't freedom of receiving money","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 28-Mar-12 11:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If the federal government puts forward a contract for providing certain services, and a church that doesn't believe in some of those services bids for and loses the contract because of that, that isn't religious discrimination -- any more than if the Quakers bid on a missile contract but were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130563,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130506\/revisions\/130563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}