Posted on 05/11/2016 3:56:29 PM PDT by NYer
NEW YORK, May 9, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Catholic hospitals across the U.S. are “withholding emergency care” and denying “essential health services,” the ACLU is alleging in a new campaign. They also inflict harm on “transgender and gender-non-conforming patients” “when seeking reproductive healthcare.”
In a new report, “Health Care Denied,” the ALCU calls for denial of federal dollars from Catholic healthcare institutions, as well as investigations into their practices.
With a subtitle of “Patients and Physicians Speak Out About Catholic Hospitals and the Threat to Women's Health and Lives,” the stated goal of the report “is to shine a light on the harm and discrimination occurring at hospitals across this country.”
Produced in partnership with MergerWatch, a group founded by a “reproductive health” group that combats religious medical care and receives funding from Planned Parenthood in New York, the document decries how the U.S. Bishops’ 2009 Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services shapes Catholic healthcare.
The Directives spell out the Church's moral teaching for institutionally based Catholic healthcare services in the U.S., and in keeping with Church teaching, they prohibit such things as contraception, sterilization and abortion, which the ACLU deems “appropriate care.”
This latest strike by the civil liberties group follows a series of legal challenges directed over several years at the U.S. Catholic Church, with the ACLU either suing Catholic hospitals, the U.S. Bishops or the federal government, or otherwise advocating in opposition of Catholic morals.
The new ACLU document calls a number of the Bishops’ positions relative to the Directives “myths,” and lists instances of women refused “emergency abortions” and tubal ligations after pregnancy at Catholic hospitals, taking issue with the U.S. Bishops’ contention in the Directives that direct abortion is never morally permissible no matter the reason.
It laments that one in six U.S. hospital beds is in a Catholic hospital, along with other statistics on the prevalence of Catholic healthcare in the U.S., and alleges that because of this patients are victims of discrimination who are robbed of healthcare choices.
“The power of the public purse should be leveraged to ensure that facilities no longer withhold essential health care from patients,” the report states.
“We cannot stay silent and let hospitals use their religious identity to discriminate against, and harm, women,” it concludes, calling on the federal government through its Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to issue a statement that denying emergency “reproductive health care” violates federal law, and also investigate Catholic hospitals for violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA).
Catholic leaders decried the initiative but were not surprised.
“The ACLU has long waged war on Catholics over the issue of abortion,” the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue said in a statement. “Now it has joined with Planned Parenthood to author a report that sounds the alarms over the “news” that one in six hospitals in the nation is Catholic-run.”
“The ACLU has repeatedly sued Catholic hospitals for allegedly violating the civil liberties of women, and it has repeatedly lost in the courts,” Donohue continued. “As proof, it cites the Church’s opposition to contraception, sterilization and abortion, and various directives issued by the bishops to Catholic hospitals. It continues to lose because the First Amendment guarantees religious liberty, a fundamental expression of which is the right of Catholic entities to maintain institutional autonomy.”
“Let us be perfectly clear,” Human Life International’s Director of Research and Training Brian Clowes told LifeSiteNews. “Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and MergerWatch have one objective in mind: To force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions and sterilizations as a blanket policy.”
“They are both extremist pro-abortion organizations,” he said, “and their concern for women's health is only a cover.”
Clowes pointed out how the latest ACLU report employs the classic liberal tactic of heavily stressing the "hard cases," something the ACLU used in its successful bid to help legalize abortion on demand in the United States.
The report’s examples of "emergencies" contain details that are deliberately vague or which are completely irrelevant, he said, in one example, where a woman suffering preeclampsia is refused sterilization by a Catholic hospital.
“The report conveniently omits the fact that sterilization does not cure or ameliorate preeclampsia even slightly,” said Clowes.
“The solution to this perceived problem is to educate doctors and medical staff at Catholic hospitals in the details of the bishop's Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services," he stated, “not to force them to act against their consciences and against their Faith, which the ACLU and MergerWatch seem to have no problem attempting to do.”
Catholic ping!
Right thing for the wrong reason.
The states should join the Catholic hospitals in extracting themselves from federal funding which carries with it federal tyranny.
Both are better off without what the feds “give” and what they take away.
The current pope is apt to side with the ACLU.
Blacks are evidently fine with Planned Parenthood’s eugenic targeting of them.
Who is he to judge?
I doubt that. He cares about the sick and dying.
You can guess how the Supreme Court would rule, if a liberal justice fills Scalia’s seat. That would give the liberals five solid votes out of nine, to do the bidding of the ACLU and other radical groups.
This points up some of what is at stake in this years election.
Reagan hit the nail on the head when he said the scariest words in the English language with one hand outstretched are, “Hi I’m from the government and I’m here to help”, while the other hand is behind its back holding the hammer.
Does this mean Obama will strip federal funding from Catholic Charities who provides shelter, transportation, and food for all the alleged unaccompanied alien children? (not holding my breath)
Except he’s acting and talking like a Socialist.
You are correct. I would carry it one step further, all states should begin passing on Federal money.
The Federal Government uses money to get states to do what they (the Feds) could not otherwise do. Without the carrot, the Feds would not have a big enough stick to force states to do what they (and the voters do not want done).
Where does the Constitution allow the feds to interfere with our healthcare? NOWHERE!
This is none of freaking SCOTUS’ business because it is outside the scope of the Constitution.
The ACLU has been involved in planned and direct attacks against Americans’ Constitutional liberties for more than 50 years. It’s time to charge the ACLU with sedition, arrest the leadership and the leftist puppet judges who support the treasonous ACLU campaign and stand them before bench to answer for their crimes against the American people.
If one can interpret “general welfare” as an authorization of the exercise of power, it is ultimately unlimited license to do anything.
It is in the same section that contains a right to abortion.
tgrip EVERY hospital of Federal funds.
An excellent idea.
We need more people who call it like they see it.
[ Where does the Constitution allow the feds to interfere with our healthcare? NOWHERE!
This is none of freaking SCOTUS’ business because it is outside the scope of the Constitution. ]
It is a TAX you know.....
a TAX
Attacks on the Constitution
When they stop promoting bringing islamo trash here and stop supporting 3rd world pinching off of new welfare cases, it will be a start.
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