Free Republic

A new Washington Post article criticized Catholic hospitals this week for providing health care to all Americans including unborn babies, prompting one prominent abortion activist to demand that they shut down. Jill Filipovic, a writer and abortion activist, said Catholic hospitals should “not be in business” or receive tax dollars to serve Medicaid and other low-income patients if they refuse to do abortions. “The religious affiliation of a hospital should not dictate healthcare. If Catholic hospitals refuse to offer a basic standard of reproductive care, they should not be in business — and certainly shouldn’t be getting government resources or...

Well, the democrats have, once again, with help from their media buddies, muddied the waters and reframed the issue of Obamacare trampling on religious freedom. That issue can now be seen quickly disappearing in everyone’s rear-view mirrors. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, said, “…they [religious organizations like Catholic hospitals] would no longer have to offer breast cancer screenings, cervical cancer screenings – all they have to do is say ‘Oh – I’m really sorry – we believe prayer is the answer…’”

Full title: Pediatrician Warns 'Equality Act' Would Strip Parental Rights, Force Catholic Hospitals Out of Business, and End Girls' Sports The Daily Signal sat down with Dr. Michelle Cretella, a pediatrician and executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, to discuss the "Equality Act" and its impact it would have on parental rights, doctors' oath to do no harm to patients, as well as the effect it would have on Faith-based organization who oppose transgender ideology, and even its impact girls' sports. Dr. Cretella warned the "Equality Act," despite its name, would unfairly strip parents and moral conscientious health...

A transgender man is suing a Catholic hospital in New Jersey for canceling his hysterectomy surgery after his doctor deemed the procedure “medically necessary” as part of his sex transition. The surgery was scheduled at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Paterson, but an administrator canceled the operation because of the hospital’s religious affiliation.A lawsuit filed on Thursday claims that a Catholic hospital denied a transgender man a hysterectomy due to ethical and religious directives from the US Conference of Bishops. The man, Jionni Conforti alleges that doing so violated his patient’s bill of rights that states hospitals will provide medical services...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a campaign against Catholic hospitals, charging that the health of patients-- especially women-- may be endangered by the US bishops' health-care directives. Noting that Catholic institutions account for one of every six hospital beds in the US, the ACLU remarks that Catholic institutions are generally forbidden to perform abortions and sterilizations or to euthanize patients: procedures that the ACLU defines as forms of "health care" Thus the ACLU report concludes that "health care" is not always available at US hospitals because of Catholic teachings. "When hospitals prevent doctors from providing care, the...

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last week against Trinity Health Corporation, one of the nation’s largest Catholic health care groups, for refusing to provide emergency abortions. The formal complaint is based on the health system’s “repeated and systematic failure to provide women suffering pregnancy complications with appropriate emergency abortions as required by federal law,” according to an ACLU press release. Fox News religion correspondent Father John Morris said this is another example of religious institutions being forced to do things against their beliefs. "The ACLU wants no religious belief whatsoever to get in the way of their...

“Here I stand . . . but I can also move, if you like.” Via SFGate: Facing a possible sex-discrimination lawsuit, a Catholic hospital in Redding reversed its position Monday and agreed to let a woman’s doctor sterilize her after she gives birth next month. Mercy Medical Center, owned by Dignity Health of San Francisco, the state’s largest private health care company, had previously refused to allow Rachel Miller to undergo a tubal ligation, citing Catholic hospitals’ Ethical and Religious Directives against sterilization. After attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union said they would file a discrimination suit if Miller...

Father James E. Coyle, an extraordinary priest and Knight of Columbus in the early 20th century, courageously stood up against widely-held anti-Catholic views at the risk, and then cost, of his life.The Irish-born priest was scarcely in his 20s when, after his ordination in Rome, he was dispatched to Alabama to begin his priesthood. The Catholic population in Alabama had exploded with a promise of jobs, especially in and around Birmingham’s network of coal mines, steel mills and iron foundries. Father Coyle arrived in the city shortly before a wave of anti-Catholicism flooded the country, and the revived Ku...

Lori Stodghill was 31-years old, seven-months pregnant with twin boys and feeling sick when she arrived at St. Thomas More hospital in Cañon City on New Year’s Day 2006. She was vomiting and short of breath and she passed out as she was being wheeled into an examination room. Medical staff tried to resuscitate her but, as became clear only later, a main artery feeding her lungs was clogged and the clog led to a massive heart attack. Stodghill’s obstetrician, Dr. Pelham Staples, who also happened to be the obstetrician on call for emergencies that night, never answered a page....

The nation’s Catholic bishops have vowed to close their religious institutions rather than comply with the HHS mandate that they provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. In a column printed on CatholicNewWorld, Francis Cardinal George urged people to purchase a copy of the Archdiocesan directory “as a souvenir,” because in two years the page containing a list of Catholic hospitals and health care institutions “will be blank.” Ed Morrissey of the Hot Air blog calculated what it would mean if the Catholic bishops shut down all religious institutions that are ineligible for the conscience clause under the...

Thomas Jefferson said: "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." The third president wasn't Catholic and, arguably, probably not Christian. But he understood that for the government to compel people to pay for something they find morally repugnant is "sinful and tyrannical." The 44th president clearly thinks otherwise...

FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, July 29, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - When a child is delivered stillborn, a small flower or other token often marks the door of the mother’s recovery room to help staff recognize the loss. According to one Catholic doctor, the same symbol was used in at least one Catholic hospital where doctors routinely induced labor to hasten the death of a child diagnosed with a genetic defect - a practice she says occurs in “a handful” of Catholic hospitals across the United States. Dr. Lorna Cvetkovich told a bioethics conference at Christendom College in Virginia this month about her...

The ACLU's Unholy War on Catholic HospitalsWill a federal emergency-medical-treatment law be rewritten to mandate that all hospitals provide abortions? Ho, ho, ho! Just in time for Christmas, the American Civil Liberties Union has launched a new salvo against people of faith. Even as billions around the world celebrate the birth of Christ, joyless, abortion-obsessed secularists never take a holiday. On Wednesday, the ACLU sent a letter to federal health officials urging the government to force Catholic hospitals in the U.S. to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn. They’re counting...

Feds asked to ensure Catholic hospitals follow lawThe American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday asked federal health officials to ensure that Catholic hospitals provide emergency reproductive care to pregnant women. By Rob Stein The Washington Post Originally published Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 10:00 PM The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday asked federal health officials to ensure that Catholic hospitals provide emergency reproductive care to pregnant women, saying the refusal by religiously affiliated hospitals to provide abortion and other services is an increasing problem. In a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the ACLU...

Ho, ho, ho! Just in time for Christmas, the American Civil Liberties Union has launched a new salvo against people of faith. Even as billions around the world celebrate the birth of Christ, joyless, abortion-obsessed secularists never take a holiday. On Wednesday, the ACLU sent a letter to federal health officials urging the government to force Catholic hospitals in the U.S. to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn. They're counting on sympathetic Obama rationing czar Donald Berwick -- a recess appointee whose radical views on wealth and health redistribution were...

Coakley faces a fierce battle for the senatorial seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy against Republican contender Scott Brown, who is now leading in some polls. However, the election is still too close to call. “In the course of the interview, Martha Coakley demonstrated hostility to conscience rights in general, and to the beliefs of faithful Catholics in particular,” stated John F. Brehany, Ph.D., S.T.L., executive director of the CMA. Of course, the irony is obvious to any observer. Coakley claims to be a Catholic Christian. Yet, she seems to be one of those whom my good friend and Catholic...

Randy Shea January 17 at 5:09pm Hey Folks, Most of you have probably already heard about this but it's worth repeating. What Obama and progressives like Martha Coakley could not be more clear as to what they would do if given the chance. MA-Sen: Coakley: Devout Catholics "Probably Shouldn't Work in the Emergency Room" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ-ZeLSZPc8&feature=player_embedded You might know but I doubt that most of your friends do...So copy and paste this NOW...Spread it far and wide!!! In particular if you know Pro-Lifers in Massachusetts get this to them in what ever way you can... A vote for Coakley is a...

This is absolutely brutal: Massachusetts Dems have dropped a mail piece accusing GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown of wanting hospitals to turn away “all” rape victims. The mail piece — sent over by the Brown campaign — shows pictures of women who are supposed to have been raped, one of them in a wheelchair bent over with her head in her hands. It says: “1,736 WOMEN WERE RAPED IN MASSACHUSETTS IN 2008. SCOTT BROWN WANTS HOSPITALS TO TURN THEM ALL AWAY.” The mailer — paid for by the Massachusetts Democratic Party — says the claim is based on “a law...

Via Sargent, an extremely sweeping charge from Massachusetts Democratic Party. The basis is a provision Brown voted for that would allow religious hospital staffers not to inform victims of the availability of the morning after pill. The NRSC invoked Felix Grucci in response.

Catholic Group Supports Senate on Abortion Aid By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK December 25, 2009 WASHINGTON — In an apparent split with Roman Catholic bishops over the abortion-financing provisions of the proposed health care overhaul, the nation’s Catholic hospitals have signaled that they back the Senate’s compromise on the issue, raising hopes of breaking an impasse in Congress and stirring controversy within the church. The Senate bill, approved Thursday morning, allows any state to bar the use of federal subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion and requires insurers in other states to divide subsidy money into separate accounts so that...