Tennessee Hospital Forced To Adhere to "Morally Acceptable Parameters" After Catholic Merger

With a crisis in our health care system, more hospitals are shuttering or merging in an attempt to remain viable, especially those who take on the poor and uninsured. Unfortunately, many of the strongest and most enduring hospitals are Catholic-based and often do not offer the full range of health care options available at other medical institutions.

As more struggling hospitals begin to merge into this Catholic care system, they are being forced to adhere to the Catholic health care standards — no abortions, no emergency contraception, no sterilization and no removal from life support, even if the family requests otherwise.

Such is the case in Tennessee, where a recent merger between Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare, now both being run under Catholic Health Initiatives. The hospitals are about to undergo their first examination by the Archbishop of Louisville to ensure “our health care institutions are faithful to the call of the Church to make health care accessible to as many as possible, especially the poor and vulnerable.”

For St. Mary’s HealthCare, there should be no issue. But for Jewish Hospital, they have been asked to stop doing procedures that the church finds “intrinsically immoral,” such as “elective abortions, sterilizations and fertility treatments, and from dispensing contraceptives solely to prevent pregnancy.”

Right now, the Jewish Hospital seems unconcerned with the directives, as they do very few of any of the procedures the Catholic church is upset by. However, the archbishop is also allowed “the right to ‘develop his own ethical and religious directives if he chooses,’” meaning new directives could be added at any moment.

For women, this can be especially dangerous, as more news comes out regarding hospitals that refuse to allow abortions for health reasons, telling the patients they must find a different provider even if they are already too sick to travel. Or, as more hospitals merge into Catholic systems, access to emergency contraceptives after a rape could all but disappear.

Even disallowing a family the right to decide if a member should no longer be kept on life support could become a growing problem, as loved ones, who come to hospitals sick and have no ability to recover would also have no ability to be moved to a facility that does allow end of life decisions. The inability to take a family off life support wouldn’t just violate the patient and family’s rights, but could potentially bankrupt them with sustained medical costs.

Photo credit: wikimedia commons

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
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Renee K.

2:38PM PST on Jan 28, 2012

Portland N!

So you feel that this country should be run by Christian biblical laws? Which Christian sect would that be? The Baptists have the Catholics outnumbered, so would we all then have to be Baptists? Obviously the Constitution of the United States will have to be thrown out. I saw first hand the gentle, life-affirming treatment that a Catholic hospital gives. My mother, who had her nurses training at St. Elizabeth's, developed cancer. Because she was poor, she was being treated through Medicaid. Because she was covered by Medicaid, she received substandard care; I was 23 at the time and I had to take care of her even though the hospital was being reimbursed by the state. In the final weeks of her life they stopped giving her water and no IV. Between work and school (and I wound up dropping out of school) I would change her sheets and clean her up while she was still able eliminate. I would try to get some water into her; she was so dehydrated that her lips and her skin in places cracked and bled. The nurses and nuns walked by as if she was already dead but hadn't started to smell yet. Spare me such Christian treatment! If the local merger between this hospital and the other local hospital goes through, I will go out of the area for treatment. Or die at home.

send a green star

Rin S.

10:02PM PST on Jan 24, 2012

If all hospitals have to adhere to Catholic health care standards, America would be screwed. All I can say, is America needs better health care system, and less Catholic hospitals.

antonia m.

7:33PM PST on Jan 24, 2012

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
-A. Einstein

Nelson P.

7:01AM PST on Jan 24, 2012

First - let me say that Richard C knows nothing about the economics of population growth. Let him go to India, Bangladesh and Nepal where babies are born every five minutes to poverty stricken mothers who do not have the proper means or the salary to provide them their babies and themselves proper sanitation, medical treatment and food. Does he know that many of these babies are thrown in garbage bins, in rivers and eaten alive by hungry stray dogs? This is because these poor people have no access to medical care, abortion facilities which are costly or contraceptives. The tragedy today is that the Catholic church is riding a high horse and is bloated with self-righteous arrogance. Yes, someone mentioned quite rightly that the Catholic Church only cares for statistics so that the cardinals and the archbishops could report to the Pope in Rome the rate of growth of Roman Catholics all over the world. The Catholics care two hoots for the earth's dwindling resources. They would want poor people to grope and beg for charities that CARITAS provides like they do in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, Lagos etc and they are given food aid with one condition - they become Catholics. This is very evident in these countries which is why the governments of these countries are wary of foreign missionaries who convert the poor masses by the promise of food, medicine, clothes and education. It is unfortunate that American Catholics have failed to see the ploy of the Catholic Church and

Portland N.

9:30AM PST on Jan 22, 2012

The merger really should not be a problem, because the Catholic Health Initiatives are based on the Laws and Statutes in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Actually, I was shocked that the Jewish Hospital had sometimes practiced certain procedures!!!

Lauren F.

10:52AM PST on Jan 21, 2012

this is scary. this is wrong.

Jane B.

5:43PM PST on Jan 20, 2012

Go have a child YOURSELF for CHRIST'S sake and KEEP YOUR MORAL NOSE OUT OF OUR VAGINAS!! OVERPOPULATION is not only POSSIBLE it's ALREADY HERE. Why does the Catholic Church disappear when there's all those starving BABIES in the world??? The Pope's sitting on BILLIONS of dollars in PROPERTY ALONE that is TAX FREE, not counting all the GOLD LINED CHURCHES! The Catholic Church is FILTHY RICH. The only reason they don't want BIRTH CONTROL and ABORTION is so women will pop out MORE CATHOLICS!! Aaaawww, the poooooor pitiful Catholics. I feel sorry for the suckers who keep
tithing and PAYING the PEDOPHILE PRIESTS to RAPE THEIR CHILDREN. Every follower of the Catholic Church has been SCAMMED.

Richard C.

4:43PM PST on Jan 20, 2012

Also for you feminists I know its your body.

I would think it more exploitative to have women use their bodies to offer free blood sacrifice to corporate greed than to be forced to have a child that they probably won't regret in a couple years.

4:38PM PST on Jan 20, 2012

The Catholic Church knows something that most of the posters here don't about spiritual health. I pity the church for the ignorance they have to deal with.
Some of the fears I hear from the pro-abortion people make as much sense as the fear of falling off the edge of the flat Earth. One case in point is the blown up case of possible extreme overpopulation. (Just like falling off the edge of the Earth, it's physically impossible)

Given that overpopulation is impossible, Catholic morality not only makes sense, but it should be pushed on ignorant people who in ignorance don't know any better.

Nina A.

2:19PM PST on Jan 20, 2012

Thanks for the article.