Don't tell me I'm being hysterical when I say there is a war on women, and women are losing.
If that weren't the truth, do you really think medical professionals would let a woman die before they would terminate a pregnancy when the fetus was doomed no matter what? Yet it happens. Not every day, but far too often.
When you show up at an emergency room in need of urgent medical care, you have a reasonable expectation that you’ll be given the treatment you need — that the staff will do everything they can to save your life and protect your health. In fact, ERs are required by law not to turn anyone away for any reason.
Unless you’re a Catholic-affiliated health system. At least, that’s what one Catholic hospital system would like you to think, even though they’re dead wrong.
In October, the ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of their members against Trinity Health Corporation, one of the largest Catholic health systems in the country, for its repeated and systematic failure to provide women experiencing pregnancy complications with appropriate emergency abortions as required by federal law.
In response to the lawsuit, the hospital submitted a brief arguing that state and federal law allow Trinity to “refuse to allow abortions to be performed on hospital premises,” in the context of emergency miscarriage treatment when the woman’s life or health is at risk.
Let that sink in: Even when a woman’s life or health is at risk, this Catholic health system doesn’t feel a responsibility — legal, ethical or otherwise — to help her. And they’re perfectly comfortable saying it in a public legal document.
They know that if the woman dies, the baby dies, right? That's kinda axiomatic. This is where the wall between church and state should be the tallest and the strongest. Of the three things that Americans are entitle to, per our founding documents, (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness), they put Life first.
She is a human being and she may have other children who will be left motherless. This is the 21st century...not the third, and Jesus never said anything about Abortion anyway, thats dogma, not scripture. You do know the difference, right? They either have to treat the woman in front of them, or take every crucifix out of every Catholic hospital, because the last thing they get to call themselves is "Christians." What would Jesus do? Do you REALLY think the guy who supposedly spoke all those red words would let a woman die if the baby couldn't be saved?
This is one of the issues the church and I differ on. I believe in contraception, planned pregnancies and appropriate medical care if something goes wrong. Something only my next door neighbor, Lucy, and my immediate family knows is that I was pregnant in 1993, and when I realized I was having a miscarriage, even though I'm a Catholic, and my children were in class at the neighborhood Catholic school, I drove past a Catholic hospital where I had once worked on my way to Wesley Medical Center, because I knew that even though former coworkers would be treating me at St Joseph's, I would not be the priority. I also knew the fetus was doomed, so I made a medical professional's decision, and went to the hospital that would treat ME. But not every woman is a medical professional that can make a rational decision at such a time...and she shouldn't have to be.
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