ACLU Sues to Force Catholic Hospitals to Perform Abortions
“The American progressives and the global jihadists have targeted Christianity. The jihadists butcher, enslave and threaten Christians and the progressives attack doctrine, Christian values, and Christian morality. It is a hellish alliance.” – Anonymous
As progressives continue to ignore the blood of Christians being spilled in the Middle East – and in Oregon – the liberal-left’s “legal goon squad,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Monday targeted the Trinity Health Corporation in a major lawsuit for refusal of Catholic hospitals to perform abortions on “women whose unborn babies were supposedly near death.”
In an ACLU federal lawsuit against the healthcare ministry, which is one of the largest Catholic healthcare systems in the United States, the ACLU attorneys complained that the Catholic hospitals and their doctors had refused to terminate the pregnancies of five women going through preterm, premature rupture of membranes. This medical condition occurs “when the amniotic sac breaks and leaves no fluid around the unborn child” according to an ACLU statement.
USA Today reports that Trinity believes the case has no merit. “A federal court already dismissed a similar ACLU claim, and we will seek dismissal of this suit for the same reason. The Ethical and Religious Directives are entirely consistent with high-quality health care, and our clinicians continue to provide superb care throughout the communities we serve. We are proud that more than 25,000 licensed physicians work directly with our health system and share our commitment to people-centered care,” said Trinity officials.
Trinity’s media spokeswoman Eve Pidgeon said that the Catholic Church’s positions on the subject of abortion “are entirely consistent with high-quality health care, and our clinicians continue to provide superb care throughout the communities we serve. We are proud that more than 25,000 licensed physicians work directly with our health system and share our commitment to people-centered care.”
“No one forces women – or men for that matter – to seek healthcare at Catholic hospitals. There are Jewish, Protestant, municipal and other non-profit hospitals that will provide abortions for a number of reasons,” said political strategist Mike Baker, who is not a Catholic.
“This lawsuit is meant to force a religious group to violate their own doctrine. They want to punish a heathcare provider that does more in the way of charitable healthcare for the poor and uninsured than even the federal government,” Baker said.
The ACLU’s primary argument is that Trinity violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) by failing to stabilize the women’s medical conditions. The ACLU has always shown a propensity for trying to force Catholic hospitals to perform procedures that violate the Church’s religious beliefs.
In fact, the ACLU recently lost a lawsuit in Michigan in which they were trying to bully the Catholic Church’s — and other religiously affiliated — hospitals into offering and performing abortions in cases where the mother’s life supposedly hangs in the balance. The judge involved in the case, Robert Holmes Bell, dismissed that lawsuit ruling that the federal courts have no jurisdiction over the Bishops Conference directives and that federal judges have “no business interfering with [the Catholic Church’s] religious doctorial decisions.”
