More Catholic Hospitals Leads to Fewer Reproductive Health Options

After only 18 weeks of pregnancy, Tamesha Means’ water broke.

In excruciating pain as she lived every expectant mom’s nightmare, she was rushed to the only hospital near her home in Michigan, which happened to be a Catholic one. When she arrived at Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon in December 2010, her attorneys say hospital staff didn’t tell her that her baby had virtually no chance of survival and that the safest procedure would be to induce labor and terminate the pregnancy.

Instead they sent her home.

When she came back the next day bleeding and having contractions, they sent her home again.

That same night, Means returned for her third visit “in pain, in distress, and with signs of an infection,” according to a lawsuit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union.

As the hospital prepared to send her home again, she began delivering. Her premature baby died shortly after a birth that meant Means’ own health and possibly her life were put at risk because of the hospital’s refusal to perform an abortion, her attorneys say.

Means is just one woman who has received substandard care because a hospital’s religious beliefs were put ahead of patient safety—a situation that has been repeated, advocates fear. That is why the ACLU filed Means’ 2013 suit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the group responsible for creating these health-care guidelines for all Catholic medical providers in the U.S.

“No woman should have to go to a hospital and worry about whether they’ll risk their future health or their future fertility if they have a pregnancy complication,” said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney at ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

In an effort to preserve these guidelines, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked that the Tamesha Means case be dismissed, said Amiri. Both sides are now waiting for the court to rule on it.

Earlier this month, the ACLU took on another Michigan hospital for providing substandard care to patients because of the Bishops’ hospital rules, known as “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.” These directives not only outlaw elective abortion, but impose restrictions on when or if a rape victim can be given emergency contraception. They also restrict women’s rights to tubal ligation—barring women from choosing to have their tubes tied for contraceptive purposes.

The letter inspired the ACLU to send a letter to Michigan’s hospital regulators, asking them to “compel” Genesys Health System to lift its ban on sterilization, which is often done during a cesarean section because the patient is already prepped for surgery. The National Center for Biotechnology Information says there were about 700,000 female sterilizations performed each year, according to their study from 2000. Half of those procedures were performed within 48 hours of giving birth.

But as of November 1, Genesys, a Catholic organization, has banned the procedure and with little notice to its patients, said Amiri.

“These women basically got the rugs pulled out from under them,” she said.

The ACLU received complaints from patients saying they were too far into their pregnancy to switch doctors or hospitals when they got the news, said Amiri. They would be forced to undergo an entirely separate sterilization procedure elsewhere.

The ACLU’s letter to the regulatory board cites one such patient, referred to only as Mrs. B, who got word of the policy change just two weeks before her baby was due.

“Mrs. B should not have been forced into the position of having to plead...about whether she can have this procedure simply because the hospital has decided to make health care decisions based on religious directives rather than the appropriate standard of medical care,” the letter reads.

Genesys is merely following orders. As a Catholic health provider, Genesys is expected to follow care guidelines laid out by the Bishops, and it is also a member of Ascension Health, the self-described “largest Catholic and largest nonprofit health system” in the U.S.

“Genesys recently updated its policy on tubal ligations to comply with current Church teaching,” wrote Andy Kruse, vice president of mission integration for Genesys, in an email. “Under Church teaching, procedures that induce sterility are permitted when their direct effect and immediate purpose is the cure or alleviation of a present and serious pathology, and a simpler treatment is not available.”

In short, the hospital will consider performing the procedure if they determine a medical need for it but won’t do it for women who simply decide they want to stop having babies. Although it’s possible some Catholic providers are shirking the Church’s guidelines, it’s probably not common, said Amiri.

“On paper, all Catholic hospitals are supposed to be following this directive,” she said.

Catholic-owned health-care services in the U.S. are growing. In 2011, 10 of the 25 largest hospital systems in the country were Catholic-sponsored, according to a report from MergerWatch and the ACLU. From 2001 to 2011, the number of Catholic hospitals in the U.S. grew by 16 percent, even while the number of overall hospitals declined. In that period, hospitals complied with federal law by treating anyone who came to emergency rooms for any ailment, but uninsured patients and their unpaid bills led to a record number of personal bankruptcies related to medical costs and empty coffers for hospitals.

Just last year, prestigious Hoag Hospital in Orange County, Calif., announced it would no longer provide elective abortions. The hospital stated it was because they performed so few of them each year that their chances of making a mistake during a procedure was higher, but it’s widely believed the announcement was directly related to Hoag’s new partnership with a Catholic health-care provider.

Although historically secretive about their wealth, the Vatican is one of the world’s largest real estate owners in the world. In 2010, the Catholic Church and its related entities in America spent more than $80 billion on health-care networks, The Economist estimates, so the merging of non-Catholic hospitals with Catholic ones is becoming increasingly common, as many health-care providers struggle to stay financially afloat. Washington state is poised to have 44 percent of its hospitals owned by Catholic providers once pending mergers are completed, according to the MergerWatch report. This shift has become so controversial that the state’s health officials instituted new rules earlier this year requiring certain hospitals to post reproductive-care policies online so patients know what they’re dealing with from the onset.

While women who live in urban areas may have options when it comes to health care and can choose to avoid a Catholic-owned hospital entirely, those who live in many locations, particularly in rural areas, may not have that luxury.

“There are some places in the country where a Catholic hospital is the only place a woman can go,” said Amiri.

In addition to banning contraceptive tubal sterilization, there are two main issues that arise from the Catholic Bishops’ directives, she said. First, Catholic health-care providers are banned from performing elective abortions. This essentially prohibits all abortions, except for cases where death of a fetus is merely a side effect of another procedure.

The restrictions on emergency contraception for rape victims is another major red flag. Although the directives say a woman who has been raped should be able to “defend herself” against a potential pregnancy, the directed course of action according to the church says otherwise. Upon arrival to the hospital, a rape victim must first take a pregnancy test, and if that test is positive, she is out of luck. It’s only if the test is negative that the victim will be given emergency contraception.

The church guidelines clarify by saying, “It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum.”

While lawsuits wind their way through the courts, Amiri said it’s up to women to be informed consumers when it comes to choosing health providers.

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• As Texas Abortion Clinics Become Scarce, a Student Steps Up to Cover Patients’ Travel Costs

• Revealing Online Movement Talks Candidly About Abortion

• These $1 Contraceptives Last Three Months—and Could Change the Lives of Millions

Original article from TakePart