Emergency abortion denials by Catholic hospitals put woman in danger, after her water broke at 17 weeks, lawsuit claims

DaisyDay said:

The issue is a bit different as the Little Sisters of the Poor are contesting, still, providing mandated insurance coverage for their employees, not refusing service to people seeking food.

https://becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com/20250813120225/2025-08-13-District-Court-Order-in-Little-Sisters-of-the-Poor-v.-Commonwealth-of-Pennsylvania.pdf

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Valletta said:

Yes, but the argument was that it would be acceptable if the sisters only served Catholics.

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Valletta said:

They refused to check a person's religion at the door to the soup kitchen.

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Valletta said:

In this case the point was made that the hospital is a "public" hospital. It is not a rare occurrence for an ER at a hospital to send someone to another hospital, I hope that in this case the lawsuit is not brought with any thought against freedom of religion.

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DaisyDay said:

As a private charity that doesn't accept public money, apart from tax relief.

Okay, but what has that got to do with providing health insurance to their employees?

In this case, they didn't transfer the person, but made an actively hemorrhaging patient get herself there which is a refusal of necessary emergency service.

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Valletta said:

In both cases the organizations have a right to do their work without violating their long-held religious beliefs.

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Valletta said:

Obviously the doctors had a different medical opinion than your own as to what was "necessary emergency service."

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DaisyDay said:

It's not even remotely the same. The health insurance for employees has nothing to do with their work and who they provide their services for,

Yes.

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Valletta said:

The soup kitchens of the Little Sisters of the Poor are open to the public as well. There is nothing in the Constitution that says religious freedom is thrown out the window for hospitals and soup kitchens.

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Valletta said:

Insurance is a separate matter.

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Valletta said:

If a person goes to an insurance approved hospital for necessary medical care and that person is refused care and goes to another facility the insurance company has to pay.

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DaisyDay said:

These are not analogous situations, so I don't know why you decided to compare the two.

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Hans Blaster said:

How much do they charge for soup?

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Valletta said:

It wouldn't matter even if they were charged, they are a religious non-profit and are being relentlessly pursued. The mainstream press does a poor job of covering attacks against Christian groups and causes. It would not surprise me if such attacks go on till the end of time. Think of all of that money wasted going after just one group that could have been used for good causes. Yet there are many who demand the sisters much conform to their ideology instead of following God;s Word:

https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/whats-going-on-with-the-little-sistershttps://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/whats-going-on-with-the-little-sisters

These two situations are both cases of attacks against religious freedom.

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What’s going on with the Little Sisters of the Poor and the HHS mandate?

Here’s an explainer on the latest in the Little Sisters’ case.

www.pillarcatholic.com

Valletta said:

The soup kitchens of the Little Sisters of the Poor are open to the public as well. There is nothing in the Constitution that says religious freedom is thrown out the window for hospitals and soup kitchens.

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Hvizsgyak said:

He doesn't realize that "real" people have to perform these abortions (against their moral judgement which can be very damaging to a person's psyche). You people think killing an unborn child is nothing. You are the barbarians. We have a God who despises the murdering of unborn children and His followers feel the same way and they practice medicine in Christian Hospitals.

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stevevw said:

Man I hope my country does not get tyo this point of health availability. If its an emergency people can go to any hospital and get government funded emergency care. End of story. You don't even have to have health insurance.

Health insurance only comes into play if someone wants to choose their own doctor and hospital or have non emergency such as elective treatments or ancillary related treatments like dentist, or chiropractice. Or want to speed up treatment for elective treatments such as hip replacements. Otherwise the public system will take care of all this but you may have to wait longer for non emergency treatments.

But certainly an aborting baby is classed as an emergency and would be recieved at the casualty dept and taken into surgery or further tests.

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BCP1928 said:

That's because your country is firmly in the clutches of socialism. How you tolerate that evil is a mystery.

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johansen said:

You do not know what you are talking about with regard to what a doctor has to do on a daily basis.

It is routine, to perform triage at every level of life with regard to what to do. More chemo? Or pull the plug.

It is people like yourself who extend life at any cost that are the barbarians.

A woman with twins whose water broke and its just a matter of hours before successful miss carriage or death of both the twins and the mother?

You are the monster.
To sending the woman away to another hospital to save her life because you dont want to deal with the problem. (And no, they dont care if she died on the way). She is a liability. Not a life to them.

As ive said before. If hospitals want to deal with the legal system properly they need to support their doctors with a proper legal team. In the event the feds try and prosecute a doctor for performing a necessary abortion, we will know which judges to get rid of.

And the next administration can prosecute the judge retroactively, since thats the level of legal theater we are at these days

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MarkSB said:

Her health insurance only covered hospitals in the Dignity Health Network - which (from the sound of it) are all Catholic hospitals. Perhaps she is a sister in Christ who works for a Christian business, and that is why her insurance only provides access to Catholic hospitals? I don't know. Regardless, I think the suggestion that she should have just gone to a non-Catholic hospital is just another example of Christians failing to hold the body of Christ accountable - which the bible very clearly calls us to do.

Christians who claim to be "pro-life" are very fond of pointing out the Hippocratic oath. (I have done this myself, in the past). In this case, it sounds like the pregnancy is no longer viable. So refusing to terminate the pregnancy because there is still a fetal heartbeat does absolutely nothing to save the child, and only puts the mother at risk. How is that pro-life? Is that who Christ has called us to be, and what he has called us to do in such a situation? I'm not going to claim to know the answer here, but (if you will permit me to use some "Christianese") I think it is a question to be "wrestled" with. I don't think it is as simple as saying that terminating a pregnancy is the wrong path in any and all circumstances, and that leaving the woman to possibly have life threatening issues is the right path.

And yes, that thought makes me shudder - and I would never want to be the person facing that decision. But at the same time I think that taking the stance that terminating a pregnancy which is no longer viable is wrong, and leaving the woman in a life-threatening situation is right; and trying to claim the moral high ground while doing so is a cop-out.



Personally, I think American Christians need a good proverbial smack in the face. (Undoubtedly some Christians from other countries do as well, but I can only speak to what is right in front of me). The bible calls Christians to hold the body of Christ accountable - even moreso than those outside the body of Christ. That is something that is extremely lacking in American Christianity today. Yeah, the (perceived) attacks may be vengeful/vindictive at times - but even if that is the case (which I don't know if it was here), I don't think that calls for us to deflect and make excuses for those who are claiming to be Christians. And Lord knows we've seen plenty of that as of late. Mr. Donald Trump and his most loyal supporters are a case in point.

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MarkSB said:

As someone else has stated, the example that you're presenting doesn't relate to the issue at hand.

I hate to generalize, but this seems to be a very common theme among Christians who support the far right. It is all about your grievances against American society, and nothing about the issue which is actually at hand. The goal is to create and perpetuate an "us vs. them" mentality, instead of addressing the merits of the case which is actually in front of them. It's a diversion tactic.

Addressing a situation such as this requires you to lay down your pride and any notions which you have of perceived superiority over the rest of society. But you can't (or don't want to) do this, so your response is to play the victim. It's all part of the hero-victim complex, which is just a means by which to try to maintain control and avoid accountability.

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