By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor
“In this case, a young woman in a crisis situation was put at risk because religious directives were allowed to interfere with her medical care. Patients should not be forced to suffer because of a hospital’s religious affiliation.”
-Kary Moss, executive director, ACLU of Michigan (quoted in the Detroit Free Press, December 2, 2013)
“The Church holds that all human life, both before and after birth, has inherent dignity, and that health care providers have the corresponding duty to respect the dignity of all their patients. This lawsuit argues that it is legally ‘negligent’ for the Catholic bishops to proclaim this core teaching of our faith. Thus, the suit urges the government to punish that proclamation with civil liability, a clear violation of the First Amendment.”
–Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (quoted in the National Catholic Register, December 7, 2013)
Tamesha Means was only 18 weeks pregnant when her water broke. A friend rushed her to the emergency room at Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon, Michigan. She was examined and sent home with instructions to follow up with her regular doctor at her next scheduled appointment. The following morning she returned to the hospital, bleeding and having painful contractions. She was given pain medication and again sent home. That very night she returned for the third time, in great pain and with an elevated temperature, suggestive of an infection. As the hospital was preparing paperwork to send her home yet again, Ms. Means went into labor and delivered a baby who survived fewer than three hours. She was then informed that she would need to make funeral arrangements.
Those are a few of the allegations contained in a new lawsuit that has outraged conservatives and the Catholic hierarchy by advancing traditional negligence principles as a basis for imposing liability against a surprising group of defendants.
The suit alleges negligence, but the targets are not the hospital, the treating physicians or the medical staff. Instead, the named defendants are the current and two former chairpersons of Catholic Health Ministries, an unincorporated association formed pursuant to Catholic canon law, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, a non-profit corporation whose members include all Catholic bishops in the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Ms. Means claims that Catholic Health Ministries and the USCCB effectively prevented her from learning the truth about her medical condition, the consequent risks to her health and to the development of the fetus, and the treatment options lawfully available to her. More specifically, she asserts that she was not informed that the premature rupture of her membranes had made it virtually certain that the fetus would not survive, that continuing her pregnancy increased the risk of serious bacterial infection, possibly resulting in infertility or even death, or that inducing labor and terminating the pregnancy is a medically acceptable treatment under such circumstances. Lab tests performed following the miscarriage in fact confirmed that Ms. Means had developed acute chorioamnionitis and acute funisitis prior to going into labor.
The complaint reads much like a standard claim of medical malpractice. So why did Ms. Means elect not to sue the medical providers? And how can she link her unnecessary suffering and mental anguish to Catholic Health Ministries and the USCCB? In response to the first question, it has been suggested that the relevant statute of limitations barred a malpractice suit. But that explanation does not address the second question. And the critics have been harsh. The editors of National Review Online labeled the case “a gross violation of the First Amendment and a despicable political gambit” by the ACLU “to force Catholic organizations not only to subsidize abortions but to perform them as well.” Writing in the Washington Times, Robert Knight made the same accusation, but added, “Since only the Catholic Church bothered to build a hospital within 30 minutes of Ms. Means’ home, the ACLU contends that the facility should operate without religious principles guiding it or simply switch to the ACLU’s brand of moral relativism, where unborn children are merely options.” And in an opinion piece in the New York Post, Seth Lipsky declared, “Welcome to the next front in the war against religion.” He also suggested that perhaps the ACLU should sue the pope.
Either the critics have not taken the time to thoroughly review the lawsuit or they are merely repeating the frequently heard but nonsensical accusation that disagreement with the actions or policies of a religious organization is an assault on religious freedom. Or perhaps it’s both. In any event, the critics are wrong.
In order to understand the case, it is necessary to understand the relationships among the defendants and the impact of a document entitled Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, a set of written directives published by the USCCB and revised from time to time. Catholic Health Services is the Catholic sponsor of Trinity Health, a Catholic healthcare system that assumed the operations of Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon following a merger in 2008. Trinity’s corporate governing documents provide that it will conduct its business in accordance with Catholic teaching, including the USCCB directives.
The USCCB directives, now in their fifth edition, describe the role of the Catholic Church in its “ecclesial mission of health care” and set out 72 directives in 6 sections for making spiritual, pastoral and medical decisions in the provision of health care services. And, as one would expect, the directives are intended to be binding on Catholic hospitals. The preamble calls the directives “prescriptive.” Directive 5 should eliminate any confusion in that regard. It reads, “Catholic health care services must adopt these Directives as policy, require adherence to them within the institution as a condition for medical privileges and employment, and provide appropriate instruction regarding the Directives for administration, medical and nursing staff, and other personnel.” Directive 9 states in part, “Employees of a Catholic health care institution must respect and uphold the religious mission of the institution and adhere to these directives.” There are no exceptions for non-Catholic employees.
In sum, the USCCB has promulgated a set of rules intended to be binding on all Catholic health care facilities and all of their employees. Physicians who fail to comply risk the loss of admitting privileges. Employees who fail to comply risk the loss of employment. And the penalties have been enforced. Several years ago Sister Margaret McBride, the administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, was declared excommunicated by her bishop for approving an ethics committee recommendation to terminate the pregnancy of a 27-year-old mother of three diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. She was 11 weeks pregnant when she was admitted and her death was deemed a virtual certainty should her pregnancy continue. A cardiologist at a Catholic hospital in Durango, Colorado was disciplined last year for merely discussing the possibility of an abortion with a pregnant patient who had a serious cardiovascular condition known as Marfan syndrome, a disorder which can cause an aorta to rupture.
Of special significance in the Means case are Directives 27 and 45. Directive 27 appears in a section devoted to the professional-patient relationship. That section acknowledges the critical importance of “mutual respect, trust, honesty, and appropriate confidentiality” as elements of that relationship. Directive 26 stresses the necessity of “free and informed consent” to all medical procedures. Directive 27 provides, “Free and informed consent requires that the person or the person’s surrogate receive all reasonable information about the essential nature of the proposed treatment and its benefits; its risks, side-effects, consequences, and cost; and any reasonable and morally legitimate alternatives, including no treatment at all.” The operative phrase here is “morally legitimate.”
Directive 45 is a restatement of the Catholic position on abortion. “Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted. Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo.” It is when Directives 27 and 45 are read together that the conflict at the heart of the Means case becomes clear. It was not the refusal of Mercy Health Partners to provide abortion services that constituted the breach of duty alleged in the complaint, but the failure to inform Ms. Means of the option of abortion. Although responsive pleadings have not been filed to date (a motion for change of venue is pending), the bishops will undoubtedly argue that the duty alleged by Ms. Means does not exist because a Catholic hospital may not be compelled to provide information to patients regarding treatment or procedures which are not “morally legitimate” or which would violate the moral principle of “material cooperation.”
Directive 27 turns the notion of freedom of religion on its ears because it means that a patient in a Catholic hospital is required to abandon his or her own religious views on the floor of the admissions office. But don’t non-Catholic patients in Catholic hospitals understand this? I doubt that the subtleties of “informed consent” are explained in the emergency room. So why not go to a different hospital? In its retort to the audacity of the ACLU, National Review Online made that point. “But it does not seem to have occurred to them that if they don’t like Catholic hospitals, they should go somewhere else.”
That observation is long on snark and impertinence, but short on reality. There are two hospitals in Muskegon County, Michigan providing acute care and emergency room services: Mercy Health Partners-Mercy Campus and Mercy Health Partners-Hackley Campus. Following its merger last year with Catholic Health East in Pennsylvania, the Trinity Health system is one of the largest in the country, with a presence in 21 states. According to the 2011 American Hospital Association Annual Survey, there were 630 Catholic hospitals in the United States. Catholic hospitals care for one out of every six patients in the United States, and account for 16.5% of Medicare discharges and 13.7% of Medicaid discharges. Moreover, perhaps as a consequence of the traditional commitment of the Church to the poor and the uninsured, 32% of Catholic hospitals are located in rural counties. For these patients, as for Ms. Means, the invitation to “go somewhere else” is meaningless.
And this brings us to the issue of proximate cause. Assuming the truth of the allegations in the complaint, it is clear that Mercy Health Partners failed in its obligation to furnish Ms. Means all of the information to which she was lawfully entitled in order to make an informed decision concerning her own medical treatment. But what duty, if any, did the USCCB owe to her? Prof. Cathleen Kaveny, an acknowledged expert in law, moral theology and medical ethics, contends that there is no causal relationship whatsoever between the USCCB’s adoption of the directives and the injuries suffered by Ms. Means because they are enforceable only to the extent a health care facility contractually undertakes to comply with them. Under this view, the USCCB occupies a position similar to, say, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. It makes proposals, but lacks the legal authority to impose them.
I disagree with Prof. Kaveny because her opinion on the issue of proximate cause ignores the compelling moral force of the directives for any health care facility that wishes to declare itself Catholic. Moral theology is not an abstract academic enterprise; it is intended to inform real life decisions about real life problems. Furthermore, it cannot be seriously disputed that the directives have been promulgated with the expectation that they will be accepted and followed as the authoritative teaching of the American Catholic hierarchy. In issuing the directives, the bishops certainly knew that they would be formally adopted by Catholic hospitals and that the patients in those hospitals would be subjected to their requirements. Having determined to draft and publish the directives, the USCCB assumed a duty of care toward those who would forseeably be directly affected by their implementation. That duty extended to Ms. Means. (Prof. Kaveny also believes that the hospital misinterpreted the directives in the Means case, but that is a separate topic for another time).
Regardless of the outcome of the Means case, it properly focuses attention once again on taxpayer support of religious institutions in the performance of ostensibly secular functions. In Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U.S. 291 (1899), Congress appropriated $30,000.00 for the construction of two isolation wings at Providence Hospital, a Catholic facility operated by the Sisters of Charity. The units were intended for the care of indigent patients under a contract between the hospital and the District of Columbia. The issue was whether the appropriation violated the Establishment Clause. It did not, declared the court, because the hospital was a secular corporation rather than a religious body. “It is simply a case of a secular corporation being managed by people who hold to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, but who nevertheless are managing the corporation according to the law under which it exists.” 175 U.S. 298-99. The decision was unanimous.
We have come a long way since the Bradfield decision, the first case to test the constitutionality of public funding of a sectarian hospital. And the issues are now far more complicated. The Means case questions the extent to which religious doctrine may permissibly govern the performance of a secular function by a health care facility supported in part by public funds before the Establishment Clause is implicated. But perhaps we should be asking a different question. If the Catholic Church defines the operation of hospitals as “the ecclesial mission of health care,” can any public funding of those facilities satisfy the tests in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971)? Perhaps there is truth in the observation of Dr. Marie T. Hilliard of the National Catholic Bioethics Center that ” there is a need to correct the misperception that the delivery of health care is a secular endeavor.” If that is the case, the Means case could be significant indeed.
Do Bishops Run Your Hospital?
The Catholic Church is making health care decisions for more and more Americans—whether they know it or not.
—By Stephanie Mencimer
| November/December 2013 Issue
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/catholic-hospitals-bishops-contraception-abortion-health-care
Excerpt:
“The Catholic bishops are seizing an opportunity to control the health care we all pay for, and they’re being wildly successful,” says Monica Harrington, the co-chair of Washington Women for Choice. A spate of proposed deals could leave Catholic facilities accounting for 50 percent of the state’s hospital admissions. “We could very well end up with three conservative bishops overseeing health care for 6 million people,” McCarthy says.
Abortion services are always quick to go when a Catholic hospital takes over, but the changes go much further. In many cases, doctors are prohibited from prescribing birth control, and hospital pharmacies won’t sell it. Doctors may even be told not to counsel patients about it. Catholic hospitals have been reluctant to offer emergency contraception to rape victims, and when they do, they first require a pregnancy test to ensure the woman was not pregnant before the assault. The bishops’ guidelines forbid tubal ligations and vasectomies. They also extend to end-of-life care: Catholic hospitals may ignore patients’ requests to be removed from feeding tubes or life support, even if those wishes are expressed in living wills. And many states allow religious hospitals to discriminate against gays and lesbians, both as employees and as patients.
Dr. Bruce Silva, an OB-GYN at Sierra Vista, remembers that during his hospital’s trial merger, church officials told doctors they could give chemotherapy to a pregnant woman with breast cancer, “even though you know it will kill the baby—but you can’t give her a termination before, because that would kill the baby directly.” Sierra Vista ultimately rejected the merger.
Catholic hospitals’ treatment of miscarriage often diverges from the generally accepted standards of care followed in secular hospitals, according to Lori Freedman, an assistant professor of obstetrics at the University of California-San Francisco who published a study on the subject in 2012. Doctors told her about being forced to wait to intervene until a woman was at life-threatening risk. “We often tell patients that we can’t do anything in the hospital but watch you get infected,” one said.
The church also won’t allow doctors to terminate ectopic pregnancies until a woman is in mortal danger. In these pregnancies, the embryo implants outside of the uterus, most often in a fallopian tube, where it grows and can rupture the tube, potentially causing fatal bleeding. The bishops consider ending these unviable pregnancies a “direct abortion” unless a woman’s life is immediately at risk. A doctor quoted in a recent study commissioned by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) reported seeing several near-fatal tubal ruptures at her Catholic-affiliated hospital.
Despite the dangers such policies pose to patients, Catholic hospitals often do not explain them to patients, and hospitals have fought efforts to require disclosure. The NWLC has accused Catholic hospitals of ignoring “their legal obligations to disclose all treatment options” under Medicare and Medicaid. As a result, “women don’t always know what has happened,” says Kelli Garcia, senior counsel at the NWLC. “So if their tube ruptures, they don’t necessarily know that they could have had different treatment—because what happens within the Catholic hospitals, not only are they not providing treatment, they also aren’t providing information about the treatment.” The conference of bishops and the Catholic Health Association, which represents more than 600 hospitals, did not respond to requests for comment.
davidm:
Following recent revisions to the posting procedures, weekend bloggers no longer have the ability to access that portion of the site that houses the comment black hole. Therefore, none of us can release your post.
BTW, I don’t have time to respond at the moment, buy you have not accurately stated the Catholic position on abortion and the principle of double effect. I’ll touch on that later.
Mike Appleton wrote: “I don’t have time to respond at the moment, buy you have not accurately stated the Catholic position on abortion and the principle of double effect.”
It sounds like you have read my post even though you are not able to release it. Is that correct?
I referenced the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to explain the Doctrine of Double Effect. Is it that you do not agree with that article, or you simply do not believe that Catholics would apply it to this particular case?
Some of my understanding of Double Effect as understood by Catholic ethicists comes from Benedict Ashley, Jean DeBlois, and Kevin O’Rourke in Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Theological Analysis.
They give the example of performing an operation to remove a cancerous uterus from a pregnant woman. The physician knows the operation will kill the unborn child, but the decision is ethical because of the principle of Double Effect.
a) his direct intention is to save the woman’s life
b) he would save the unborn child’s life if he could
c) the moral value of the mother’s life equals the value of the child’s life
d) it is the removal of the cancer, not the child’s death, that is the means to save the mother’s life.
I look forward to reading your comments.
davidm,
What “person” did I describe?
Elaine, you snidely described a woman as selfish, rebellious, and lacks ethics who needs an abortion to save her life. I don’t agree with your analysis. You constantly quote people on the very far left and never consider the arguments from the center or right.
David,
Why don’t you consider the middle or anyone’s point of view other than your own….. To not inform of the true nature of the physical condition of their body is malpractice and negligence….
How about you go to a priest to tell them that you suspect one of Their own is abusing kids….. And he tells you that’s impossible….. What if you find out that this same priest was moved to this parish because of others allegations for the same thing….. You don’t want to upset the hierarchy but are determine to since you found out it was your own child being abused….. And they still deny that the abuse ever occurred…. You now want answers but you are confounded with conical law….. That the church speaks for all and you don’t ever have a right for that information….. You good with that….
My reply to Mike A was swallowed by WordPress. Any chance a guest moderator might free it?
“The feminist wants to be completely selfish and ignore any rights and responsibilities of either the unborn or her husband or boyfriend. She wants full control and power over the unborn and her male partner. She embraces a philosophy without any decent standard of ethics. This is the logical way in which the term “rebellious woman” arose to describe her stance.”
*****
Right…a woman who experiences significant medical problems during a pregnancy and may need an abortion to save her own life is selfish, rebellious, and lacks ethics. I wonder how a loving husband would feel about losing his wife–a woman who may be the mother of his other children–because a hospital/doctor refused to do a medical procedure to save her life. Then again, a pregnant woman is only a vessel for bringing new life into this world to some people so her loss would not be felt as greatly as that of her unborn child.
Elaine M wrote: “Right…a woman who experiences significant medical problems during a pregnancy and may need an abortion to save her own life is selfish, rebellious, and lacks ethics.”
No. The person you describe argues that abortion is necessary to save the mother’s life when it really is not necessary. As in this case with Tamesha Means, look at how many feminists argue for abortion being necessary for her sake, yet it was proven that an abortion was totally unnecessary to save her life.
The Catholic position is that when saving one person’s life will result in taking the life of another, this is permissible if it is judged to be necessary to save a life. In the case of early pregnancy, this usually means the unborn baby will die.
No need to apologize, annieofwi. I should have known going in that davidm would convert the topic into a diatribe against abortion rights.
I apologize to Mike for straying from the topic.
David, a woman has autonomy over her own body. Until a fetus is viable it is part of her body. No one likes abortion. It’s an option that in most cases is taken out of a woman’s desperation. You can continue to cast aspertions against feminists, it wont change a thing. In fact it will most likely make it less likely that late term abortion will be restricted, which I think would be a good thing.
I will try again since WordPress seems to have eaten my last comment. I could not agree more with Mike A’s response above. Public funding of religious hospitals that are treating patients according to their religious beliefs and not medical science is unconstitutional.
davidm:
Samantha correctly describes your analogy as “creative.” It is also false. But it does illustrate the problem with your entire analysis.
This is a legal blog. When I comment, I do so from that perspective. Hiring a hit man to kill your husband is a crime. Having an abortion is not. I understand that you do not agree with the current state of abortion law, but one’s disagreement with a law does not exempt one from its requirements.
According to the allegations in the complaint, Ms. Means was having a miscarriage, but did not know that. And she was not given that information by hospital personnel. Instead, again according to the complaint, she was told that there was nothing that could be done. That is a false statement of fact, which is to say, a lie. She was not provided that information because one option at that point would have been to induce labor, the immediate effect of which would have been the death of the fetus. That is why your reference to Directive 47 is misplaced. In this instance, the “proportionately serious pathological condition” was the pregnancy itself. Therefore, the Directives would have prohibited inducing labor.
Under the theory in the complaint, the information concerning Ms. Means’ condition was not provided to her because inducing labor was not a “morally legitimate alternative” within the meaning of Directive 27. The hospital effectively denied Ms. Means her right to be treated as an autonomous moral agent. You have endorsed that paternalism by your claim that no duty to her was violated because she survived the ordeal.
In truth it may well be impossible to resolve this conflict by attempting to distinguish religious and secular functions in a Catholic hospital because the Church itself does not recognize any such distinction. The Church operates hospitals as religious missions. In the end, any public funding of Catholic hospitals may be unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. That would restore the traditional status of Catholic hospitals as purely charitable enterprises. This was the discussion I was naively hoping to generate with my comment.
Word Press ate my comments 🙁
Great Discussion! Another interesting article by Elaine!
David said: ‘The feminist wants to be completely selfish and ignore any rights and responsibilities of either the unborn or her husband or boyfriend. She wants full control and power over the unborn and her male partner. She embraces a philosophy without any decent standard of ethics. This is the logical way in which the term “rebellious woman” arose to describe her stance.’
Uh-oh. You are opening a can of something that is going to change the topic.
Can someone please give David a link on the theory/history of feminism?
Dear Prof. JT:
This is just a suggestion! Please add David to your weekend blog contributers. He is very articulate, his views different from most individuals on this blog, and he knows how to ‘stir the pot.’ LOL!
David, first of all no one is “pro-abortion” pro choice is not pro abortion but pro giving a woman control over her body.
And I love that you leave the man out of it completely. If a woman decides to have intercourse then if she becomes pregnant it is all on her. Well, no it’s not. First of all birth control is not 100% foolproof no matter what you seem to want to believe. rape is not a choice, incest is not a choice, date rape is not a choice, a woman lied to by a man who says he had a vasectomy is not fool proof and so on and so forth.
My sister was pregnant, unknown to herself or doctors. She had an xray thru the abdomen for a back problem. It was determined at that time she was about 6 weeks pregnant. Her doctor, who was against abortions and did not do them insisted, yes insisted, that she see his colleague so that she could have an abortion. The damage to the fetus from the xray would have been overwhelming. (In fact it was so malformed and unviable that they refused to tell her the sex so she might not have fantasies about what it would have been had it been a safe, healthy, and viable pregnancy. Under your schema she should have gone ahead with a pregnancy that even anti abortion doctors realized was not an option.
It is ironic you want to foist your religious beliefs on all but that is okay with you but choice is apparently not.
Maybe you need to get off your horse and enter the real world where it is not black and white as you seem to want it to be.
Choice means you do not have to abort, anti choice means you must go through with a pregnancy no matter the cost. Which side is the ethical one. I say the one that gives a person the ability to use the sense and logic gave them to come to a decision that meets with their own conscience, not your conscience or that of the church.
(As to the benefit or lack of prayer, people are allowed their beliefs, whether Jewish, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, or Christian, or even Catholic. I often went into the hospital chapel when I was a patient for the comfort of the room, despite that I was Jewish and surrounded by Christian imagery.)
My, my Davd…. I suppose it’d be ok if this happened to you wife…. You’d support the hospitals decision….. Water broke, right…. What’s the medical complications involved with that….
I suppose you believe equal enforcement of drug laws unless you’re Rush Limbaugh….. Then 100k oxy pills is just personal use…..
Charlton Stanley
to
David,
“Logical thinking has been proven repeatedly to not be your strong point. This was about deliberate withholding of critical health care information from a competent patient.
The reasons for withholding that information had nothing to do with health care and everything to do with the religious dogma of a single sect of the religious community at large.”
CS:
You must have information that is not provided in the actual blog entry above. How in the world can a professional ,make such a blatant assumption? Base upon the meager evidence provided, the woman’s water broke and she was sent home on the very first entry to the emergency room. Facts at that point are extremely pertinent and not provided. Denial of care is an assault upon an individual person as much as anything else legally defined; but ethically it is immoral …not simply a-moral (sterile medical decisions made through business glasses). The facts in this case do not get far beyond medical negligence and all the extreme cases cited to influence the emotionally charged air of contempt against Catholic dogma does not dictate fault in this particular case. Mixed metaphors are nothing compared to the confusion pelted out between religion and woman’s reproductive rights in medicine itself and the political-business side of legal adjustments to damages. The protocol faulted in what is given is more than enough to suspect a medical delivery problem here and not a fetus delivery. Perhaps liability was at the very start of this to begin with when physicians refuse to take another physicians problems into their own hands? Your ethics perspectives that i have seen are typically moving in one direction…forget “Do no harm” …as you know most medical schools do not ask their graduates to actually take that vow…(or perhaps you don’t know that?). Instead, I would suggest another of Socrates’ great anthems: KNOW THYSELF!
David,
I get it… You are against abortion…. I think a women should be able to make an informed decision….
The issue in this thread is at what point does a hospital have a duty to inform a patient about what’s going on within ones own body……
Let’s put you in the situation…. You have a need to go to the ER…. You have a pain in your lower right side…. They tell you to take two aspirin and go home…. And see your doctor as soon as possible….You do so…. You still start have more major pain… You go back to the same ER…. You’re now labeled a frequent flyer…. They give you two more aspirin…. You almost die….. You have a very high temperature….. Your appendix has ruptured….. What would you do…. Should the hospital be able to just discharge you without telling you what going on….
AY wrote: “Should the hospital be able to just discharge you without telling you what going on…”
No. The hospital should inform the patient of her situation, and as explained previously, the directives specifically require the hospital to do this.
HIPPA handicaps us from knowing exactly what she was told, but the complaint admits that she was told about a possible infection, and that she had instructions to see her doctor but to return to the hospital if she developed a fever.
Again, the complaint is not about informing the patient of her situation. It is about the directives of the hospital creating a climate where Tamesha Means is not being informed of her option to have an abortion, and also informing her that the hospital would not do the abortion. From the pro-life perspective, it is kind of like treating a battered wife for injuries sustained from her husband beating her, and then telling the patient of her option to have a hit man kill her husband to insure her health, but the hospital will not provide those kind of services for her.
“From the pro-life perspective, it is kind of like treating a battered wife for injuries sustained from her husband beating her, and then telling the patient of her option to have a hit man kill her husband to insure her health, but the hospital will not provide those kind of services for her.”
I’ve been accused of an occasional good comparison, but yours is creative brilliance. It sure would sway me if I was suffering from a terminal case of denile.
A doctor can believe in God and still do what’s best for his/her patients. I find it unconscionable that religious directives would require doctors/hospitals not to do what’s best for their patients.
Below the Radar: Health Care Providers’ Religious Refusals Can Endanger Women’s Lives and Health
January 20, 2011
http://www.nwlc.org/resource/below-radar-fact-sheet-religious-refusals-treat-pregnancy-complications-put-women-danger
This report explores how religious refusals can impact the care women receive when they are suffering serious pregnancy complications.
Excerpt:
A serious but little known problem is putting women’s health and lives at risk: because of their religious beliefs, certain health care providers do not give appropriate treatment to women experiencing serious pregnancy complications. A recent study by Ibis Reproductive Health entitled “Assessing hospital polices & practices regarding ectopic pregnancy & miscarriage management” [1] adds to the growing evidence that the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services have been applied to deny women experiencing both ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages the treatment and information to which they are legally entitled. The Directives govern Catholic-affiliated hospitals and provide guidance on a range of reproductive health services including surgical sterilization, family planning, infertility treatment and abortion. [2] These are cases in which doctors have determined that there is no medical intervention possible that would allow the patient to continue her pregnancy, and delaying care would only endanger the patient’s health or life. [3]
This Study focuses on Catholic hospitals as the largest religiously-affiliated provider in the United States, [4] and uncovers disturbing examples of treatment practices that increase the odds of medical complications that place women’s lives and health at risk. Catholic-affiliated hospitals are governed by the Directives, which provide guidance Most individuals and even many health providers presume that the Directives’ prohibition on the provision of a range of abortion services applies only to non-emergency pregnancy terminations of otherwise viable pregnancies. But the Study is consistent with anecdotal accounts that provide strong evidence that some hospitals and health care providers have interpreted the Directives to prohibit prompt, medically-indicated treatment of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy, placing women’s lives and health at additional and unnecessary risk, and violating the laws intended to protect patients from such serious lapses in care. [5]
Hospitals are Required by Law to provide the Standard of Care, [6] Yet Hospitals Fail to do so Because of their Adherence to the Directives.
In some of the miscarriage cases described in the Ibis Study, the standard of care requires immediate treatment. Yet doctors practicing at Catholic-affiliated hospitals were forced to delay treatment while performing medically unnecessary tests. Even though these miscarriages were inevitable and no medical treatment was available to save the fetus, some patients were transferred because doctors could still detect a fetal heartbeat or required to wait until there was no longer a fetal heartbeat to provide the needed medical care.
Methotrexate, a drug used to treat ectopic pregnancies, is the standard of care for some of the cases described in the Ibis Study. Yet several doctors reported that their hospitals have a blanket prohibition on the drug. This means that women for whom methotrexate would be the best treatment option are instead being subjected to unnecessary and invasive surgical treatment.
Hospitals are Required by Law to provide Emergency Care, [7] Yet Hospitals Fail to do so Because of their Adherence to the Directives.
An article in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) reports numerous instances of women who suffered delays in receiving stabilizing care for miscarriages at Catholic hospitals. [8] For example, a Catholic hospital refused to provide the uterine evacuation necessary to stabilize a patient having a miscarriage, saying that it would only give her blood transfusions as long as there was still a fetal heartbeat. A doctor at a non-sectarian hospital finally agreed to accept the transfer of the patient, despite the doctor’s concern that the patient was unstable.
One doctor in the Ibis Study reported “several instances” of potentially fatal tubal ruptures in patients with ectopic pregnancies. [9] This doctor reported that her Catholic hospital subjected patients with ectopic pregnancies to unnecessary delays in treatment, despite patients’ exhibiting serious symptoms indicating that a tubal rupture was possible.
Hospitals are Required by Law to Obtain Patients Informed Consent, [10] Yet Hospitals Fail to do so Because of their Adherence to the Directives.
A doctor interviewed in the Ibis Study said she often takes patients aside and reviews all of their treatment options, including those forbidden by the hospital, even though this level of disclosure is not allowed. She reported that other physicians at the hospital offer referrals and information “under the radar” as well.
The Directives have even been applied to forbid the treatment of a woman who had suffered a miscarriage, even thought the fetus no longer had a heartbeat. This case provides an additional example of a patient with a pregnancy complication being denied essential information about her condition due to a doctor’s restrictive and in this case, blatantly wrong, [11] interpretation of the Directives. In the course of this refusal, the patient was denied adequate information about her condition, which hindered her ability to seek care at another facility. [12]
Our health care should be secularized. Doctors and hospitals should treat patients by doing what’s best for their patients’ welfare. If the doctors don’t do what’s best for their patients’ welfare, I’d call that medical malpractice.
Elaine M wrote: “Our health care should be secularized. Doctors and hospitals should treat patients by doing what’s best for their patients’ welfare.”
Why would you assume that secularized health care is the only paradigm that does what is best for their patients? Many people would prefer the choice of going to a health care professional who follows the kind of ethics advocated by the hospital that treated Tamesha Means. I have heard many express how much they like a hospital that has a chapel, a chaplain, and that has doctors who believe in God and pray with their patients before surgery, etc. Why would you want to deny people that choice?
Studies are mixed about the power of prayer, but many studies have shown that prayer is a popular complement to medical treatment. Some studies have documented statistically significant effects of prayer mixed with medical treatment. Other studies have documented negative effects of prayer. I think it is premature to force the secularization of health care. Let people have a choice.
Prayer as medicine: how much have we learned?
https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2007/186/10/prayer-medicine-how-much-have-we-learned
davidm:
Further to the matter of Sarah Weddington. For those of us who came of age in the ’60s and experienced the times, much of what is said of that period is revisionist horse hockey. That includes your comments about the feminist movement and judicial activism.
I entered law school with the first major wave of women law students. They were smart, determined and ambitious, and they had to be. You may recall that this country did not have a woman on the Supreme Court until 1981. Sandra Day O’Connor was an honors student, editor-in-chief of the law review at Stanford, and unemployed lawyer. The only position ever even offered to her out of law school was as a legal secretary. A contemporary of mine who now serves as a circuit judge has told me many stories about her early court appearances, when judges would call her “honey” or “sweetie,” or mistakenly assume that she was some lawyer’s secretary. The point is that these women were fighting their own civil rights battle, which is what feminism was and is. But you use the term in the same manner you use “homosexual lifestyle,” as a derogatory description barely concealing your disdain.
Sarah Weddington understood, “rebellious woman” that she was, what black people had also come to understand during that period of time, that the white males who controlled every aspect of legal and political life in this country, were not about to embrace equality without repeated kicks in the behind. That that remains necessary is not a criticism of feminism, but a testament to male obdurateness.
With regard to your other observations concerning Ms. Weddington’s work on the Roe case, I note the following:
1. The implication that Norma McCorvey was somehow a pawn because she never appeared in court is silly. There would have been no occasion for her to appear in court. The suit did not entail an evidentiary dispute, but a legal determination of the constitutionality of provisions in the Texas penal code. There was no trial as such. Ms. McCorvey could not get a legal abortion, unlike women of privilege who have always been able to do so should the need arise.
2. Norma McCorvey was no more a lesbian than you are, although that is wholly immaterial to the merits of the case and your reference was intended as additional moral condemnation. Lesbians do not become “ex-lesbians,” just as Caucasians do not become ex-Caucasians.
3. The practice of public interest law frequently requires locating a suitable plaintiff for a very good reason. In order to challenge a law, it is necessary to have a “case or controversy” and a party with legal standing to file suit. In fact, Norma McCorvey was not the only plaintiff in the Roe case. A married couple also sued, but their claim was dismissed on standing grounds. There are more public interest firms and legal foundations now than at any other time in our history, and they cover the entire political spectrum. Ever hear of Liberty Counsel? The fact is that there is nothing dishonorable or unethical in searching for a plaintiff as part of a good faith effort to effect changes in the law.
4. The phrase “judicial activism” is tossed around today like so much pizza dough. I was hearing that phrase when the countryside was replete with “Impeach Earl Warren” billboards placed by those same white males who believed that 100 years of post-Civil War history was simply not enough time to expect us to adjust to the radical idea of equal rights for blacks. It is the battle cry that erupts whenever another piece of unconstitutional nonsense, like drug testing for welfare applicants, is sent to the judicial trash bin. The real danger is not judicial activism; it is judicial politicization.
5. Roe was never about feminists wanting to “force their legal perspective upon everyone in the nation.” Its goal was judicial recognition of a woman’s control over the integrity of her own body. Based upon James Taranto’s column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, we still have a long way to go.
Have a pleasant evening.
Mike Appleton wrote: “The implication that Norma McCorvey was somehow a pawn because she never appeared in court is silly.”
Implication? I’m just reporting what Norma McCorvey says about it. She felt like she was a pawn being used by lawyers for their own agenda.
Do you think it just as silly that the “Mary Doe” in Doe v. Bolton, Sandra Cano, reports a similar experience with her lawyers? Sandra says she was lied to, and that if she had known the case was filed on her behalf, she would have never supported the litigation.
You may think it is entirely appropriate for lawyers to play games in court with people’s lives this way, but it smacks of bad ethics to me.
Mike Appleton wrote: “There would have been no occasion for her to appear in court. ”
There were several occasions for her to appear in court. I guarantee you that if I had been the plaintiff in these cases, I would have been there. I’ve seen lawyers play these games many times, where a court case is about them, but the lawyers say that there is no need to have the person present in court. While it might be true that it is not necessary for the person to come in person to court, an interested person would be there.
Mike Appleton wrote: “Ms. McCorvey could not get a legal abortion, unlike women of privilege who have always been able to do so should the need arise.”
You mean a woman of privilege like Sarah Weddington who graduated two years early from high school and was able to travel to Mexico to have an illegal abortion? I always wondered about the judicial standards of Texas to admit a lawbreaker like that into the bar.
Mike Appleton wrote: “Norma McCorvey was no more a lesbian than you are…”
Really? Promiscuous sexual relations with many women followed by a thirty-five year relationship with one woman makes her just as lesbian as I am?
Mike Appleton wrote: “your reference was intended as additional moral condemnation.”
Why would I want to condemn her? The reference to drug abuse and lesbianism is relevant to describe the kind of lifestyle of the person they picked for this case to promote abortion.
Mike Appleton wrote: “Lesbians do not become “ex-lesbians,” just as Caucasians do not become ex-Caucasians.”
Sexuality is not as genetically determined as race. Environment and choices have a lot to do with determining sexuality. None of these factors affect whether one is Caucasian. Lesbians actually do become ex-lesbians quite often. In fact, it happens much more often among lesbians than it does among gay men. Sexuality is best understood as a continuous spectrum and not as discrete categories of homosexuality or straightness. I thought you expressed agreement with this in the past.
Mike Appleton wrote: “The fact is that there is nothing dishonorable or unethical in searching for a plaintiff as part of a good faith effort to effect changes in the law.”
Why does the ACLU always pick uneducated poor people to be the pawns in their lawsuits? It is because they are least able to understand what is being done and how they are being used. Furthermore, to change laws, the focus should be on legislation and voting, not using judicial tyranny to force the unethical views of a minority upon the rest of the population.
Mike Appleton wrote: “The real danger is not judicial activism; it is judicial politicization.”
Is there really any difference?
Mike Appleton wrote: “Roe was never about feminists wanting to “force their legal perspective upon everyone in the nation.” Its goal was judicial recognition of a woman’s control over the integrity of her own body.”
But that *IS* the legal perspective of feminists that they have foisted upon all of us, and it has divided this nation for four decades. The pro-life ethic also recognizes the right of a woman to have control over her body, but they combine that with the right of the unborn to live. They place the choice of the mother about whether to have a child to be prior to her decision to have sexual relations that produce a child. Once the mother has made a choice to have sexual relations, she may be confronted with the responsibility of carrying a new life within her. Her choice now must consider the rights of the new life growing within her. Her choice also must now consider the right of the partner with whom she chose to have sexual relations concerning the birth of his child.
The feminist wants to be completely selfish and ignore any rights and responsibilities of either the unborn or her husband or boyfriend. She wants full control and power over the unborn and her male partner. She embraces a philosophy without any decent standard of ethics. This is the logical way in which the term “rebellious woman” arose to describe her stance.
“Based upon James Taranto’s column
in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, we still
have a long way to go.”
Just so I read the right piece, please provide the name of the column, the date, and the link!
Thank you.