Trans-Targeting Catholic Hospitals

LGBT, Religious Freedom, , ,
John Stonestreet, Radio Host and President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

A Catholic hospital in Baltimore is being sued by a woman for refusing to remove her perfectly healthy uterus. She claims the hospital discriminated against her because she identifies as a man.

No hospital should remove healthy organs, of course, and this Catholic hospital refused because of their faith commitments. Even if a non-transitioning woman wanted her healthy uterus removed, the Catholic hospital would refuse.

Catholic and other religiously based hospitals have been fighting this kind of absurd targeting for years, first over abortion and now over various levels of so-called sex-reassignment treatments.

This is no isolated case. A California court will hear a similar lawsuit soon, as well. As Wesley J. Smith warns at National Review, “Many Catholic hospitals will close before being forced to practice medicine in ways that violate Catholic doctrine.”

Our country’s health system is already strained, so this would be a disaster. Let’s pray religious freedom, public health, and common sense wins out over trans ideology.

Copyright 2020 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

READ MORE

Catholic Hospital Sued for Declining to Perform Transgender Surgery

Bioethics, Religious Freedom, Rights of Conscience, , ,

A Catholic hospital in Maryland is being sued for declining to perform a transgender surgery, according to news outlets.

The hospital reportedly opted not to perform a hysterectomy as part of an apparent sex-reassignment surgery. Now the hospital is being sued.

There are several problems with this case, but here are a couple:

First, Catholic hospitals operate according to the principles and teachings of the Catholic Church — including the Catholic Church’s teachings about abortion, assisted suicide, and gender identity.

It should come as no surprise that a Catholic hospital would decline to participate in sex-reassignment surgeries.

Second, Catholic hospitals generally object to performing major surgeries on healthy patients.

As bioethicist Wesley J. Smith notes,

Catholic moral principles only permit body parts to be removed to treat physical pathology. If the patient’s uterus had been cancerous, the surgery [hysterectomy] would not have been a problem.

Stories like this one underscore why Arkansas needs to strengthen its laws protecting rights of conscience for healthcare workers and hospitals.

Unfortunately the Arkansas Legislature has failed to pass measures protecting healthcare workers’ rights of conscience two legislative sessions in row — once in 2017 and once in 2019.

Conscience protections are very important for healthcare workers and hospitals.

Without them, we could end up with doctors and hospital boards who are not guided by conscience at all.

That’s a very sobering thought.

READ MORE