Religious freedom versus Reproductive freedom

I’ve talked before about conscience protections for health care workers who refuse to assist in the performance of an abortion on religious grounds. Much of the brouhaha over this issue apparently followed an ACLU complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to the ACLU, Catholic hospitals which will not perform abortions are violating the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and the Conditions of Participation of Medicare and Medicaid. According to the ACLU, “The law should not permit an institution’s religious strictures to interfere with the public’s access to reproductive health care,” and “Religiously affiliated hospitals across the country inappropriately and unlawfully deny pregnant women emergency medical care,” the ACLU says. In their letter, they specifically castigate Catholic hospitals for their “denial of appropriate reproductive health care”.

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it ironic that an abortion can be defined as “reproductive health care”. After all, terminating a pregnancy is terminating a life, and there’s nothing whatsoever “reproductive” about taking the life of an unborn child. And I’m still having trouble envisioning the situation where an abortion has to be performed in such haste as to prevent a woman from receiving care at another hospital. Is there a community anywhere in the U.S. where there is no hospital other than a Catholic hospital? Really?

But I’m heartened to learn about the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s response to this situation. The president of the Becket Fund, Kevin Hasson, said, “We will represent, pro bono, any religious hospital or its personnel that HHS threatens because of their conscientious objection to abortion. And we will, if necessary, sue to block any such proposed policy." Hasson asserts that the ACLU “has no business demanding that religious doctors and nurses violate their faith by performing a procedure they believe is tantamount to murder. Forcing religious hospitals to perform abortions not only undermines this nation’s integral commitment to conscience rights, it violates the numerous federal laws that recognize and protect those rights.”

If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the ACLU’s assertions and the response of the Becket Fund, go here or here or here. If you want to read some earlier posts on this issue, go here or here or here.

Have an opinion? I’d love to hear what you think.