Over 300 U.S. hospitals follow Catholic Bishop doctrine that can cause women who miscarry to die

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/03/08/1495853/-Over-300-U-S-hospitals-follow-Catholic-Bishop-doctrine-that-can-cause-women-who-miscarry-to-die

There is a set of medical directives written by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that states “terminating a pregnancy is forbidden” in their controlled Catholic hospitals unless a mother is in “grave condition.” But that condition doesn’t seem to apply to some women who were treated by Mercy Health Partners (MHP) who almost died miscarrying. These were women who wanted to be pregnant and wanted to have a baby.

Molly Reddin with The Guardian has written an excellent and very extensive piece about this critical problem with Mercy Health Partners. Reddin starts with the story of one woman who was clearly miscarrying on her way to the hospital. When she arrived, the doctors refused to induce labor, even though they were advised by a specialist that the baby would die—and the mother might follow. The hospital never gave the woman other healthcare options or offered to get her to another hospital where labor could be induced. Instead, the doctors decided they would wait until the woman showed signs of sepsis, a life-threading response to infection. By forcing the delay, she became septic. They risked her life not to save a baby/fetus, that was already deemed unviable; they risked her life because of Catholic doctrine.

This above is one example filed in a report by a former Muskegon County health official in Michigan. In her report, Faith Groesbeck claims between August 2009 and December 2010 Mercy Health Partners forced five women to undergo dangerous miscarriages by giving them no other option.

[Orrex]

1. If such hospitals are making political decisions about their patients' care

then those hospitals should be taxed like for-profit political advocacy groups.