Debate Over Catholic Directives That Affect 13 Percent of US Hospitals

Dec. 9, 2013— -- Hospitals that serve one in six Americans adhere to Catholic doctrine that threatens the lives of patients, the American Civil Liberties Union claims in a court case filed on behalf of a Michigan woman.

The ACLU is suing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for issuing guidelines that the group claims led to substandard medical care for the pregnant woman in Michigan.

The guidelines are called the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services and every Catholic hospital and Catholic healthcare institution must adhere to them or risk losing their classification as a Catholic institution. The guidelines cover such issues as end of life care to merging with secular organizations to the kind of patient who should be prescribed birth control. Medical ethicists say patients should be made aware of how the directives can affect their treatment at Catholic hospitals compared with secular hospitals especially in terms of abortion options or end of life care.

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Catholic officials say that the directives are no different than a code of ethics imposed by any other professional organization and that they have a right to define their own institutional moral values at their healthcare centers.

The directives led to controversy in 2010, when an administrator on the ethics committee at a Phoenix hospital approved an abortion to save the life of a pregnant woman. After the procedure, the administrator, who was also a nun, was excommunicated by the Phoenix bishop and the hospital could no longer identify as Catholic as a result of deviating from the directives.

Last week attention was again drawn to the 72 total Ethical and Religious Directives after the ACLU filed a lawsuit alleging these directives led to improper medical care for a pregnant Michigan woman during a miscarriage.The lawsuit alleges that under the Catholic directives the woman, whose pregnancy was likely no longer viable, was left in pain and at risk for infection because doctors refused to induce labor and end her pregnancy in the 18th week.

Additionally doctors allegedly never told the woman her pregnancy was no longer viable, or that ending it and removing the fetus was a safe course of action, according to the lawsuit.

"The case is about more than just one woman and one hospital," said Kary Moss, the executive director for the Michigan ACLU. "It's the ability for non-medical professionals to dictate medical care."

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that as of Friday, they had not been formally served with the lawsuit, although they had received a copy from the media.

President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Archbishop Joseph Kurtz wrote in a public response that the ACLU's lawsuit was "misguided" and their claim that the directives lead to substandard care for pregnant women "baseless."

"The Ethical and Religious Directives" (ERDs) urge respectful and compassionate care for both mothers and their children, both during and after pregnancy," wrote Kurtz. "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."

Mercy Health Partners declined to comment on the suit.Catholic healthcare officials say that the ethical directives are not unique to the Catholic hospitals and that they are a useful guide for medical employees.

Dr. John Haas, president of National Catholic Bioethics Center, said the code of ethics is not uniquely Catholic and that all healthcare institutions and individual physicians abide by their own ethical code when treating patients."In a sense this isn't anything that's uniquely Catholic, every professional society I know has a code of ethics," said Haas. "The code of ethics can help to facilitate with doing the right thing."

The church-affiliated National Catholic Bioethics Center is devoted to understanding how the teachings of the Church apply to developments in health care. The center has also consulted with bishops over changing the ethical directives and has a 24-hour hotline for medical center employees to call to ensure that they are following the directives properly.Haas said that Catholic directives do ban abortion, except in cases where the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother. Haas said the medical case as described in the lawsuit, would appear to be a case where abortion would be allowed under the directives. "If that hospital had called us and said may we proceed in terms of starting labor…it's perfectly legitimate," to save the mother, said Haas.

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