Category: Religious Freedom

Court allows doctors to support hospitals, staff in ACLU suit that seeks to force them to commit abortions

Court grants ADF motion to allow pro-life physician groups to intervene in defense of Catholic hospital network

News Release

American Center for Law and Justice

American Civil Liberties Union v. Trinity Health Corporation: Several pro-life doctor groups have intervened in defense of a Catholic hospital system which the American Civil Liberties Union sued. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent the Catholic Medical Association, the Christian Medical and Dental Association, and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The ACLU’s lawsuit seeks to force Trinity Health Corporation and its staff to commit abortions regardless of their religious and pro-life objections. Trinity Health operates 86 facilities in 21 states.

Attorney sound bites:  Kevin Theriot | Matt Bowman

DETROIT – A federal court agreed Thursday to allow several pro-life doctor groups to intervene in defense of a Catholic hospital system which the American Civil Liberties Union sued last year. In December, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the Catholic Medical Association, the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists asked the court to allow the groups to intervene.

On March 23, the court will hear arguments on whether to dismiss the ACLU’s lawsuit, which seeks to force Trinity Health and its staff to commit abortions regardless of their religious and pro-life objections. Trinity Health operates 86 facilities in 21 states.

“No American should be forced to commit an abortion,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot. “No law requires faith-based hospitals and medical personnel to commit abortions against their faith and conscience, and, in fact, federal law directly prohibits the government from engaging in any such coercion. In addition, the government can’t tie any funding to a requirement that hospitals and health care workers give up their constitutionally protected freedoms. We look forward to defending those freedoms in this case.”

“Those who doubt that anyone would ever try to force someone to commit an abortion need only look at this case,” explained ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman. “This is precisely what the ACLU is seeking to do. But forcing Catholic hospitals to perform abortions is not only against the law, it makes no sense at all. Patients should always have the freedom to choose a health care facility that respects life and to choose doctors who do not commit abortions.”

“Forcing health care workers to act contrary to the very faith and ethical convictions that led them into the medical profession—to serve, help, and bring healing to people—is counterproductive, unnecessary, and against the law,” Bowman added.

“Here, the Medical Applicants represent members that are affected by the policy directives of the Defendants’ hospitals on a daily basis,” wrote the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, in its order in American Civil Liberties Union v. Trinity Health Corporation. “The outcome of the litigation could have an effect on the day-to-day aspect of their duties as healthcare professionals. Accordingly, finding that the Medical Applicants are regulated by the policy directives at issue, the Medical Applicants are able to intervene as of right.”

  • Pronunciation guide: Theriot (TAIR’-ee-oh), Bowman, (BOH’-min)

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.

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Canada Catholic head: ‘Unjust’ to force doctors on assisted suicide

The Gobe and Mail

Ethan Lou

TORONTO — Reuters.  The head of Canada’s biggest Catholic group opposed the country’s pending doctor-assisted suicide legislation in a statement to be read at 225 Toronto churches on Sunday, saying it was “unjust” to force doctors to act against their conscience.

“It is unjust to force people to act against their conscience in order to be allowed to practice as a physician,” Cardinal Thomas Collins, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, said in the text of his statement.

Canada’s Supreme Court struck down a ban on assisted suicide in 2015 and gave lawmakers a year to come up with legislation to regulate the practice.

The newly elected Liberal government was given a four-month extension this year to a develop a national law for the practice, under which doctors opposed to assisted suicide have to recommend someone willing to perform it. . . [Full text]

 

Doctor affiliated with Catholic hospital speaks out against assisted-death ban

  The Globe and Mail

Laura Kane

A doctor affiliated with a Catholic hospital in a small British Columbia community says the facility’s likely ban on assisted-dying is a violation of terminally ill patients’ charter rights.

Dr. Jonathan Reggler said St. Joseph’s General Hospital is the only hospital in the Comox Valley and as a Catholic facility it generally forbids doctors from helping patients die, although a formal policy has not yet been adopted.

Reggler said terminally ill patients in hospital who want a doctor’s help to die will either be denied that right or have to be moved 50 kilometres to the nearest hospital in Campbell River. . . [Full text]

 

Canada’s largest Catholic archdiocese mobilizing against assisted-dying law

The Globe and Mail

Affain Chowdhry

Canada’s largest Catholic archdiocese is mobilizing its members to pressure federal politicians tasked with shaping new doctor-assisted dying legislation by June to protect vulnerable groups and to exempt doctors, nurses and Catholic hospitals from having to provide those services because it goes against their religious beliefs.

Cardinal Thomas Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto, used a sermon on Sunday at St. Paul’s Basilica in downtown Toronto to argue that forcing Catholic doctors to refer patients to medically assisted dying services was a “violation of conscience” and amounted to religious discrimination. . . [Full text]

 

Hotel-Dieu, Hospice hope to avoid providing doctor-assisted death

Windsor Star

Brian Cross

Those seeking to escape the agony of incurable illnesses will have the legal right to choose doctor-assisted suicide as of June 6, but two publicly funded institutions that care for the region’s dying hope they won’t be forced to allow it within their walls.

Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare runs the area’s only in-hospital palliative care unit, where five, six or seven deaths a week is not unusual. As a faith-based Catholic hospital, it does not believe it should participate in physician-assisted suicide, said CEO Janice Kaffer.

The Hospice of Windsor and Essex County has a policy opposing physician-assisted suicide, citing a “respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life,” and asserting that it’s not part of palliative care. It provides palliative care to hundreds of area patients in their homes, as well as in its hospice residences in Windsor and Leamington. Its philosophy is if someone’s pain and symptoms can be well managed, they don’t need to resort to a physician-assisted death. CEO Carol Derbyshire said Canada’s hospices are trying to convince the government to let them to opt out. . . [Full text]