Another Colorado hospital stops letting women get their tubes tied

[Nevilledog]

https://coloradosun.com/2023/01/31/durango-hospital-tubal-ligations/

When the only hospital in Durango with a maternity ward decided that it would no longer let women get their tubes tied, there was no public announcement.

Mercy Hospital’s website doesn’t spell it out, either.

Instead, a read-between-the-lines statement added to the Centura Health hospital’s website in September noted that Mercy is “responsible for conducting itself in a manner consistent with the ethical principles of the Catholic church ministry.” The hospital had recently completed a “reeducation” of hospital staff and board members regarding the church’s ethical and religious directives, it said, adding that “patients are fully informed of all treatment options.”

Doctors who deliver babies at Mercy said they were told that beginning April 15, they can no longer provide post-cesarean-section tubal ligations, a sterilization procedure in which the fallopian tubes are cut. Women who have decided not to have more children often have their tubes tied immediately after a C-section, when they are already under spinal anesthesia, sparing them from having to schedule a separate surgery.

The hospital already prohibited tubal ligations after vaginal births, but had been allowing them after C-sections because it had been considered an undue burden to make patients schedule a separate surgery at another hospital, doctors said.

It’s been up to obstetricians to tell their pregnant patients that they will have to go elsewhere for permanent birth control.

*snip*



It's about controlling women.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Sure as hell it's about control. Goddamn. n/t

[RockRaven]

2. This country is fucked until (if ever, not likely) it gets a SCOTUS which will reverse their current

perverse interpretation of the 1st Am vis-a-vis religious freedom: currently, religious freedom means corporations are free to force their owners' religion on the plebs, while the plebs are free to fuck off and die.

[Hekate]

3. I shouldn't say the word I'm about to say, but it is oh so appropriate...

Those motherfuckers.

When I was a little kid in the 1950s, our family doc was a GP — he was our pediatrician, he was Mom’s obstetrician, he made house calls when Mom had pneumonia and Dad couldn’t afford to have her in the hospital.

After a decade of difficult births and miscarriages, it looked like she was going to have to have a C-section because my brother was transverse at 8 months. Dr. Orlando counseled her that this should really be her last.

He said: “If you have to have C-section, that would be a good time to have a tubal ligation. As a Catholic, I cannot do it myself. But I will turn my back while my colleague does the procedure.”

God bless the man. Seriously, God bless him. She almost left us orphans more than once, and as her obstetrician, he knew it full well.
(Ultimately, baby brother dropped into place — and it was Dad who had his own tubes tied.)

When did religious people and institutions operated by Catholic churches in this country become so ungodly rigid? Uncompassionate. Unthinking. Illogical. Inhumane.

When did they become such motherfuckers?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. So the doctor wouldn't do the tubal ligation because he was a Catholic,

so apparently he was just fine with her having another baby that would have killed her. Remind me how that's pro-life?

[ShazzieB]

10. It doesn't sound like he was "just fine" with her having another baby at the risk of her life.

If he was, he wouldn't have set things up so another doctor would be there to do it. He probably couldn't do it himself without risking excommunication. There are a lot of Catholics who disagree with the Church's stance on birth control but don't want to be kicked out of the Church for it if they can help it. Looks like that doc found a workaround.

The Catholic Church has long been opposed to any form of birth control other than abstinence. Life comes first except when protecting someone's life involves tampering with their reproductive capabilities. It's okay to chart your cycles and avoid sex at times you believe you're likely to b
e fertile, but anything more than that the Church considers a big no-no.

[Hekate]

13. You absolutely misunderstood me. In my mother's telling, it showed his deep compassion...

… and understanding. He would have arranged that a surgeon willing to do this act would be his assistant — that is what he was telling her, plain as day.

As I said, as plainly as I could, he was counseling her to stop getting pregnant.

By the time I was 9 years old, she’d been pregnant 7 times. One miscarriage that had her bleeding out in the surgery at the hospital; one miscarriage that went quietly on for God knows how long until on a visit to Dr O with one of us kids he saw how anemic she was, talked to her and ordered her off to have a D&C. A full-term still-born boy. Ultimately, 4 live children — I am the oldest.

As far as I know, no one in the 1950s was using terms like “pro-life,” in any case. Any rational person knew the treatment for an incomplete miscarriage was a D&C — I could near the neighbor women talk among themselves over coffee. A woman who was bleeding and not having her period: “Well, is her doctor sending her in for a D&C? How soon?” They certainly were not talking about very-illegal and secret abortions.

[Irish_Dem]

18. No he helped her. He asked a colleague to do the job.

Same thing happened to my mother after baby #5.

The doc could have flat out refused to tie her tubes, but instead he made sure her
tubes were tied by someone else.

My mother was very grateful. She had hypergravis pregnancies
and couldn't go through it any more.

[Maraya1969]

21. I think it was kind of the opposite. He offered to set it up with a different surgeon.

[SunSeeker]

4. This should not be legal to do by a hospital receiving taxpayer money.

If you are going to hold yourself out as a public hospital, then act like a hospital, not a medieval church.They are literally endangering women's health because of their fucked up interpretation of the Bible. It's fucking barbaric. They should be fined for this shit.

And since when are tubal ligations a sin? WTF?

[NH Ethylene]

5. After outlawing abortion, it quickly moved to birth control.

And this?

[Hestia]

9. I agree - I thought the ACA and the acceptance of federal funds stopped this practice

Guess that's why it wasn't publicly announced.

[PortTack]

6. Most catholic hospitals nationwide have not offered tubal ligation or vasectomies..not surprising

[SunSeeker]

12. Where in the Bible does it say tubal ligations/vasectomies are a sin?

These procedures did not exist when the Bible was written.

[calimary]

8. I can't see it any other way than an attempt to control women.

And to limit our options and opportunities.

I am BEYOND sick of this.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

11. eff religion

[Puppyjive]

14. The feds need to pull the plug

Any hospital that refuses reproductive healthcare should not be allowed to do business with the federal government. This would include medicare. It would hurt the community, but it would sure drive the point. And it should also strip them of any nonprofit status. Using religious views to drive your business plan should ensure that taxes are no longer exempt.

[Mr. Evil]

15. This is what happens when you try to base

modern day realities on ancient mythologies. And then our government gives them the power to do so. So, some people, especially women, have to suffer and possibly die because the hospital happens to be operated by the archaic and barbaric Catholic church? Personal healthcare should not be determined by any religious institution! Especially the fucking Catholic church! They have absolutely no moral standing to dictate anything to anyone.

[albacore]

16. In our area, the only big hospital is a Catholic hospital.

A big, new facility with top-notch doctors. I've been in there a few times, and even the food is good.

Our state has a "death with dignity" statute.
I have a very strict Health Care Directive. No food..no water if there is no hope.
I'm not confident that my wishes will be honored.
I thought I got away from the Catholic church's control 65 years ago.
Guess not.

[JanMichael]

17. Between guns, reproductive rights, & college destruction I have about had it.

It hasn't happened yet but I do not ever want to see the day that I am nervous going into a grocery store because I think I might get shot randomly. Although the odds of that happening here sure is already a hell a lot more likely here than in some other countries. I really don't want to have to walk around lock & loaded.

Not only are they attacking abortion but they're not even letting women have access to birth control. I laughed 20 years ago when a grocery store had condoms behind the case and you had to literally beg some poor worker, or crypto fascist, to get a box. Who's laughing now right? Since then Roe versus Wade is dead and these idiots are ramping it up with all sorts of new restrictive rules. Good gawd where will it end... Handmaid's tale is not supposed to be real.

And super successful fairly progressive schools like New College in Florida and UNC Chapel Hill are literally being restructured by fascists. Plus local school librarians are being targeted too. Ugh.

[Irish_Dem]

19. The country we knew is fading away before our eyes.

It is a sad time, a heart breaking time.

[sinkingfeeling]

20. Knew it was a Catholic run hospital just reading OP title.

[Chakaconcarne]

22. Or it's about making money $$$

[mainer]

23. I assume vasectomies are off the table too?

These Catholic hospitals are sometimes the only medical facility in the area. This requires patients to drive long distances, with extra costs, just to be able to do family planning.

[gratuitous]

24. If women were just more responsible in making their own decisions

Men wouldn't have to dictate the terms of their health care to women.

Gee, when I say it that way, it sounds incredibly patronizing and demeaning even though it's a 100% stone cold accurate summation of the hospital's policy.

[CousinIT]

25. They have no business denying women control of their bodies and repro lives

As much as forcing sterilization upon women & girls (eugenics), ALSO denying them the right to be sterilized when they CHOOSE is just as bad. ALL of it is about controlling women's lives via their bodies. ALL of it is evil.