ACLU won its lawsuit against Skagit Valley Hospital!

[countryjake]

Public Hospitals Must Provide Abortions On Site, Judge Rules

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/court-public-hospitals-must-provide-abortions-on-site/

Public hospitals must provide abortions on site if they also offer maternity services, a Washington state judge said Tuesday.

The ruling from Skagit County Superior Court Judge Raquel Montoya-Lewis concerns the state’s third-largest public hospital district, Skagit Regional Health, and Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon, which routinely refers patients to Planned Parenthood when they seek abortions.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington sued the district in 2015 as part of a campaign to make sure public health-care facilities follow the state’s abortion rights law, the Reproductive Privacy Act, passed by voter initiative in 1991.

The law prevents the state from interfering with a woman’s right to have an abortion, requires the state to pay for voluntary abortions for low-income women, and says that if a public hospital provides maternity services it must also provide “substantially equivalent” abortion services.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Yay for Washington...

I didn't know we had that law on the books. I was out of state when that happened, back before the internets and all.

I wonder how this affect the Catholic takeover of our healthcare system in the state?

[countryjake]

4. Skagit Valley Hospital was one of the ones that we almost lost to Peace Health

but, thanks to People for Healthcare Freedom (and rounding up lots of concern and attending all of the public hearings up here), our main hospital decided not to go ahead with their insidious plan to "partially" affiliate with Peace Health. However, our only other hospital, United General (which serves the vast upriver area of Eastern Skagit and Northeast Snohomish counties) is now known as PeaceHealth United General Medical Center (and if you check out their website, you'll find jesus all over it).

All I know is that SVH is now gonna have to hire appropriate staff to properly serve our county's needs, in order to be in accordance with the RPA, instead of shuffling people out their doors sending them on up the street to Planned Parenthood (which, last time I checked, isn't even equipped to do D&Cs yet, since they moved) or all the way up to B'Ham's Planned Parenthood. Mount Vernon's Planned Parenthood is continually harassed by anti-abortion fanatics, with their ridiculously hideous signs and irreverent preachermen.


If you want to learn more, go back and check out eridani's excellent coverage on the Catholic invasion of Washington's medical services, here:

People for Health Care Freedom: fighting the religious takeover of hospitals posted by eridani on Jul 3, 2013

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10822074

[Wounded Bear]

6. Yeah, I remember eridany following this issue...

I'm a man, but it is still on my critical list. I have women in my life and this kind of shit pisses me off.

[countryjake]

7. As a woman who has had to face the gauntlet of anti-abortion men...

giving their nasty sermons in front of Mt. Vernon's Planned Parenthood, I can tell you from experience that we need all the activists of Washington state (both men and women) united in this attack on our health care.

[mopinko]

2. no shit. they have the necessary equipment.

if they treat miscarriages, they can do abortions.
period.

[countryjake]

5. Exactly.

[pansypoo53219]

3. FULL SERVICES.

separation of church & state. they cry they do not want sharia law, but we have creeping christian shria.

[countryjake]

8. When they saw our little hospital struggling, Catholic Corp made their move

interfering with a potential merger between Skagit Valley Hospital and our much smaller United General Hospital, which might have been good for healthcare up here and would have definitely strengthened Skagit Regional Health services. Instead, the church's PeaceHealth attempted to take over both of them and only thru the efforts of the determined activists from People For Health Care Freedom was SVH saved from the unethical clutches of religion.

Even so, Skagit Valley Hospital continued to ignore the health service requirements of the voter-approved Reproductive Privacy Act (RPA) of 1991, so we've got the ACLU to thank for this litigation, an incredible victory, and also, Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Raquel Montoya-Lewis' wise decision (she had to sit as a Skagit County judge for the case because all the Skagit judges were recused).

Honestly, I don't consider what PeaceHealth has done in WA as "creeping", at all. They've strong-armed financially weak public medical facilities, took advantage, and stuck jesus into hospitals all over the state. And now this ruling on Skagit Valley Hospital's practices, even tho the Catholics don't own it, will undoubtedly raise the ire of many other religious fanatics in our county (just from reading the wording in our local newspaper, I can tell we're in for another fight and must remain vigilant to assure Skagit Health heeds the RPA). Those types are both immoral and insidious...creeps isn't nearly descriptive enough!

[niyad]

9. k and r for this important news

and would you consider cross-posting in women's rights and issues?