Catholic hospital backs down on tubal ligation refusal [View all]

[Novara]

Catholic hospital backs down on tubal ligation refusal

Facing a possible sex-discrimination lawsuit, a Catholic hospital in Redding reversed its position Monday and agreed to let a woman’s doctor sterilize her after she gives birth next month.

Mercy Medical Center, owned by Dignity Health of San Francisco, the state’s largest private health care company, had previously refused to allow Rachel Miller to undergo a tubal ligation, citing Catholic hospitals’ Ethical and Religious Directives against sterilization.

After attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union said they would file a discrimination suit if Miller was being denied pregnancy-based care” on religious grounds, the hospital notified her doctor that it was reconsidering based on additional information the physician had provided. On Monday, the deadline the lawyers had set for a response, the ACLU said Mercy Medical Center had agreed to the surgery.

That solves Miller’s problem, said ACLU attorney Elizabeth Gill, but it won’t avoid a future legal confrontation unless the hospital chain changes its policy.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Catholic-hospital-backs-down-on-tubal-ligation-6463205.php