Sometimes words fail. Like this story of a woman and two fetuses died who died at a Catholic Hospital after a doctor didn’t answer a page and the hospital defends itself from a malpractice lawsuit by appealing to a state law ruling that fetuses are not persons.

Yes, the same Catholic Church that commands women to risk their own lives rather than get an abortion. The same Catholic church which damns women to poverty all over the world instead of using birth control. The church is willing to pay any cost for its principles as long as that cost is paid by women, but when a lawsuit would cost the church millions of its own money, it is willing to face what we all know

 

the When its the life of a woman on the line, the church is willing to pay that cost for its principles

Turns out, when a man sues a Catholic hospital for malpractice because his wife and the twins she was carrying inside her died when she turned up in the emergency room and her doctor never bothered to answer a page—well, things get a little tricky. Yes, the Catholic hospital adheres to the strict Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church, as set forth by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And yes, those directives include the claim that “[t]he Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn” and a mandate to uphold “the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death.'” But come  on. That obviously does not apply when Catholic Health Initiatives, the Church-affiliated organization that runs the Church-affiliated St. Thomas More Hospital where a young woman and her two unborn fetuses died, is  the lead defendant in a lawsuit:

Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that  those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

Thank you, counselor, for totally undermining everything the Catholic Church has ever said about women and health care and fetuses and the “sanctity of life,” just to save a buck, thereby confirming how very empty and meaningless all that rhetoric really is. Praise the Lord.