Catholic Hospitals Are Making It Harder for Men To Obtain Vasectomies

[beam me up scottie]

Catholic Hospitals Are Making It Harder for Men To Obtain Vasectomies

We have another example of Catholic hospitals getting in the way of a medical procedure because they care more about adhering to dogma than doing what’s best for patients.

Usually, when we hear these stories, it involves patients who need abortions. But this one has nothing to do with “killing babies” or whatever other outlandish phrase you want to use to describe an abortion.

It involves a group called Urology Associates in Eureka, California:

… Several years ago Eureka’s Urology Associates, Humboldt County’s only urologists, joined what is now called the St. Joseph Health Medical Group… As demanded by the ethical directives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and enforced by Santa Rosa’s Bishop Vasa, the urologists forfeited their ability to provide vasectomies.

Of the eight physicians listed as performing vasectomies in the area, six no longer do so.

Dr. Scott Sattler, writing for Lost Coast Outpost, explains why he’s concerned:

How is this a public health problem? Because of all the permanent methods of birth control, vasectomy is by far the safest, most reliable and least expensive.

…

… Access to permanent contraception must remain an option for those men and women whose conscience and/or health demands them to take such action.

***

It’s all hypocritical even by their own standards. By not providing vasectomies for men or tubal ligations for women, these hospitals are making it more likely that unwanted pregnancies occur, which makes it more likely that patients will obtain abortions.

More to the point here, vasectomies are a way to prevent pregnancies, usually by men who are already married. So this isn’t about imposing faith-based morality. It certainly isn’t about health. This is just another case of Catholic dogma outweighing common sense.

And the faster Catholic hospitals take over secular ones, the more often we’re going to hear disturbing stories like this.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/09/13/catholic-hospitals-are-making-it-harder-for-men-to-obtain-vasectomies/

[Freddie]

1. And I thought they only cared about us slutty women

Making decisions about our own bodies. Sheesh.
My ex-boss was a very devout Catholic, brainwashed pro-lifer, etc. When she decided that her family was complete (2 kids) she had no problem at all with her husband getting a vasectomy - because he isn't Catholic, so it's not a sin as far as he's concerned.

[beam me up scottie]

3. Right?

The Church still focuses mostly on taking away our rights but it appears they're branching out.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. Rules gaming; a clue that your religion is made up.

[Angry Dragon]

2. Catholics created in SATAN'S image

and they are against good sex education and birth control ......just a bunch of idiots

[beam me up scottie]

4. That's a little harsh.

Satan liked humans, I think of him more as a kind of Christian Prometheus but he gave us knowledge instead of fire.

[Angry Dragon]

5. my apologies to Satan

[Act_of_Reparation]

12. Satan has the best music.

[beam me up scottie]

21. Nice!

[Not Ruth]

6. Catholic nut jobs

[justhanginon]

7. It is especially worrying as the Catholic church aquires more and more hospitals

and more doctors groups. At some point, in a lot of areas with few hospitals or doctor choices, it will be virtually impossible to obtain any kind of birth control even for medically required reasons. It is absolutely wrong for a church and its religious dogma to be allowed to exert that kind of control over people's lives, regardless of whether they are Catholic or of some other faith or non-faith..

[trotsky]

8. This. A thousand times this.

It's part of a coordinated effort - what they are unable to legislate thanks to our secular system of laws, they will accomplish via their massive wealth. Controlling the lives of Catholics is one thing - they can leave the religion if they want, so perhaps they just enjoy being told what they can or cannot do. But when a small group of celibate old men start making healthcare choices for EVERYONE, they can fuck right off.

[justhanginon]

11. As I understand it the same problem with Catholic hospital with regard to

end of life issues such as, do not resuscitate wishes of some like myself. As I told my kids, no way do I want them allowing to keep me hanging on long after I am brain dead or suffering in terrible pain when "doctors" see no hope. They are instructed that I want only a secular hospital, if any are left, when that day comes.

[Act_of_Reparation]

14. BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT

Who will give medicines to teh poors????

Never mind religiously affiliated hospitals are less charitable than public hospitals, and roughly as charitable as non-profits. Never mind that robbing people of medical procedures under the cover of charity is a genuinely horrible thing to do. Never mind that crap. The fact of the matter is we should tolerate bishops sticking their sticking their d̶i̶c̶k̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶k̶i̶d̶s̶ noses in our medical care because they sometimes do nice things for people.

Beatitude #9 strikes again.

[Freddie]

15. Do they want government $$?

Medicare, Medicaid - no hospital survived without it. Someday (when we're back in power) pass a law that any facility accepting government funds must practice medicine according to best practice standards. That would include contraception and not allowing a woman to die from a pregnancy.

[MineralMan]

10. This kind of overreach by religious organizations

is becoming more and more common. I remember the days, back in the 1960s in California, when condoms all had to state, on their packaging, "For prevention of disease only." They also could only be sold by pharmacists and only to people over 21 years of age. The law existed due to pressure from the Catholic Church.

Those restrictions went away, but there is pressure to restrict the use of contraceptive methods again today, led by the RCC. It is obscene, in my view, that a church can restrict people who are not members. This needs to be fought, tooth and nail.

[bettyellen]

31. I thought most legislation against women's reproductive medicine came from Evangelicals?

Maybe because they're better organized, politically?

[MineralMan]

35. Actually, the Roman Catholic Church is the prime mover in restricting

access to reproductive decisions, and has been for a very, very long time. The evangelicals are relative newcomers to the issue. The RCC prohibits all contraception as well as procedures that terminate pregnancies. And it does so on a worldwide basis. The RCC also has far more political power than the fundamentalist Christian Right.

They've been wielding that political power for centuries. Evangelicals are amateurs when it comes to that.

[bettyellen]

42. The Evangelicals have been behind loads of it recently though. Catholics are less

Effective these days because they have more power in urban areas, which are mostly liberal, so it gets mitigated by that. Ohio, Wisconsin Texas are all suffering from the Evangelicals influence these days. I've done clinic escorting for 25 years plus and it was always baptists and evangelicals even though Catholics are more prominent on our area. They'd bus themselves in from out of state.

[MineralMan]

44. The RCCs history in reproductive choice matters is far

more extensive in time and place, though. The evangelicals were latecomers to that concern. Yes, they're more active about abortion, but less active in the contraception area. I don't know of any evangelicals who are militating against vasectomies, for example, nor tubal ligations. The RCC, on the other hand is quite active in trying to stop those, and those procedures are among the ones prohibited in Catholic medical facilities, along with abortions.

I've also done clinic escort as a volunteer, and you're right about the evangelicals being prominent in demonstrating against abortion, although I have also seen priests and nuns outside of PP clinics. They're not as outrageously obnoxious nor threatening, though.

[bettyellen]

45. A lot of Evangelicals want to limit contraceptives as well, they're just less upfront about it.

[beam me up scottie]

47. Yes the RCC is the prime mover, and they've got the political record to prove it:

The Personhood Movement: Internal Battles Go Public: Part 2

In 1975, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops had developed a plan to turn every diocese into an anti-choice political machine and to use its existing infrastructure to set up an office in every congressional district. The bishops’ plan included a four-pronged legislative strategy, which continues to guide the anti-choice movement today:

(a) Passage of a constitutional amendment providing protection for the unborn child to the maximum degree possible.

(b) Passage of federal and state laws and adoption of administrative policies that will restrict the practice of abortion as much as possible.

(c) Continual research into and refinement and precise interpretation of Roe and Doe and subsequent court decisions.

(d) Support for legislation that provides alternatives to abortion.


In other words: fight for an amendment to undo Roe, but at the same time work through the courts and legislatures to make it harder for women to access legal abortion. While Roe would remain the law of the land, women would not be able to actually exercise their rights.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/personhood-movement-internal-battles-go-public-part-2-0

And they were also behind the Hobby Lobby decision:

How the Catholic Church masterminded the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby debacle

The Catholic bishops now sought a broad-based conscience clause that would allow any employer or insurer to refuse to cover contraceptives for any religious or moral objection. This represented a major escalation in the grounds for claiming conscience protections. Traditionally so-called conscience clauses, like the 1973 Church Amendment, protected individuals or health care entities like hospitals only from being compelled to directly perform abortions or sterilizations in violation of their moral or religious beliefs. In 1997, the federal government expanded conscience protections to the payers of abortion-related services when it allowed Medicaid and Medicare managed-care plans to refuse to pay providers for abortion counseling or referral services. Now the bishops were attempting to extend conscience protection to any payer who had a “moral” objection to contraception. Such a measure would make contraceptive coverage mandates useless, because any employer or insurer could opt out. And it would once again leave women’s reproductive health care at the mercy of individual employers and insurers and stigmatize contraceptives, like abortion, as a segregated health service that could be carved out of the continuum of women’s health needs.

The bishops failed to get a broader conscience clause in the bill mandating coverage of contraceptives for federal employees, but they did manage to get an exemption for the five religiously affiliated plans in the system. Having set the precedent that religious providers would be treated differently concerning the provision of reproductive health care, even in the matter of noncontroversial services such as contraception, the bishops launched a major new effort to create broad conscience exemptions.

...

There was more at stake that just the bishops’ authority over services provided by Catholic institutions. Domestic and international social service agencies affiliated with the church, like Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Relief Services, receive hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts each year to provide social services to the poor, run adoption agencies, and manage international development projects. Catholic Charities affiliates received nearly $3 billion in government funding in 2010, accounting for more than 60 percent of their revenue. Religiously affiliated hospitals in the United States, of which 70 percent are Catholic, receive some $40 billion in government funding each year through Medicare and Medicaid and other government programs.

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/14/how_the_catholic_church_masterminded_the_supreme_courts_hobby_lobby_debacle/

[MineralMan]

48. Thanks for those details!

[guillaumeb]

13. A very deceptive title, revealing of an agenda perhaps?

A more descriptive title, and a more truthful one, would be:

Catholic Hospitals Are Making It Harder for Men To Obtain Vasectomies at Catholic run facilities.

But this more nuanced title would not serve the purpose one assumes.

[Act_of_Reparation]

16. Strange.

I interpreted the title to mean: "Catholic Hospitals Are Making It Harder for Men to Obtain Vasectomies [At Catholic Hospitals]"... because where the fuck else could they make it more difficult to get vasectomies?

It's a headline, not a fucking legal brief. If it contained all information essential to the story, newspapers would be all headlines and no articles. Headlines that read like: "Catholic Hospitals Are Hospitals Run By Catholics And They Are Making It Difficult For Men To Get Vasectomies In Their Testicles At Hospitals Run By Catholics Because Catholics Are Turning Not-Catholic Hospitals Into Catholic Hospitals And God Love Complete Testicles So Catholics Won't Let Their Doctors Near Them"

[guillaumeb]

17. Ah yes, the explanation.

Perhaps the title would have been too long to fit on the page?

[Act_of_Reparation]

53. Perhaps the title is accurate.

[Lordquinton]

18. Title is fine

Making it harder is making it harder.

What are your thoughts on the actual content?

[guillaumeb]

22. How do we balance freedom of religion and access to services?

A better question to ask would be why so many areas are only served by religious-owned healthcare facilities.

[MineralMan]

27. What, pray tell, does religious freedom have to do

with someone getting a vasectomy? Me, for example. I'm an atheist. Why should I not be able to obtain that procedure anywhere in the the United States? Why should a church have anything at all to say about it?

There is nothing to balance. Freedom of religion has nothing to do with my medical decisions. Nothing whatsoever.

As for your question, in many areas, only one hospital is available to serve the needs of the residents of those areas. If it is owned by the Catholic church, why would people not be able to receive the treatment they needed, based on the dogma of that church. Does dogma override the needs of the population?

Perhaps the question should be: Why should any church that owns a hospital be able to prevent any class of legal medical treatments, if it is the only hospital available in the area?

[guillaumeb]

29. If religious groups were legally prevented from running healthcare facilities,

that might solve this issue, but it would not solve the issue of many areas being medically underserved because it is not profitable for capitalists to serve those areas.

[MineralMan]

32. Why do you think that Catholic Hospitals don't generate a positive

cash flow for the Church? The fact is that they do. It is abhorrent to me that a church can deny medical treatments to non-members of that church. Immoral, actually. That, I believe, should be forbidden, by law. If my physician tells me that I should have a vasectomy, then I expect to be able to have that procedure, safely and done in a proper environment.

In reality, vasectomies are typical in-office procedures, not performed in a hospital. However, the church also owns the only urology group in that location. That group apparently also prohibits vasectomies from being performed by urologists who are part of that group.

Truly, you do not understand the ethical conflict this presents? Really?

[guillaumeb]

34. I understand the problem, and I sympathize with those denied treatment.

But in a capitalist society, profit determines where facilities are located.

[MineralMan]

41. At one time, and not that long ago,

county and local governments owned hospitals in many communities. Most of those operated at a financial loss, due to the requirement that they treat all residents, regardless of income. So, those local governments divested themselves of that responsibility by selling those hospitals to private companies or churches, or by simply closing them.

The day of County General Hospital is over. Few still exist, except in some places where there is no economic reason for anyone to operate a hospital.

It's clear that you do not understand the history of hospitals in the United States. At one time, public hospitals were common everywhere. That time has past, and many people suffer because of that.

I don't care if you "sympathize" with those who are denied treatment for religious reasons. That's irrelevant, really. Your sympathy is not needed and serves no purpose. Instead, helping to ensure that people can get the medical treatments they need, wherever they live, should be the goal. You apparently do not have that goal as part of your priorities. Too bad.

You cannot defend religious groups that deny needed medical treatments, so you are playing logic games. I will play no longer with you in this.

[trotsky]

49. So basically what you're saying is:

Because capitalism has failed to provide medical services for a certain area, the people in that area need to shut up and deal with whatever restrictions the Catholic Church wants to put on their choices, whether they are Catholic or not.

Interesting theory, and very revealing of an agenda on your part.

You should also know that the narrative you're pushing (of the RCC nobly coming to the rescue of communities not served by the free market) is completely BOGUS and not backed up by facts.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/02/24/dont-let-catholics-run-hospitals/

It’s a chilling story. Catholics can’t get their way in popular opinion, so they’ve followed another path, buying up and limiting health care options so that you have no choice but to follow their ancient biblical rules. The linked article is an examination of the growing move to limit your medicine to Catholic medicine in the Pacific Northwest, but it applies everywhere. They interviewed doctors who reported on their constraints.

Three physicians working in Whatcom County eventually agreed to speak with me. PeaceHealth bought out the secular hospital in 2008. Since then, PeaceHealth has systematically bought up nearly every specialty clinic in the area, from cardiologists to pediatricians, hospice to oncology. The physicians who agreed to meet me for coffee talked about the mindfuck of being raised Catholic, turning to atheism, and excelling in medicine—only to wake up one day with the church as your boss. The first physician joked grimly about the religious directives being “medieval torture porn.” He talked about the struggle of trying to balance his duty to patients with the edicts of a Catholic hospital.

These religious directives are nightmarish. They aren’t always followed — these really are rules laid down by religious fanatics who have no experience or connection to the actual practice of medicine, and conscientious doctors try to find workarounds — but what limits them now is competition. If Catholics get a monopoly on health care in an area, then the trouble really begins.

[guillaumeb]

52. Again?

You claimed that I said:

You should also know that the narrative you're pushing (of the RCC nobly coming to the rescue of communities not served by the free market) is completely BOGUS and not backed up by facts.

Feel free to link to where I said that.

[trotsky]

55. Right here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=254611

and here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=254616

Please proceed with your desperate spin. It's been a week or so since you last utterly humilated yourself; I'd love to see it again.

[AtheistCrusader]

59. Pushing. Fomenting. Use whatever word you like.

You're totally doing it.

It may be that you just don't realize it. let's see if your tune changes after you read at least a couple of the articles linked by multiple posters to you in this thread, about what the church is doing with these hospitals.

[AtheistCrusader]

58. Again, pushing that 'this is just underserved areas' narrative. It's a lie and you've been misled by

the people who told it to you.

You really need to do some reading on this issue, because it's a direct affront to the spirit of Roe vs Wade, and all we can do is throw money at it. That's the only solution. Planned Parenthood is a good option, but there needs to be MORE.

https://catholicwatch.org/providence-acquisition-of-swedish-medical-one-year-later/
http://crosscut.com/2014/01/washingtons-looming-catholic-hospital-takeover/
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/30/catholic-hospitalsthreateningwomensreproductivehealthactivistssa.html
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/12/13/1262589/-ACLU-lawsuit-highlights-growing-dangers-for-women-at-Catholic-hospitals

They couldn't ban it, so they're going to buy it out.

This is not how legal, moral, ethical health care is supposed to be administered. This is not how to treat medical procedures in a class XYZ religion 'doesn't like'.

[AtheistCrusader]

57. Here's the problem with the BS narrative you're fomenting there.

They're not acquiring hospitals and medical facilities in 'underserved areas'. They're acquiring major metropolises. For instance, Seattle.

https://catholicwatch.org/providence-acquisition-of-swedish-medical-one-year-later/

Swedish was the biggest hospital on pill hill. (The area generally between James and Madison st. and between 8th and Broadway.

[AtheistCrusader]

56. Because the RCC is aggressively acquiring both medical facilities, health insurance systems, and

working to establish joint operating agreements with non-Catholic hospitals for billing discounts in exchange for applying RCC moral rules, such as no abortion, etc.

That's why there's only 1 of 11 regional Seattle hospitals still unfettered by their rules. (Overlake)

This is their end-run around Roe vs. Wade. It they can't ban it, they'll just make it unavailable.

[Lordquinton]

61. That was not the subject

You said it was inaccurate, but it is spot on.

That "better question" is one we've been asking for a long time. And pointing out that religions are using this loophole to force their beliefs on others, and have gotten heavy pushback from around here.

[MineralMan]

19. No, it wasn't deceptive at all.

It was very clear, indeed. Catholic hospitals and medical groups are restricting contraceptive health care and reproductive choice, in general. But, you knew that, right?

They are overstepping their boundaries in this, and when they own the only hospital in a region, they can put pressure on individual doctors by limiting their ability to practice in that hospital.

There's nothing deceptive about the post, but there's plenty deceptive about religious attempts to control people's reproductive behaviors.

[beam me up scottie]

20. Or maybe the author assumed most readers would be able to figure it out.

It's not that difficult to do considering the fact that he referred to Catholic hospitals in the title.

Logic Chopping

(also known as: quibbling, nit-picking, smokescreen, splitting-hairs, trivial objections)

Description: Using the technical tools of logic in an unhelpful and pedantic manner by focusing on trivial details instead of directly addressing the main issue in dispute. Irrelevant over precision.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/120/Logic-Chopping

I suppose I might resort to using logical fallacies too if I felt defensive about the fact that Catholic Hospitals Are Making It Harder for Men To Obtain Vasectomies.

Now do you have anything to say about the article or will the pedantry continue?

[guillaumeb]

23. The actual title: Catholic Hospitals Are Making It Harder for Men To Obtain Vasectomies

Some might assume that all hospitals are referred to, when it is only RCC healthcare institutions that are affected.

[beam me up scottie]

24. Only if they were complete idiots who can't read for comprehension.

But I suppose that it's possible they wouldn't understand that Catholic hospitals refers to Catholic facilities, the world is full of idiots after all. Just look at what's in the white house.

So are you eventually going to get around to discussing the article itself or will the pedantry continue?

[guillaumeb]

25. Fine, enough with the side issues.

A better question to ask would be why so many areas are only served by religious-owned healthcare facilities.

[MineralMan]

28. Economic conditions may result in having only one hospital available

to serve a particular region. That's why. The RCC seems to like owning hospitals. So there are places where the only available local hospital is owned by the Catholic Church. That's why that is.

[guillaumeb]

30. Economic conditions such as a corporation deciding that it is not profitable to locate in an area?

So the profit motive is to blame.

[MineralMan]

33. Oh, bother. I'm done with this subthread.

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. Yeah, the Catholic love of using money for evil is part of the problem

They like to use donations to buy out other facilities and then force their dogma on the populace in general.

People who donate to the Roman Catholic church - your money is being used to screw things up. On purpose.

[beam me up scottie]

46. No, CATHOLIC HOSPITALS are to blame for making it harder for men to get vasectomies.

They're also to blame for women not getting necessary medical care because the Church cares more about dogma than our health.

U.S. Bishops Take Aim at Sterilization

The Vatican has an absolute prohibition on sterilization for the purposes of birth control. The U.S. Catholic bishops consider the procedure "intrinsically immoral," on par with abortion. Yet for years, Genesys Health System, a Catholic medical center near Flint, Mich., allowed doctors delivering babies there to tie the tubes of new mothers who wanted to ensure they never got pregnant again.

Genesys's policy wasn't hard to fathom: Performing a tubal ligation immediately after childbirth is the long-established standard of care, especially if a woman is having a cesarean section. "She's already cut open — her tubes are right there," said Sarah Ward Prager, an associate professor in obstetrics and gynecology and director of family planning at the University of Washington Medical School. Subjecting a new mother to a second surgery carries "unnecessary risk," Prager said. "It is simply unethical to say, 'I'm going to make you come back to a different hospital to have another surgery in six weeks because the bishop says I can't tie your tubes right now."

Then, seemingly out of the blue, Genesys reversed course. Starting November 1, sterilization with the "direct" aim of preventing pregnancy — as opposed to for some other medical ( "indirect" reason — was banned. Patients who had planned to have the procedure after childbirth were left scrambling; their irate doctors were, too.

Genesys won't say why it allowed sterilizations to go on for so long or why it has forbidden them now. In a statement to ProPublica, the hospital acknowledged only that it had "updated its policy on tubal ligations to comply with current Church teaching."

But this much is clear: The Genesys decision is almost certainly a sign of things to come.

http://www.propublica.org/article/u.s.-bishops-take-aim-at-sterilization

Doctors at an Oklahoma Hospital Were Just Told They Can’t Prescribe Birth Control Anymore

Catholic hospital administrators ordered doctors practicing in a small Oklahoma city to stop prescribing contraceptives for birth control purposes, according to a report by the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise.

The directive would affect all doctors affiliated with Jane Phillips Medical Center, leaving just one OB-GYN who can prescribe birth control in a city with more than 18,500 women.

A spokesperson for St. John Health System, which owns Jane Phillips, says St. John denies giving such an order.

“I was told that my physician has been instructed that they can no longer write prescriptions for birth control as birth control. This effects me because I take birth control as birth control. There are other ways to receive birth control, for example headaches, cramps, excessive bleeding — but I have none of those symptoms,” a local woman, who requested anonymity, told the Examiner-Enterprise.

Doctors were instructed to stop prescribing contraceptive for birth control during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, according to the Examiner-Enterprise. St. John spokesperson Joy McGill would not comment on the alleged meeting.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/179102/doctors-oklahoma-hospital-were-just-told-they-cant-prescribe-birth-control-anymore

When the Catholic Church owns your doctor: The insidious new threat to affordable birth control
Eight of the largest health systems in America are now Catholic-owned. More and more won't prescribe conraception
Patricia Miller



Angela Valavanis had already had one bad encounter with the Catholic health care system when St. Francis Hospital, the hospital in Evanston, Ill., where she delivered her second baby, refused to allow her OB/GYN to tie her tubes because of Catholic restrictions on the procedure. When she went to her doctor’s office for a check-up after the birth and asked about going back on the Pill, since she hadn’t gotten the sterilization she wanted, she got another shock: “My doctor told me that she couldn’t prescribe birth control because she had sold her practice to a Catholic health system,” said Angela. “My mouth dropped open. I was so confused to hear those words coming out of the mouth of an OB/GYN.”

An OB/GYN who can’t prescribe birth control? It’s not some bad joke. It could be a reality if your doctor’s practice is purchased by a Catholic health system that then imposes the Ethical & Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, a set of rules created by the U.S. Bishop’s Conference that prohibits doctors from doing everything from prescribing the Pill to performing sterilizations or abortions.

...

And with Catholic hospital systems accounting for eight of the 10 of the largest nonprofit health systems in the U.S., these hospitals are poised to become major owners of doctors’ offices, which could severely impede access to contraceptives if doctors are forced to follow the Directives. “The more we see these Catholic systems buying up these practices, the more we are going to see what Angela saw,” predicted Lorie Chaiten, director of the Illinois ACLU’s Reproductive Rights Project, who notes that such refusals are legal under Illinois’ Health Care Right of Conscience Act.

...

But for some women, changing doctors may not be an option. Health insurers are becoming increasingly restrictive about which hospitals and doctors a patient is allowed to use and may charge a steep penalty for going out of the network of preferred providers. Smaller towns and rural areas may not have a large selection of OB/GYNs. The ACLU is backing a measure in the Illinois Legislature that would require health systems to tell patients beforehand what services they don’t provide and where they can get them. Chaiten also encourages women who have been denied reproductive health services for religious reason to report it to the ACLU, which is tracking this trend.

Ironically, Angela’s experience with her OB/GYN wasn’t her last run-in with Catholic health care. After she was refused a tubal ligation and a prescription for birth control, Angela’s husband decided to get a vasectomy. His doctor, who was also part of the Catholic system, said his practice couldn’t do the procedure or make a referral. “The whole situation is so unbelievable to me. I had no idea these limitations occurred,” she says. “When I tell my friends about it, they say it’s medieval. We have to worry that if they keep buying up all these practices, it will get harder and harder to find someone who can prescribe birth control.”

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/11/when_the_catholic_church_owns_your_doctor_the_insidious_new_threat_to_affordable_birth_control/

So let's not pretend the Church is buying hospitals to help patients in underserved areas, no one believes that garbage.

[trotsky]

50. No, Catholic dogma is to blame.

If the RCC is so wonderful to come in and offer services, why do they have to come at the cost of denying treatments that conflict with their dogma? Even for non-Catholics?

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. "Of the eight physicians listed as performing vasectomies in the area, six no longer do so"

That's the point. Because they are taking over non-Catholic facilities, and imposing Catholic dogma on them.

It is, let's face it, the most pernicious bit of Catholic dogma. It's the most ridiculous, illogical, illiberal and environmentally damaging bit of dogma. A (voluntary) vasectomy is an unalloyed good for everyone, and the RC church is against is because they're arseholes who won't admit they're wrong.

[guillaumeb]

37. And it might be the bit of dogma that is second most ignored.

After use of birth control.

Or possibly third most ignored if one considers adultery as another piece of dogma.

[muriel_volestrangler]

40. When 75% of the supply of vastectomies is cut off, no, it's not being ignored

because they make it harder for people to do the right thing.

And it is birth control. Just so you know.

[AtheistCrusader]

60. In some regions, that IS all hospitals.

Seattle is 1 hospital away.

[Warpy]

26. Old men who have never played the game

are making up the rules for everybody else. What is wrong with this picture?

Catholics have figured it out. Most use contraception.

[guillaumeb]

39. Or who claim to have never played the game.

In my town, the parish priest quit the priesthood and married the Mother Superior of the Convent.

This was in 1966.

[Warpy]

43. Same thing happened at the church my parents went to

only it was to one of the teachers at the school.

Remember, both had to defrock to marry. Their days of making the rules for everybody else were over.

[pokerfan]

51. Reproductive freedom is serious business to Catholics

“You see, to Catholics, sex isn’t two drunk strangers getting their freak on at closing time. It is the mystical union of two people inspired to create new physical life while God adds a soul in a divine and ineffably beautiful three way. So when you use contraception, you are not only sinning, you are cock-blocking the Almighty! I’ve got God’s back on this one.”
― Stephen Colbert, February 14, 2012

[beam me up scottie]

54. Stephen Colbert gets it!