Their institution; their rules. If you go to a Catholic institution they don't ask you to become Catholic or believe as they do but they do ask you to abide by their rules. If you don't like it the door swings both ways.
I know you don't advocate what they do, merely their right to do so under the constitution, yet, that should be applied to a place where I go on my own accord, when I'm not incapacitated to make a decision for myself, like a school. When they take a rape victim who is usually badly beaten and not able to make a decision for herself to a Catholic hospital, all the bets are off. More importantly, what if a person does not know about these choices that would have been given to her in another establishment? A patient should have a right to be presented with all the options available regardless of his/her doctor's beliefs. This is just unprofessional attitude sanctioned by religion.
Well unfortunately I'm not up on all the case law/court decisions that have come down on this already although other board members might be. There have been cases such as you reference. Generally it seems to be the case that Catholic hospitals are under no obligation to provide patients options with which they disagree although they MIGHT be under some obligation to inform such a patient that there are other options available to her, just not at their hospital. And Catholic theologians disagree about just what constitutes "birth control" and think that in an emergency situation, different moral calculus may apply. And anyway doctors may well ignore such rules if they feel the patient's health requires it.
But these are things which are already being dealt with however inelegantly by current laws, hospitals and individual morality. The new proposed HHS rule goes further..
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Winter is Coming Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
