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January 25, 2013
Catholic Hospital Argues 'Fetuses Are Not Persons' in Malpractice Case
(Updated) Bishops pledge to review hospital's polices as suit heads to Colorado Supreme Court.
Update (Feb. 5): After a windfall of criticism last week, Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), a nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital in Colorado, has backtracked on its legal argument that, under state law, a fetus is not a person with legal rights.
According to NBC News, "On Monday, the hospital and the state's bishops released a statement acknowledging it was 'morally wrong' to make [that] legal argument."
RNS has the full story.
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A Catholic hospital in Colorado faces a wrongful-death malpractice lawsuit for the deaths of two unborn twins—but the hospital is arguing that, under Colorado law, "those fetuses are not persons with legal rights."
The lawsuit against Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), a nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital, cites Colorado's Wrongful Death Act in its allegations that physicians at the hospital "failed to perform an emergency cesarean section to save the fetuses." But lawyers for the hospital have argued that the Wrongful Death Act does not apply because, according to existing law, fetuses are not people.
Two lower courts have agreed with the hospital's lawyers, but plaintiffs now are appealing their case to the Colorado Supreme Court.
Though two judges have ruled in favor of the Catholic hospital, its argument "effectively [turns] the [Catholic] Church directives on their head," according to the Colorado Independent. "The details of the arguments the lawyers involved have already mounted will likely renew debate about Church health care directives and trigger sharp reaction from activists on both sides of the debate looking to underline the apparent hypocrisy of Catholic Health’s defense."
The Catholic bishops of Colorado already have issued a statement regarding the lawsuit, saying they will make a full review of the hospital's policies. According to the statement:
"Catholics and Catholic institutions have the duty to protect and foster human life, and to witness to the dignity of the human person—particularly to the dignity of the unborn. No Catholic institution may legitimately work to undermine fundamental human dignity.[CHI] is a Catholic institution which provides health care services in 14 states, providing care to thousands of people annually. It has been accused by some of undermining the Catholic position on human life in the course of litigation. Today, representatives of [CHI] assured us of their intention to observe the moral and ethical obligations of the Catholic Church.
Salon notes that the move is hypocritical for a Catholic organization, but it means that CHI "is finally following the law, rather than fighting it."
CT has previously reported on personhood, including a look at the moral status of fetuses and a 2004 cover story examining the issue of when personhood begins.
Comments
This is not the first time that Roman institutions have acted directly against what the Roman church has decreed nor is abortion a denied service in all the Roman healthcare agencies.
Either they are one and it is sin for them (and all others) or it is not.
Posted By: Jim Ricker | January 26, 2013 6:14 PM
Hilarious hypocrisy Fetuses are people when the Catholic Church wants control over women's bodies .. yet the same fetuses are suddenly not people when the Church is charged with medical malpractice.
Posted By: Kathleen | January 26, 2013 8:15 PM
The lawsuit was brought in the state of Colorado, not in the Vatican.
In order for wrongful death to apply, the state's laws must be followed. The Church could have admitted to wrongful death and paid, but since the hospital doesn't think it committed malpractice, the only way to fight it is by following the law of the state where the event happened.
Posted By: Melinda Lane | January 28, 2013 10:57 AM
@Melinda - You have it backwards. The Church was trying to AVOID application of the Colorado wrongful death statute. At least as interpreted by the Colorado courts so far, Colorado's wrongful death statute only allows parents to sue if the baby was born alive and later died from injuries caused by a defendant. The Church/Hospital is arguing that, because the babies/fetuses were not born alive, they are not "persons" whose next of kin have any rights under the wrongful death statute. The Church/Hospital wants the state wrongful death statute to NOT apply in this case because that is the only basis the father has for bringing a claim against them. This "born alive" rule is the traditional rule under the common law going back centuries. It has nothing to do with the Church/Hospital's standard malpractice defense that, even if the father has a right to sue for the death of the fetuses, they did not commit any malpractice. They argue that the care they provided was reasonable under the circumstances and that nothing that they did or failed to do caused the death of the mother or the fetuses. They are not required at all to raise the non-personhood issue in order to raise this standard malpractice defense. Dropping the non-personhood defense would NOT require them to admit malpractice and pay the claim.
Posted By: Christian Lawyer | January 28, 2013 2:00 PM
Their #1 belief is money.
Posted By: Neil Allen | January 28, 2013 10:29 PM
If Catholic Health Initiatives believe in the Catholic church teachings, then they would own their wrongs. CHI would rather pay their expensive team of lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars then to just settle and move on. Why bring down the whole Catholic healing mission for this money hungry business. I know first hand of CHI and their shady lawyers. I'm still in a battle with trying to hold them accountable for nearly 11yrs. I have been through the worst kind of miscarriages of justice that any mother can stand. How these people get away with the evils that they have done is beyond me.
Posted By: dorothy thompson | February 2, 2013 5:02 PM
Seriously. Catholic institutions employ non-Catholics. Before you scream hypocrisy and such, make sure the persons making those legal decisions are ACTUALLY Catholic..... Duh!
Once the Catholic Bishop was made aware, he asked the hospital NOT to invoke that argument as a defense.
Furthermore, either the baby was a baby or it was not. If society wants to claim that it is not, why is this even an issue?
Posted By: Marybeth | February 8, 2013 7:04 PM
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