The ACLU’s Deadly Anti-Catholic Vendetta
THE ACLU is angry that Catholic hospitals won’t perform abortions. The socalled “civil liberties” organization (if only!) appears to again be revving up to sue Americans who dedicated their lives to saving others while serving their faith.
And the ACLU wants the public to be incensed, too. But its latest ploy will almost certainly backfire by unintentionally demonstrating how important Catholic hospitals are to American health care.
For example, in trying to raise public hackles over the fact that Catholic institutions don’t perform abortions, the ACLU reminded everyone, in a report issued late last week, of something truly impressive: One out of every six patients in the United States is cared for in a Catholic hospital.
To that, I’d like to add some other meaningful facts: There were nearly 20 million emergency-room visits, more than 100 million outpatient visits and more than 5 million admissions last year to these institutions.
They employ almost 800,000 workers. They save more lives, release patients sooner and have better overall patient-satisfaction ratings than non-religious facilities. They demonstrate significantly better results than for-profit and government hospitals on patient safety, length of stay and patient satisfaction.
Oh, and their dedication to the common good leads them to offer services that are distinctly unprofitable.
It’s no surprise that the Church should take such a strong role in the care of the sick. Hospitals as we know them were invented by the Church, as a sure way of embodying Christ’s merciful concern for the sick. Every cathedral town began building a hospital after the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
Over the next several centuries convents and monasteries, aided by the faithful wealthy, built and staffed institutions for the sick, poor, outcast and vulnerable. They were driven by a deep religious conviction: Every man, woman and child is an irreplaceable, infinitely valuable being.
Nothing has changed. The ministry of Catholic hospitals remains rooted in a commitment to defend and promote human dignity. This absolutely precludes what the ACLU demands they perform: abortion. To perform an abortion would be the gravest assault on human dignity, as it destroys an innocent baby, and a Catholic health provider considers both the mother and the child to be patients deserving of care.
Not only does abortion unjustly end the life of a human being; it unjustly deprives a woman of an irreplaceable daughter or son.
How far from the mind-set of the ACLU that considers an abortion liberating for a woman, one she’s entitled to in every circumstance!
Although the ACLU claims to support the right of religious persons to practice their faith without government interference, it’s rabidly against Catholic health providers doing the same, demanding that all hospitals and health-care professionals put their consciences, morals and ethics aside. They must be made to perform abortions or give up government support and nonprofit benefits.
Besides the hypocrisy of claiming to stand for civil liberties while disdaining the conscience rights of health providers, the ACLU doesn’t seem to understand that the govern- ment supports the efforts of religious institutions in charity and hospitals because they are cost-effective and successful.
The ACLU acts as though there are hundreds of strictly secular, ACLU-thought-compliant institutions waiting to step in and give the sick the top-notch compassionate care they are getting at all these Catholic hospitals.
That’s simply not true. If Catholic hospitals and charities are forced out of helping the sick and poor by actors like the ACLU, it will be the sick and poor who lose.
It’s not given to everyone to understand the beautiful teachings of Catholicism. Its reverence for human life in all its manifestations can be shocking in a culture habituated to a sordid materialism that worships “choice” as the greatest good.
But in our country, living and working according to our deepest held beliefs is a First Amendment right, and it’s not dependent on the understanding or broad-mindedness of anyone, not even the ACLU.