I don’t have to agree with your religion, but I don’t have the right to infringe on your practice of it. There are exceptions–if your religion requires you to kill non-believers, that is against the law in America, and you are not free to do that. However, in matters that are legal, the First Amendment protects your right to follow your religion whether or not I or anyone else agrees with it!
On Thursday, The Guardian posted an article about a California judge who upheld the First Amendment. The article includes information that might cause you to question his decision, but the fact remains that under the law he did what was right.
The article reports:
A San Francisco judge on Thursday refused to order a Catholic hospital to allow an obstetrician to use its facility to sterilize a woman just after the birth of her third child.
In denying the American Civil Liberties Union’s emergency request, superior court judge Ernest Goldsmith recognized the right of a Catholic hospital to adhere to its ethical and religious dictates.
“The religious beliefs reflected in their operation are not to be interfered with by courts,” Goldsmith said during an hour-long hearing in San Francisco. “There’s no law that says that hospitals are mandated to perform sterilizations.”
The case, brought by the ACLU, spotlights increasing tension over women’s rights to contraceptive healthcare in Catholic institutions.
Note–it is a Catholic institution. The article claims that this was the only hospital within 70 miles of the woman’s home. Admittedly, this would have been the ideal medical time to have the procedure done, and she is inconvenienced by this decision, but she does have other options in the future. A tubal ligation is simple surgery and I am sure she can find a hospital willing to do it.
The article further reports:
Goldsmith ruled that the ACLU is unlikely to win its discrimination case because the hospital’s sterilization policy applies equally to men and women. The judge also found that Chamorro could have the elective procedure in another hospital. In addition, he found insufficient evidence that the hospital allowed other tubal ligations solely for contraceptive purposes.
The ACLU challenged the use of religious directives to deny tubal ligations in a lawsuit it filed last month on behalf of Chamorro and Physicians for Reproductive Health, a nonprofit, and against the hospital and its parent, Dignity Health of San Francisco – California’s largest hospital provider. The suit alleges sex discrimination because the prohibition against sterilization disproportionately impacts women. The ACLU also contends that the hospital arbitrarily allowed some women to have the common surgical procedure while refusing it to others.
The hospital is within its First Amendment rights. The law is clear. The judge upheld the law. That is what he is supposed to do.
The article reports:
The hospital’s policy says: “Tubal ligation or other procedures that induce sterility for the purpose of contraception are not acceptable in Catholic moral teaching even when performed with the intent of avoiding further medical problems associated with a future pregnancy.”
The Catholic Church is entitled to practice its teaching.