The ACLUposted a diary (thankfully rescued) about the horrendous and disturbing case in Florida concerning a pregnant woman. I started to reply in comments, but it got too long, so I'm making a diary out of it.
TMH (the Florida hospital involved) seems to be one of those countless 'community hospitals' that have been taken over by the religious over the last few decades. Coincidentally, the same timeframe during which health insurance went from non-profit to profit-based. Hospitals controlled by religionists are often "non-profit, community" ways to control people's lives "With caring hands and hearts". I don't have direct knowledge of this happening in the case of TMH, but to be honest, if someone told me there was a hospital in Florida that HADN'T already been bought up and controlled by pro-life fundies, I wouldn't believe them without some proof.
I'll lay out my evidence that TMH is a
They have become progressively stealthier about implementing this. To the point where I would seem paranoid if I just took the facts that their slogan is "Your Hospital For Life", their maternity boutique is called "The Mommy Market", their OB/GYN clinic is called "A Woman's Place", and the section on "Genetic Counseling" in that clinic refers exclusively to "provid[ing] useful and reassuring information to family members concerned about their own cancer risk."None of that is convincing. They never say they're in any way a religious organization, they don't affiliate themselves with any denomination, so why am I so convinced they're actually a pack of dangerous fundie loons?
So here's this: the 60-year old, 770-bed Tallahassee Memorial Hospital lists it's Support Group schedule on line. There is not a single addiction or coping support group of ANY kind, but "Noonday Worship" appears every weekday. As far as I am concerned, the case is closed. Having chapel services? Fine. Not having actual support groups? I don't buy it.
So my guess is that, knowing the baby was in fact deformed, and would never survive, they told the woman she needed bed rest (or she herself might die) and refused to allow her to have anyone give her a second opinion at a non-secret-fundie hospital. I suspect they were less concerned that she might die (they felt that was preferable to an abortion) than that she might do it in public (and unmask their ruse based on appearing to be medical professionals.) Their main motivation, of course, was to prevent the woman from seeking a late term abortion. They knew if she got a second opinion, she would almost undoubtedly do this, so as to increase her chances of being, you know, alive, to care for her two (actually born already) children.
Just so you all know, so-called "spontaneous miscarriages" (God's Own Abortions) in the last trimester aren't like those in the first. "Oh my god I'm bleeding", and lots of crying and really bad cramps. No, this is an extremely life-threatening occurrence, with the undeniable probability that the woman will be mutilated by it and left unable to bear more children, on the chance that she doesn't die outright. The simple line in the ACLU diary stating she "lost the baby" papers over stuff the guards at Gitmo would turn away from.
Now the ACLU knows that there is no clear bright line between this issue, and the one where a man was convicted of (2nd degree) murder for ignoring the state's demand that he give his son insulin. They really are the same legal issue, if not the same controversy, seen from different sides. When can the state control your medical decisions, and what about parent's rights, and what about imaginary (or silent) people's rights?
So chances are they're not going to get within a dozen miles of this aspect of the case. Nor do they need to; their opponent is the state, purposefully.
But we certainly need to be aware that this is not just a matter of state interference in medicine, even if influenced by "the religious" to ignore the woman's rights. Worse than that, this is a matter of the state being straight-up directed by the church to interfere in medicine. The purpose here was religious, not civil.
And it amounts to the kidnapping (and potential death, thankfully avoided this time) of a pregnant woman, in the "caring" hands of a "community" hospital. The real problem here isn't the state being controlled by the religious, though obviously that is a big problem everywhere. The problem this case points out is the hospitals being controlled by the religious; a much bigger problem because it isn't recognized as a danger. Haven't the Christians always cared for the sick, like Jesus said to?
Yea, ladies. Stay out of Florida. Big time. But check your local hospitals, too. They know you'll avoid them if they announce themselves as hostile to reproductive rights, but health insurance companies are not the only reason health care has been deteriorating so precipitously lately.