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Related: About this forumThe Catholic Church's moral authority...
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Turns out, when a man sues a Catholic hospital for malpractice because his wife and the twins she was carrying inside her died when she turned up in the emergency room and her doctor never bothered to answer a page—well, things get a little tricky.
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That obviously does not apply when Catholic Health Initiatives, the Church-affiliated organization that runs the Church-affiliated St. Thomas More Hospital where a young woman and her two unborn fetuses died, is the lead defendant in a lawsuit:
Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.
As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/23/1181447/-A-fetus-is-not-a-person-if-it-costs-us-money-says-Catholic-Church
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rug
(82,333 posts)As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”
The Catholic Health attorneys have so far won decisions from Fremont County District Court Judge David M. Thorson and now-retired Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Arthur Roy.
http://coloradoindependent.com/126808/in-malpractice-case-catholic-hospital-argues-fetuses-arent-people
It's a legal argument applying existing state law to a malpracice suit. The hosptal is not the Catholic Church.
That said, the lawyers have hypocrites for clients.
DryRain
(237 posts)The best dancers in the world: lawyers for the Catholic Church
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)that refuse to perform abortions or provide birth control, and who whine about violations, of religious liberty when they, as employers, have to pay someone to provide birth control coverage for their employees, all of a sudden ARE the Catholic church?
And regardless of whether it is a legitimate legal argument, allowing their lawyers to make it is the rankest and vilest hypocrisy.
DryRain
(237 posts)claiming Republicans should be put in charge of voter registration, or like the KKK should be put in charge of removing Jim Crow laws.
Catholic Church: hypocritical self-
serving multi-national tax-free corporation, same thing.
rug
(82,333 posts)And the RCC is not a party in this action.
There are some nice other threads on this page for Catholic bashing. Look for cartoons.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)No, Pope Ratzi isn't being sued, but the RCC as a body is taking as much control over this as they wish. They set the policies for Catholic hospitals. So we'll be waiting for the pope to publicly condemn this legal argument as un-Catholic and anti-life, and for him to accept legal judgement against the hospital for causing the "deaths" of fetuses.
DryRain
(237 posts)That is the exact title of the linked article.
No, I didn't state that, would you have felt better if I did?
I did respond to the sentiment of the exact title of the linked article.
But, in my post, I was just responding to the OP's titile of this thread, which included the phrase "moral authority".
"The Catholic Church's moral authority."
That is what I was and amresponding to. Qute reasonable, quite close to the theme of the OP's words.
Now you do know, that you didn't respond to my post, directly, right?
By the way, do you have any cartoons that could convince us of the moral authority or the reasons and need for such hypocrisy of the Roman Caltholic Church, other than the need to defensively work for self-serving simply financial survival over a world of rationality and logic rationales, a reason to be dancing around logic and consistency of message when in a court of law? I'd love to see the reasons Roman Catholics need to justify such a flip-flop of doctrine only in a court of law.
rug
(82,333 posts)Much better than internet opinions.
Now, had you read the factual article before unfolding your crib notes, you'd have realized that this article has nothing to do with moral authority and everything to do with expedient hypocrisy garbed in a legal brief.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)to the catholic church's incompetence to assume the moral authority to dictate to the entire world how to behave.
rug
(82,333 posts)
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Why people continue to support those evil bastards and defend the institution they control is baffling.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)As we've been told over and over....It's "complicated" Condescending crap from a master of it...
pokerfan
(27,677 posts)
Many have a need to belong to a group. Find a group with integrity, something the Vatican does not offer.
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)in the rest of daily life
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)about it being against the law? You DO know that's not the point being made, right?
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)the moral views of people at the hospital who hired the lawyers. But such inconsistency between arguments in a legal brief and the views of various persons on whose behalf the brief is submitted may actually be quite common, since lawyers are not hired to provide careful consistent explication of moral views but are rather hired to win lawsuits by providing arguments regarding the interpretation of existing law in particular cases
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)both as a hospital system, and in the insurance of their employees.
What this shows is that the moral views of CHI about embryos, fetuses and unimplanted fertilised eggs (not to mention unfertilised eggs and sperm) are not at all deeply held, otherwise they'd be instructing their lawyers not to follow this line of defense.
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)should prevail under existing law, and these lawyers will be regarded as having a professional obligation to do so
I expect the issue in this case is an alleged duty of the hospital to provide care in an emergent circumstance and a claim of damage resulting from failure to fulfill that duty, such damage including death of mother and children
Here it seems the lawyers argue the unborn children cannot be counted as persons under existing law
The "duty of care" question must be a different question from that. Probably very few people would think the hospital did not have a moral duty to provide care. Any actual legal duty may not completely coincide with the moral duty
It seems to me that posters here believe the Catholic moral teaching on respecting the lives of the unborn would imply an extra obligation to provide care in such cases. The teaching should, of course, provide additional incentive to provide care. But to take the view that the teaching carries with it an extra obligation to provide care would make no sense from a legal perspective: it would imply, for example, that a physician -- who believed that a person with profound developmental disorders was still entitled to be treated with the respect and dignity accorded everyone else and who for some reason failed to treat the patient -- was more culpable than another physician -- who believed that same person with profound developmental disorders was a subhuman deserving no respect and who similarly for some reason failed to treat that patient. No coherent body of law can result, if legal culpability increases as the abstract moral commitment of the putative caregiver increases
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)I'm saying that, since CHI are allowing their lawyers to go forward with a case which depends on saying that a fetus is just another aspect of the healthcare of the pregnant woman, this destroys their claim that they have a profound moral conviction that life begins at contraception (or even that contraception is such a sacred act that preventing it, even just with barrier methods, is a moral wrong).
rug
(82,333 posts)Without reading the briefs, but having read many, they may be asking the court to apply the law to these facts, without approving or disapproving the law.
Regardless, I'll bet you pennies to pounds you wont't find anything in there about a "a profound moral conviction". A courtroom is not a church and a brief is not a catechism.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)"A courtroom is not a church": yes, this is the point; this Catholic healthcare conglomerate cannot claim to have religious convictions that hold a fetus (or, therefore, embryo etc.) in special regard as a reason to have an exemption from a general law. They're just another employer, that has no qualms about their lawyers claiming, on their behalf, that fetuses are not persons, or deserving of any care outside the healthcare of the woman.
rug
(82,333 posts)But torts are not the equivalent of constitutional law.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)Your reply to me doesn't seem to make sense. There were several things in my post; can you say which one 'that' refers to? Are you saying you think "the current state of the law" is that CHI have shown they don't really regard fetuses etc. as having individual rights?
"torts are not the equivalent of constitutional law"
Fine, but I can't see how that's relevant to a consideration of the moral consistency of CHI.
rug
(82,333 posts)as a basis to waive the ACA requirements. In short, corporations don't practice a religion, people do. (This is, of course, in contrast to Citizens United which holds corporations have free speech rights under the First Amendment.)
That is the nub of the difference between this case, a corporation defending a tort action, and an individual pursuing a constitutional claim. This defendant has no morality to defend.
None of this excuses the humans who control these corporations from being called hypocrites.
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)negligence or lack of due diligence, which are different matters than hospital policy, unless you can actually show that the hospital policy discouraged the emergent treatment of the pregnant woman in this case. That the doctor failed to answer his page, and that the hospital failed to find a timely replacement when he did not answer, has no clear connection to any contraceptive policy the hospital might have. And if anyone were to try to introduce a discussion of this case into a case involving the hospital's contraceptive policy, the courts would (I think) promptly dismiss that discussion, upon the obvious and immediate objection of hospital lawyers that the tragic failure of the hospital to provide adequate treatment of this woman had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the hospital's contraceptive policy
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)or contraception. I have not tried to argue that their position in this case is untenable; I am saying that their position in the Catholic arguments of 'freedom to exercise their religious morals' in the argument against Obamacare. This shows their 'moral objection' to abortion is skin deep; if there's money involved, they don't want to regard the fetus as an individual.
rug
(82,333 posts)Here's an update.
"Catholic Bishops To Investigate Catholic Hospital Group That Argued In Lawsuit That Fetuses Are Not People "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/catholic-bishops-investigate-hospital-fetus_n_2546353.html
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)And CHI has claimed it excludes contraception for employees for Catholic reasons:
http://theiowarepublican.com/2012/governor-branstad-and-bishop-pates-protest-hhs-mandate-despite-similar-state-mandate-already-on-the-books/
And after the Supreme Court ruling on the ACA:
http://catholicreview.org/article/home/archbishop-lori-reacts-to-supreme-court-health-care-ruling
rug
(82,333 posts)A church is another thing altogether.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)It is also in conflict with the law to date on corporate religious rights as well as the law which its lawyers are arguing in this tort case.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Which is why you won't get a direct answer, unfortunately.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)DO you know what the point here is? (It's not on Google, BTW).
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)to portray them as hypocrites, which in this case you would do by a somewhat circuitous chain involving a contradiction you see between Catholic social teaching and the argument of lawyers defending a Catholic hospital from a lawsuit; this pleases you, because you imagine it undermines the claims of the Catholic church to possess a moral authority you do not believe it possesses
I am entirely unimpressed by this: first, because I already expect just about everyone to be sometimes guilty of hypocrisy, so shrieks of "hypocrisy!" will often elicit from me a shrugging tu quoque; second, because I have never been committed to the view that anyone possesses an inerrant moral authority, whether or not they sit in the Catholic church; third, because my impression is that the lawyers here are behaving professionally as lawyers, by arguing based on the existing laws, and I expect that lawyers arguments are often inconsistent with their clients' actual behaviors and/or stated views
If you were interested in genuine conversation, I think you would avoid silly putdowns (such as "Do you know what the point here is?"
; these suggest your actual motive is simply to establish your own superiority
trotsky
(49,533 posts)and here has a chance to "practice what it preaches" in the literal sense, but fails completely?
Yeah, I think I'm morally superior to the individuals responsible for those decisions. Is that wrong?
I'm sorry you don't like seeing religious hypocrisy exposed in its naked ugliness. Doesn't mean the rest of us can't talk about it - your passive-aggressive smears and attacks are just attempts to shut down discussion.
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)from prosecution, do feel free to provide actual evidence of that: otherwise, your comments will seem to be nothing but unwarranted smears
trotsky
(49,533 posts)I take that as you conceding the point. Thanks for trying.
Oh and on edit, I see that the RCC even acknowledges the severity of the hypocrisy: http://www.democraticunderground.com/121865365
Maybe you will now too? It's OK to admit you were wrong.
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)"Catholic." And on this basis, you have apparently concluded that you should mention pedophilia
Since I see no obvious connection between the hospital or the nonprofit running the hospital, I have suggested you should supply evidence of any connection you suspect
But you provide no evidence
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Feel free to ignore it, it would require you to admit error to acknowledge it.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)I expect the same line of questioning and treatment of that person you've been giving to others. Anything less would be rather telling.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)since you still don't seem to have a grasp of what's important here (unless you're just being deliberately obtuse).
Yes, it was a perfectly legitimate legal argument. And obviously, any competent lawyer would have told their clients what their options were, and what could be reasonably argued under the law in their defense. But at that point, the non-hypocritical course for the defendants would have been to say "Even if that's the law, we don't want to base our defense on that argument, because it goes against a fundamental principle of Catholic teaching and belief. We want you to take another tack, even if it means we might lose."
And yes, everyone is guilty of hypocrisy at some point. More stating of the obvious. But "everyone" doesn't try to influence the actions of lawmakers the world over, or to dictate the moral behavior or restrict the legal rights of billions of people with regard to the very principles that they are hypocritical about. The Catholic Church does. Which is why their hypocrisy particularly bears pointing to. If you're interested in a "genuine conversation", feel free to start there.
And btw...no one needs to "portray" the Catholic Church as hypocrites. They do a fine job all by themselves.
struggle4progress
(118,290 posts)than to people whom you do not consider hypocrites, then I cannot agree
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)and I implied nothing of the kind in my post, as you know perfectly well.
But since you seem incapable of addressing any of the substantive points I raised, thanks for playing. We'll have some nice parting gifts for you.
Iggo
(47,558 posts)Fucking hypocrites!
dimbear
(6,271 posts)
