Religious freedom was upheld yesterday in a federal court when justices threw out a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) aimed at forcing a Catholic hospital system to commit abortions regardless of their religious objections.
According to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a non-profit legal organization that defends religious freedom, their attorneys assisted in the defense of Trinity Health Corporation. One of the largest Catholic health care systems in the country, Trinity operates 86 facilities in 21 states.
In October of 2015, the ACLU announced that it was suing Trinity Health Corporation “for its repeated and systematic failure to provide women suffering pregnancy complications with appropriate emergency abortions as required by federal law.”
The complaint cited the hospitals adherence to the Ethical and Religious Directives promulgated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which prohibits doctors working at Catholic hospitals from terminating a woman’s pregnancy.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, said in its dismissal order that the ACLU’s claims of harm from the hospital’s pro-life positions is “dubious” and said they failed to satisfy the legal requirements to demonstrate such harm and therefore bring a lawsuit.
The court additionally found that, for those reasons and others, the lawsuit is not “ripe for review,” meaning that nothing has happened to warrant court action:
“Obviously, pregnancy alone is not a ‘particular condition’ that requires the termination of said pregnancy,” the dismissal states. “To find the claim to be ripe for review on the facts pleaded before this Court would be to grant a cause of action to every pregnant woman in the state of Michigan upon the date of conception. Accordingly, the alleged harm has not risen beyond a speculative nature and is not ripe for review.”
ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot praised the decision.
“No American should be forced to commit an abortion—least of all faith-based medical workers who went into the profession to follow their faith and save lives, not take them,” Theriot said.
“No law requires religious hospitals and medical personnel to commit abortions against their faith and conscience, and, in fact, federal law directly prohibits the government from engaging in any such coercion. As we argued in our brief to the court, the ACLU had no standing to bring this suit and demand this kind of government coercion.”
This isn’t the first time the ACLU tried to bully faith-based health providers into providing abortions and other services that violate Christian beliefs. They lost a similar case three years ago while representing Tamesha Means, a Michigan woman who suffered a miscarriage in 2010. Means sued the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the hospital for not performing an abortion.
In that case, Judge Robert Holmes Bell also dismissed the case, saying that it is improper for courts to interfere in religious doctrinal decisions, which Bell concluded was behind the pro-life directives followed by the hospital. He believed consideration of the woman’s claim would “impermissibly intrude upon ecclesiastical matters.”
Means was given permission to sue the doctors or hospital for malpractice, but not to sue a religious organization or officials for their religious doctrine.
“It is not up to the Court to mandate the larger structural and policy reform to Catholic hospitals that Plaintiff seeks; that issue is left to the Church and its tribunals,” Bell wrote at the time.
The ACLU decided to try again, which has resulted in yet another embarrassing loss.
“Those who doubt that anyone would ever try to force someone to commit an abortion need only look at this case,” explained ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman. “This is precisely what the ACLU sought to do. The court came to the right conclusion in putting an end to their quest.”
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