A woman in her seventh month of pregnancy with twins died after a Catholic hospital’s ob-gyn failed to respond to a page. The husband and father of the twins is arguing in a lawsuit that even if the hospital couldn’t save his wife they should’ve saved the twins.
As sad as that all is, here’s where things get even uglier. In a piece that you just know The Huffington Post delighted to write, they report:
But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. 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.”
That’s really bad, right? What makes it worse is they’re winning. The Catholic Health attorneys have won in district and appellate court so far.
According to their website, “The mission of Catholic Health Initiatives is to nurture the healing ministry of the Church by bringing it new life, energy and viability in the 21st century. Fidelity to the Gospel urges us to emphasize human dignity and social justice as we move toward the creation of healthier communities.”
It’s easy to put it on the website. It’s a little harder to live it. I hope that CHI drops this line of argument. I guess being Catholic is great but not if it costs money.
January 24, 2013 at 5:08 pm
I don't know, I see it more as CHI forcing the State's hand. If they rule that the wrongful-death suit is justified, they've just acknowledged that the unborn are persons. If they rule that the suit is not justified, then everyone can see the horror in that position.
January 24, 2013 at 5:14 pm
I can see that from a legal standpoint this argument makes sense. the law does not extend personhood to the unborn. But this is JUST TERRIBLE for the pro-life side, not to mention for the church.
Even worse is that this hospital is in the Archdiocese of Denver, whose Archbishop wrote so movingly about witnessing an abortion in an article you've linked to below. I wonder what his take is on this and what his actions will be in light of this horrible defense tactic?
January 24, 2013 at 5:25 pm
I don't know. I hope I find and read the legal papers. It is perfectly possible to argue that the unborn are living humans deserving of legal protection, but that the law provides that the parents do not get money because of a negligently inflicted fatal injury.
January 24, 2013 at 5:53 pm
If the woman had lost an arm because of negligence and then died because of the negligence, would the hospital be responsible to give compensation to the husband for the lose of his wife? Were these children delivered or were they left in place in the mother's womb after their demise?
January 25, 2013 at 1:30 am
The hospital is obviously not catholic even if they claim to be.
January 25, 2013 at 2:05 pm
The problem is only partly the gross overpopulation of lawyers in the land. More than that, the heart of the problem is that to lawyers, right and wrong have for decades been contextual values, subject entirely to the case they want to make. Yes, it is terrible for the pro-life cause, and terrible for CHA (though we know their position is not with Rome, anyway), but it is also a terrible precedent in case law.
January 26, 2013 at 2:28 am
The unborn are persons created equal as “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” The newly begotten human being is created in sovereign personhood and endowed with unalienable rights to Life by God, and are our posterity. The unborn fetus is not a citizen as citizenship is all that the state can grant, that and a tax bill.
January 26, 2013 at 2:36 am
For the state laws to argue that the unborn fetus has no sovereign personhood would be to say that the state bestows and regulates sovereign personhood. which it does not. The state is a servant of the sovereign person. The state does not write the laws of nature and nature's God, but must obey them.