Separation of Church and Health

[Alex Bragi]

I want to preface this post by saying I have absolutely nothing against Catholics per se. Many of my friends are Catholics, and many of them share my views on this topic. My gripe is with the out of date, out of touch Catholic Church.

It’s an odd juxtaposition that the Catholic Church has always been obsessed with sexuality, yet its hospitals are equally obsessed with suppressing sexual health care.

I'm talking about the masses (no pun intended) of public supported medical facilities run by the male dominated Catholic Church, where the staff are forbidden from providing certain health care and medical information. If a rape victim comes crawling through their doors, doctors are forbidden from mentioning the existence of emergency contraception, much less prescribing the medication. If a pre-marriage physical reveals that someone has herpes or AIDS, nurses are forbidden to discuss how he or she can use condoms to protect their new spouse from the disease. Contraceptives are, of course, completely out of the question as are reproductive services i.e. in vitro.

Recently California's Seton Medical Center refused a transsexual breast enlargement surgery. But don’t take my word for it, take the words of the surgical coordinator for the hospital instead, who told her, “God made you a man”. Using this logic shouldn't the hospital also refuse to perform simple cornea replacement surgery because "God made you blind" ? Or refuse to correct any of so many non-life threatening medical issues that in today's modern world we just simply shouldn't have to bear.

Does God make men rape women? Does God make people victims of herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases? Does God put a woman in a man's body?

If you have the facilities and the know-how, yet you refuse to treat those in need, is it perhaps because God made you a self-righteous bigot?

I suppose you could argue that if the Catholic Church chooses to take this stance then it’s their business and nobody else’s. But that's the thing, it quite simply is just that--a business. It's the business of medical facilities that here in Australia and in the States, our governments are more than willing to allow to be taken over by the Catholic Church in order to ease the burden of our ever burgeoning health care systems. The problem is that this million dollar corporation is limiting the health care options of the communities it's supposed to be serving.

It's like an electricity company saying, "Sure we'll supply power to the city. Oh, but not those blacks . God made them to live in the jungle. If they want electricity they're going to have to go some where else ".

If the Catholic Church wants the privilege and status of operating public institutions, shouldn't it be required to serve the public -- regardless of race, gender, and medical needs?

I ask you, are these people praying to God or just simply playing at being God?

[Lion]

IMO, playing at being God.

Unfortunately, most religious leaders are men who can not fathom what it entails to live a life of a female. And I mean that for most religions out there, not only Catholism

[denuseri]

well here in america its standard practice Alex, we have one of the last free market medical systems in the world, any private practice can manipulate patients beliefs with thier viewpoints to a point, thier are certian state requirmemnts and standards accross the board, but when a hospital is majority funded by a charity group like a church (and i worked in both a totally governement and a "church hospital" at different times as a nurse) its very difficult to leagally force compliance to individual wishes of the general public

add in our nasty medical insurance companies to the mix, and what is standard health care in some places is a circus of ellective procedures in another, fortunately one single type of hospital system doesnt dominate our system in that regaurd and what one doctors has to not treat, or do, another doctor has a practice just for it. ...at a hefty price of course

[Midnite]

At least in the United States I respect the Catholic healthcare system for what they do, they'll stand by morals and believes, and at the same time when they provide you with treatment is not required by them to be a Catholic to receive free health care, Mercy Hospital, a Catholic hospital and Aurora, Illinois provided me with almost $400,000 worth of medical care, and they have not hassled me about paying the bill, I had no insurance, and they gave me the treatment that I needed, no strings or questions attached.At least here in the United States you have other choices on where to receive treatment that the Catholic hospital will not provide