UNITED STATES
Vatican Insider
The shocking case involving a Catholic hospital in Cañon City has occurred just as the annual March for Life is taking place
Alessandro Speciale
Rome
Just as anti-abortion activists celebrate the annual March for Life in Washington, the American Catholic Church finds itself in a rather embarassing situation: a Catholic hospital in Colorado defended itself against a wrongful death lawsuit, stating that a foetus is not the same as a person.
This stance is in direct contrast with the position of the Church which has fought for years for the rights of unborn children and the rights of the hospital in question which in its statute states that the sanctity of life should be defended from conception until natural death.
In court, however, the lawyers representing Catholic Health Initiatives – the chain of hospitals which St. Thomas More in Cañon City is part of – claimed the opposite. A woman who was pregnant with twins died in St. Thomas More hospital on New year’s Eve in 2006, partly because according to her husband, the on-call obstetrician who was supposed to assist in the operating room did not turn up.
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