Catholic hospital kills lawsuit by arguing fetus is not a person

I really hope we can keep this non-political, because I think this is huge news.

http://gawker.com/5978597/catholic-hospital-chain-kills-wrongful-death-lawsuit-by-arguing-that-a-fetus-is-not-a-person

 

Was the fetus named Lannay?

 

And it's been settled federal law for 40 years. That hasn't stopped the arguments.

 

But it is political.

It's also moral, religious, and an opportunity for people to point at others and say "I am better than YOU!!!"

Don't have a beef with the Catholics or the hospital here. They believe what they believe, and they'll sell it in an attempt to get the suit dismissed. Many religions hold beliefs reasonable people might now consider archaic, and it's pretty common for people to go to any lengths necessary to win a court case.

Do have a big problem with the courts who listened to that argument.

 

I hope no one here does that.

 

I think the point is the government infringing on the beliefs of the Catholic Church. I cannot understand how this is defensible. They believe what they believe, and are willing to close their hospitals instead of performing procedures they, in their faith, feel will cause them to go to Hell. Why are people not seeing this side of it?

 

Ha, everyone does.

Either you're better than the hospital, better than the Catholics, better then the court, or better than the people who think life begins at conception.

 

Huh?

 

As much as I might disagree with the Church, this really isn't a surprise. The Church, like any other person or entity, can make whatever argument there is under state law to get the case dismissed against them, no matter how hypocritical it seems.

 

Moving past the irony of the argument the hospital's lawyer made, this sounds like someone in that hospital messed up. Just reading the story (and of course assume the series of events as told are true), the doctor and the hospital don'tcome off looking too good. Just calling the father and not actually seeing the patient is pretty bad. Then the ER docs thought they could save the mom and didn't want to deliver the kids early or they figured the kids wouldn't surviveaanyway. I think in either case that needed to be told to the dad (assuming it wasn't). It sounds like very bad communication that led to bad decisions or they never explained to the dad just how bad the situation was.

 

In all honesty, in a medical sense, as a Catholic institution you'd think they would have done all they could to save the babies. But also in a medical sense the doctors on site, who likely aren't Catholic, didn't detect heart tones, which meant the babies weren't alive, and thus decided they couldn't do anything more. Should they have tried more things or waited longer? Sure. But we also don't know what happened at the scene. They likely spent so much time trying to save the mother that the babies suffered as a result. Of course they can't live if the mom doesn't. Should the on-call OB, who really was the true expert in this situation, busted his ass to get there? Hell yes. That is a big mistake on his part.

As for using this law to get the case dismissed obviously they are doing everything they can to not have to pay anything and it is a business more than a Catholic institution, in all honesty. But it is surprising that they pulled that card. I would think if it is well documented the babies didn't have heart tones the dad doesn't have much of a case, but hospitals don't like going to court and they obviously didn't want to settle so there you go.

 

And how did that argument fare with people who disagreed with him?