USA – Catholic Hospital Mergers Pose Growing Threat to Abortion Access

Center for American Progress
Sep 29, 2025

Washington, D.C. — By 2020, at least 1 in 6 U.S. hospital beds were located in Catholic hospitals. While consolidation has been increasing in American health care, Catholic health care providers are uniquely constrained by religious directives that restrict contraception access, abortion, gender-affirming care, fertility treatments, and other forms of lifesaving reproductive health care.

As the market share of Catholic hospital networks continues to grow, patients are left with fewer choices, charged higher prices, and forced to face greater challenges in accessing high-quality reproductive care. A new report from the Center for American Progress discusses this aspect of health care consolidation and recommends policies to slow consolidation, increase transparency, and protect patients’ access to care.

Continued: https://www.americanprogress.org/press/release-catholic-hospital-mergers-pose-growing-threat-to-abortion-access/

29.09.2025

Research

Barak Richman

belief-based care denial

Catholic directives

Catholic hospitals

Center for American Progress

Federal Trade Commission

A Miscarrying Woman Nearly Died After a Catholic Hospital Sent Her Home Three Times

A Miscarrying Woman Nearly Died After a Catholic Hospital Sent Her Home Three Times
Washington lawmakers have enacted some of the country’s most progressive policies to protect reproductive health care. But these measures have run up against the state’s high concentration of religious facilities.

Sep 25, 2019
Amy Littlefield

There’s a single hospital in Bellingham, a picturesque coastal city 20 miles from the Canadian border in Washington. So when a Bellingham mental health counselor named Alison started bleeding three months into her pregnancy in 2013, PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center was her only option.

Alison had first gone to her OB-GYN’s private practice, where her doctor, C. Shayne Mora, diagnosed her with a possible case of placenta previa, a serious condition where the placenta blocks the cervix. He told her to go to the hospital if she started bleeding again. When that happened the next day, Alison went to the St. Joseph emergency room. After an ultrasound showed the fetus was viable, the hospital discharged her. Providers recorded a clinical impression of “threatened abortion,” meaning Alison was at risk of miscarrying. They told her to return if she bled more heavily or ran a fever.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/09/25/miscarriage-catholic-hospital/

USA – For Doctors Who Want To Provide Abortions, Employment Contracts Often Tie Their Hands

For Doctors Who Want To Provide Abortions, Employment Contracts Often Tie Their Hands

November 26, 2018
Mara Gordon

Doctors who are opposed to abortions don't have to provide them. Since the 1970s, a series of federal rules have provided clinicians with "conscience protections" that help them keep their jobs if they don't want to perform or assist with the procedure.

Religious hospitals are also protected. Catholic health care systems, for example, are protected if they choose not to provide abortions or sterilizations. Doctors who work for religious hospitals usually sign contracts that they'll uphold religious values in their work.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/26/668347657/for-doctors-who-want-to-provide-abortions-employment-contracts-often-tie-their-h