Catholic Institutions & Obstetric Emergencies: Using Bioethics to Guide Legal Solutions to Providing Appropriate Access to Care

Abstract

I argue here that it is possible to protect patients’ health while simultaneously guarding against forcing unwilling institutions or providers to provide treatments to which they object performing or furnishing personally. At the same time, basic and universally agreed upon best practices should not be subject to debate or dicta by individuals such as bishops, who nearly always have no experience in clinical settings. Approaching the issue from purely the perspective of legal rights has resulted in something of an impasse, and women continue to suffer adverse health outcomes as a result, ranging from infections to infertility to death. It is imperative to reframe the conversation as one that immediately invokes questions about informed consent and compromised clinical decision making. Doing so moves us toward a more productive discussion about reconciling rights of conscience with care providers’ professional duties to their patients, willingly undertaken by entering licensed professional practice.