So out in Colorado, a few years ago a woman named Lori Stodghill died at hospital due to the failure of her doctor to respond to his page. At the time of her death Mrs. Stodghill was 7 months pregnant with twins, and her husband believes that although nothing could be for his wife, had the doctor arrived the twins would have been saved. So he sued the hospital on two counts of wrongful death.
The hospital of course correctly pointed out that under Colorado law "Person" applies only to those who were born alive, which the twin fetuses were not, and therefore the hospital can not be sued for the death of a non person (persons in this case).
Not surprisingly since they were legally correct, the hospital won. Normally that would be the end of the story, but not here.
See the hospital that was sued was St. Thomas More Hospital, which the name might tip you off to, is a catholic hospital run by the Catholic Health Initiatives, which runs 170 hospitals in 17 states.
And Catholics believe life begins at conception, and use that belief as their basis for opposing abortion/passing abortion restrictions and contraception laws, as well as the basis of all of their 50 plus cases against the Obamacare contraception mandate.
So getting "caught" basically making the defense that life does not start at conception is a bit embarrassing. Instead of "Life begins at conception" the argument becomes "life begins at conception unless that's really inconvenient for us"
Further complicating this is the fact that, although the Hospital won at the district and appeals court level, there is currently a State Supreme Court date set for this case. And once it got national attention the Bishops decided to "review" the case and found the defense "morally wrong" and say it should not have been used in a statement released this morning.
And that has put the Church into something that can best be described as a "no win" situation, best exemplified by the star trek concept of the "Kobayashi Maru scenario"
Basically in the Star Trek world the "Kobayashi Maru scenario" is a simulated computer test given to all prospective members of star fleet (basically the peaceful exploration navy for non nerds) in which the ship called the "Kobayashi Maru" goes down behind enemy lines, with many of its crew still alive. Any attempt to retrieve the ship will lead to war and the likely death of the retrieval team, however not attempting to retrieve the ship will cause the deaths of all aboard.
Basically its practicality vs morality, the first option (peace and personal survival) being practical but immoral (leaving people to die) and the second is moral (attempting to save people) but totally impractical (start a war, and likely die in the attempt anyways).
So their is no good answer/way out of the situation.
And thats exactly where the Catholic Church now is.
See by using the defense they did, that fetuses are not people under the law, the lawyers for the hospital took the totally practical approach. Which to be fair is their jobs.
When you want to plead "not guilty" a lawyers job is to find whatever defense he or she can to "make it so". Their one and only concern is the verdict, they arnt really supposed to be concerned with any outside issues.
Which of course opened the Church up to attack on hypocrisy grounds. But on the flip side what fool doesnt take every legal avenue open to him to not be found guilty?
I mean think about it, if the hospital drops their defense at the supreme court, not only do they loose this case, and however much money gets awarded to the husband, they set a standard that says its totally cool to sue any catholic for perceived violations of their religious teachings, even when those violations are not illegal, or just any situation where church teachings conflict with law, and the church will not actually defend itself, because they cant actually use their teachings in a court of law, so they will just not use available options and basically defaultly plead guilty/no contest to cases they could win.
How many lawsuits do you think the church would needlessly lose once everyone realized that and sued them on grounds where catholic teachings prevented them from defending themselves legally?
They would likely loose millions very very fast, increasing the costs of any catholic organization operation, possibly to the point of making it impossible for them to function.
But on the flipside, what the Bishops did was the totally moral thing to do (according to their beliefs) even if everything I laid out above is true, its a small price to pay for the moral high ground. This is the standard to which Catholics claim they should be held, and that is the price to pay for it.
But then again, those are some pretty bad consequences. What if the hospital just decides to ignore the Bishops ruling and push ahead with the "not a person" defense in the supreme court, because they would like to stay in business?
Well that would set a precedent against the idea that "life begins at conception" is actually a moral imperative of the church. Which likely means all the cases against Obama care, and Abortion, and any real restriction on the availability of contraception.
In fact the Catholics might lose what few exceptions from contraception and abortion coverage they already have....I mean they only got those exceptions by claiming "life begins at conception" was a deeply held moral belief, which clearly it wouldnt be if they ignore it when its to their benefit.
Now to be fair, their is a 3rd option for the Church, but its kinda the worst of both worlds. They can cut ties to the Hospital, declare it "non catholic" and stop funding it. The the hospital can continue with its legal defense, and it removes the moral issues from the Hospital, assuming they can survive without the Church support (which is doubtful in most cases).
But the problem for the Church is they would be sending a message to every other hospital to go with option 1 (dont take a valid legal defense) or loose all your funding and support and possibly go out of business. Not to mention when this happens again (and it will if any hospital has good lawyers, since this likely isnt the first time its happened) the Church still get hit with yet another hypocrisy charge every time it happens, even if they keep cutting ties. Which would mean they would be getting sued and eventually losing the argument on their religious exception.
But yea, there you have it, a real world, 21st century "Kobayashi Maru". And unlike in Star Trek where Captain Kirk hacked into the program and changed the laws of the programs reality so that he could "win" and find a moral and practical solution, I don't think the Church can count on a Deus Ex Machina anytime soon.
Which means they have to choose: possibly get sued out of existence, or risk all contraception related legal exemptions, or both.
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