In Newport Beach, a new ban on abortions means that Hoag Hospital's OB/GYN services are constrained not by medical resources, medical judgment or the law, but by Roman Catholic doctrine.
Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris has the legal authority to rule on any change… (Brian van der Brug, Los Angeles…)
In a most underhanded and insidious way, women's reproductive health rights in California were dealt a significant blow last month. That was when the availability of elective abortions at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, one of Orange County's elite medical centers, was abruptly ended.
The ban on abortions was imposed by Hoag administrators effective May 1, shortly after the hospital entered a corporate partnership with St. Joseph Health System, a Roman Catholic chain with five hospitals in Orange County. The administrators acknowledge that the change was made at least in part as a response to St. Joseph's "sensitivity" about abortion.
What's worse, doctors at Newport Beach-based Hoag say the administration lied to them about the partnership deal. They were assured from the outset there would be no changes in the services they provide to their female patients. But public documents suggest that the abortion ban was planned by Hoag and St. Joseph as long ago as last fall.
Even worse: The entire arrangement was blessed by Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, who has the legal authority to rule on any change like an abortion ban as a condition of her approving a major transaction involving California nonprofit medical institutions. She was aware that the merger partners were planning to end abortion services at Hoag. Unconscionably, she waved it through.
One more thing: The terms of her approval could allow Hoag to eliminate other reproductive services frowned on by Catholic healthcare doctrine when the state's oversight of the deal expires, 10 years from now.
Harris' approval of this deal may already be fraying at the edges. She is currently investigating unspecified allegations that Hoag has failed to meet the conditions she set on allowing the abortion ban. These include a requirement that Hoag "take steps to insure that alternative providers are available and accessible to all women, especially low-income women, for direct abortions" in Hoag's service area, which stretches from Seal Beach to Dana Point and inland to Rancho Santa Margarita. The AG is also looking into allegations that the hospitals misrepresented statistics they provided her to make the number of abortions at Hoag seem insignificant. Hoag says it is "cooperating and responding to any and all AG inquiries" in the matter.
The result of all this is that the services OB/GYNs provide their patients at Hoag, a Presbyterian hospital, will be constrained not by medical resources, their medical judgments or the law, but by Catholic doctrine.
A woman's right to choose an abortion is protected by the U.S. Constitution and guaranteed under California law. But that right has been eroded by state legislatures imposing restrictions on access, and by Catholic hospitals, which have a huge footprint in the American healthcare system.
Those faith-based hospitals receive billions of dollars in taxpayer support — reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid and legal status that allows them to operate tax free and their donors to take a tax deduction. But instead of providing the full range of reproductive services, they limit them in accordance with the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church. These include prohibitions or stringent limits on in vitro fertilization, abortion and many contraceptive practices.
The issue is important for all communities because Catholic hospitals now account for 15% of the nation's total hospital beds, serving 1 in 6 patients. Their reach is expanding, as they enter into management affiliations with non-Catholic hospitals and move to impose their doctrinal rules on their partners.
Occasionally a government authority will push back against the trend. In 2011, for example, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear vetoed a proposed merger of two Louisville hospitals with a Catholic network because of concerns that the combination would reduce the availability of reproductive services. Harris chose a different path.
That's the context for what has happened at Hoag.
The whole sorry story started Aug. 15, 2012, when Hoag and St. Joseph announced they were forming a partnership. Although Hoag and St. Joseph would be joined together as an entity called Covenant Health Network, the hospitals' announcement promised that "Hoag and St. Joseph Health will retain their individual identities and faith affiliations — Presbyterian and Catholic, respectively."
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