Owning Hospitals is the Catholic War on Women
Having a Catholic name on a hospital projects "care" and compassion. In reality, it is exactly the opposite.
Right up front is the effort to avoid property taxes. Churches are not required to pay them. If a church owns a regular business, like a hospital, it can try to avoid paying for the services provide it by secular taxpayers.
The nasty part of church owned or operated hospitals is care for women. If you go to a Catholic hospital emergency room with an problem related to pregnancy the service you get may be determined by a Bishop instead of a doctor. A doctor's goal is goal taking care of patients. A Bishop's goal is taking care of Bishops.
I have provided details of news stories in the past where women were admitted to a Catholic hospital and not told upfront some services related to reproduction were not allowed. The patients were led to believe various options were available but in reality were not.
It's hard for me to envision the experience of being a black person before the 1950's and being a woman today. That my own personal health or life would be determined by someone else's religious beliefs is so like the Middle Ages is hard to comprehend.
There are already many complications each of us has to consider when making plans. We have to find locations to live where there are career opportunities. If we have a spouse of children their well being has to be calculated into the mix. As important as all of these are, there is also the research one has to do to learn which health care facilities withhold services based on outdated religious beliefs.
Sanford is a non-profit so they don't pay property taxes. Your first argument is blown out of the water and shows your religious bigotry.
ReplyDeleteWhile you were mayor, Fargo had St. Luke's Hospital, St. John's Hospital and probably St. Ansgaar's hospital in Moorhead. All 3 were owned by their respective dioceses, unless I am mistaken.
By your own definition, no care or compassion were provided to the patients. The idea is idiotic and insane on the face of it. No one believes you when you say the doctors and nurses provided no care or compassion the decades these hospitals served the people of the Red River Valley.
As for the "nasty" part being the care for women, there really is no need for a defense of the hospitals. They provided healthcare according to what was proscribed by the Catholic faith and were under no obligation to accept the care of the hospital. Since there were no non-Catholic hospitals, they could move to Minneapolis-St. Paul where a secular hospital was in operation, accept the care offered by St. Luke's, drive to get the abortion or contraception they wanted or just give birth and not get the Pill.
So, without the Catholic hospitals, there was no health care in Fargo other than the veterinary clinic. Tell me again how cruel it would be to seek care at a Catholic hospital.
Fast forward to today when Sanford, Essentia and private practices offer no abortion "services" (murders for cash). You have to find your way to the sub-standard, dirty facility on 1st Avenue South in downtown Fargo; the only abortion killing center in North Dakota.
Have a nice day.
Matt--You are correct that Sanford alludes, deep in its corporate governance statements to "God." There is even reference to a Sanford named branch of the Lutheran faith. There is no reference, however, to operating according to tenets of the Lutheran faith.
DeleteWhen I was Mayor there was a big movement across the U.S. for groups who claimed religious affiliation to buy private hospitals. I recall two men from Texas came be once to talk about building a privately owned hospital. They talked about the difficulty of competing with non tax paying religious groups and they never returned. I'm sure some hospitals pay something in lieu of property tax. In some states hospitals are expected to serve indigent patients in exchange for not paying for tax payer services.
Your claim that there would be no hospitals on F-M were it not for Catholics and Lutherans is ridiculous. A better way of stating reality is that without socialized medicine there would be no Catholic or Lutheran hospitals. The tax break is government medicine. Our political system allows these hospitals to have two opposing political views at the same time. One is to oppose government medicine. The other is to use government money.
The facts are simple. First, tax breaks allow Catholics to spread their brand of religion which includes harming women. Second, hospitals, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist and Methodist operate as for profit institutions. The only exception to this is that Catholic hospitals allow local Bishops to, at times, interfere with medical decisions. Perhaps some other denominations do as well--I don't know of any.
The facts are simple. yes, indeed. Jon, as we all know is a militant secularist who would do anything within his power (fortunately something that he currently does not have much of) to banish religion from public life. more specifically , he is militantly pro-abortion and passionately on board with Nietzsche's transvaluation (sp?) of values. which is to say, turning something once viewed by most as an evil into positive good, a universal, no exceptions, human "right". thus abortion becomes a harmless medical procedure, an amoral act which cannot, logically, be forbidden or discouraged. from that, of course, comes the notion that Catholic hospitals, because they, with some grave exceptions, are said to be anti-woman. and, of course, in the eyes of folks like Jon, should not exist: should be nationalized. that, tragically is the bottom line in this discussion. it seems, also, that Jon and those who think as he does, fail to see that hospitals are a Christian invention that have provided care to many human generations. now because of their resistance to abortion (and, yes, euthanasia and utilitarian health care as well) are now condemned. more Nietzsche, I suppose.
DeleteMatt publishing as Unknown "..something once viewed by most as evil into a positive good..."
DeleteYou often criticize me for not providing a source but you constantly do what you criticize me for doing. I have never seen verification abortion was once viewed negatively "by most." My parents were active church members and viewed abortion as something that should be available. My wife lived two hundred miles from me at the time and her parents were exactly like mine. The religious magazine, "Christianity Today" went to most Protestant homes and endorsed the availability of abortion. Anti abortion in the 50' and 60's was a Catholic thing so far as I can tell. Since Roe there have been dozens of elections and many members of the Supreme Court, abortion is still available. So much for "viewed by most as an evil."
Catholics use the property tax exemption as a tool for promoting their anti abortion agenda through their hospitals. Sanford took on the abortion clinic in Fargo as an emergency room client, the Catholic hospital did not. Abortion is legal, Sanford treats it as it does all other legal medical procedures.
You were correct about one thing you wrote, I believe abortion is a human right.
Sorry old fellow. In the world in which I grew up most people thought that abortion was "evil," somthing simply not done. sure there were exceptions and, no doubt, there were underground abortion facilities. remember, Mdm. Rendell (sp?)in New York. made a real monetary haul frm her abortion business. and was roundly condemned by the press and public opinion at the time. remember also that even Planned Parenthood was at one time "pro-life" . and why did so many states pass anti-abortion laws in the 1870s and 80s. don't know about CT: never read the thing. Interestingly if "Protestants" , like the Stoics and others, thought that human life began with first breathe, they should have known that the first breathe comes when the placenta is connected. 'fraid that your attempt to shape the historical record to agree with your ideology is a dog that don't hunt. moreover you should know that a large majority of folks are pro-abortion in the sense that they approve of abortion in limited circumstances. as far as I know, not many approve of your abortion for any reason up to birth.
DeleteUnknown "not many approve of your abortion for any reason up to birth."
DeleteYou are assigning to me a position I have never taken. My position is that women along with their doctors can best decide what to do about a pregnancy.
The fatal flaw in your position is that the rights of a pregnant woman are never, ever, spelled out. Instead, there is an assumption the life of the fetus is worth far more than the life of the mother. Until the rights of the pregnant woman are spelled out with certainty there will be no abortion ban.
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ReplyDeleteFor the entire time St. Luke's, St. John's and St. Ansgaar's were in operation in the FM area, they were a magnet for healthcare for over 100 miles in the Red River Valley. They did so much good in saving life, preserving health and increasing lifespan that no other healthcare company even considered opening a competing facility.
ReplyDeleteWomen, men, and children were all treated with respect, kindness and compassion.
Up until Roe v. Wade was falsely decided in 1973, there were no abortions performed in Fargo, anywhere. After Roe v. Wade, no self-respecting hospital or local doctor committed any abortions in the FM area. That stands to this day in 2020; 47 years later. Abortionists have to be flown in and commit their gruesome acts at a makeshift, storefront building on First Avenue North next to an alley and a burger joint.
Those are the facts. They are not in dispute.
Matt--"Until Roe v Wade was falsely decided..there were no abortions performed in Fargo, anywhere....These are the facts. They are not in dispute."
ReplyDeleteI dispute them. Abortions were performed almost everywhere. That is what people who have studied this have found. What I learned from my friend and your father's friend, Roy Pedersen, was that abortions where performed regularly in Fargo. Roy literally grew up on the streets of Fargo. His widowed mother lived in apartments on Broadway. He died last year at 99 years. He told me that as a teenager, girlfriends of his friends sometimes got pregnant. He assumed other married women had unwanted pregnancies like they do today.
He said everyone in his circle knew which doctors would "fix" a pregnancy. In those days, of course, doctors usually had practices in an office beside their house or above a downtown business. It was all cash with no records leaking around town.
So you are welcomed to continue your chest beating about how abortion only appeared after Roe and after the clinic opened in Fargo. You can continue even though you don't know much about it.
I know two retired women still living in Fargo who had abortions when married and younger. By then highways and road were better and they drove to small cities in Minnesota. I read a letter to the editor in the Spectrum by a female student who went to Rapid City for an abortion before Roe.
Matt: is this post correct. offhand, I would guess that it is. humans will always do horrible things. that, obviously does not justify those deeds.
DeleteSo, Roy Pederson told you that as a teenager, Roy said that girlfriends of his friends sometimes got pregnant. He assumed ...
DeleteYour statements make little to no sense.
First, the only doctors who would "fix" a pregnancy would be OB/GYNs. That rules out lots of doctors. Second, that same doctor would have to perform surgery in his house or business office, not a hospital. That involves instrumentation, drugs, etc. Of course, he would be risking his lucrative OB/GYN livelihood to do this criminal act. One complication, one word from the girl or woman would do him in.
You are asking all of us to take on faith from you something that is wildly more imaginative than the live, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Even more to the point, these pregnant adolescents would have to somehow know which doctors to go to for the "fix". This would be the worst kept secret in town.
No, you can't produce one shred of evidence to a wild fable.
Abortion went on before Roe v. Wade but not out in the open by respectable physicians.
You may also recall Dr. David Perry, a local OB/GYN who died in a car crash. He was extremely tied in to the local practices and would have sounded the alarm if something like this was going on.
You might start by naming one person who performed abortions in Fargo. You can follow that up with proof. If a 16-year-old girl at Fargo Central could find him, then certainly a college professor and mayor should have no problem giving us all his name.
Are you up for the challenge? Or is this just another of your lunatic tales from the dark (left) side?
(1.) I wrote that Roy Pederson died last year (or maybe in 2019) at the age of 99. This would have been about 1920. He would have been a child on the streets in the early 1930's and a teen by the mid 1930's. Dr Perry's time was decades later.
Delete(2.) A doctor need not be a OB/GYN to perform abortion. General practice doctors can do them. https://www.bing.com/search?q=doctors+who+perform+abortion&form=EDGSPH&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&msnews=1&plvar=0&refig=2ccc305b24b74a5bbb8e575d451062e8&sp=1&qs=AS&pq=doctors+who+perform+ab&sk=PRES1&sc=5-22&cvid=2ccc305b24b74a5bbb8e575d451062e8&cc=US&setlang=en-US
Roy Pederson would have been born about 1920.
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