New Threats to Women's Health Care

In this editorial, the author makes a fact claim that the merging of Catholic and secular hospitals puts women's health care, regarding abortions, contraception, and sterilization, at risk; the author continues to make a policy claim that the state should regulate these mergers to protect women's access to health care. These women's issues arise because the Catholic hospital can exert its power and force the secular hospital to adopt its practices such as refusing the previously mentioned women's health care.

The author recognizes that, sometimes, out of economic necessity, a secular hospital needs to partner with a Catholic hospital. But he illustrates the gap between what services Catholic hospitals provide and what the state should be obligated to provide to its citizens. Catholic hospitals have a right to refuse certain kinds of care, but with a decrease in secular hospitals, the state needs to further ensure that women have access to their health care needs.