FPA in the News: 2006

The Democrat and Chronicle

"Reproductive Care a Worry Under State Hospital Plan"

By: Cara Matthews

12.8.06

A state proposal to merge several Catholic and nonreligious hospitals has women's groups concerned that reproductive services could be sacrificed or become more difficult to access.

The New York state Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st century recently recommended the closure of nine hospitals around the state and mergers involving nearly four dozen others. The potential mergers include several instances of joining Catholic and nonsectarian hospitals in Elmira, Niagara Falls, Schenectady and Kingston, Ulster County.

The Catholic Church opposes procedures such as abortion and sterilization, as well as infertility services and contraception, which could make agreements to join ranks tricky.

St. Joseph's Hospital in Elmira, facing a forced affiliation with Arnot-Ogden Medical Center, announced Thursday it would sue to block the plan.

The state Legislature must vote to reject the plan by Dec. 31 or else it becomes law.

The commission did not outline how reproductive health care should be preserved. In Kingston, where the commission proposes the hospitals form a single governing structure, reproductive services could be provided at a location "proximate" to Kingston Hospital. That merger could serve as a model for combining sectarian and nonsectarian institutions, according to the report.

There has never been a union between a religious and nonreligious hospital that hasn't resulted in a loss of reproductive services, said JoAnn Smith, head of Family Planning Advocates, which supports abortion rights.

"The state should not offer its imprimatur to the concept that some health care services must be removed from community hospitals because of religious dictates," Smith told senators during a hearing on the report last week.

A 2005 report by Catholics for a Free Choice, a national group that monitors Catholic health care, said a previous study by its organization found that some or all reproductive services are eliminated in about half of mergers between Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals.

Some hospitals preserve services forbidden by the church by creating a hospital within a hospital, which has a separate board of directors and operates independently, according to the group.