May, 05 2016, 10:45am EDT
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New Report Reveals 1 in 6 U.S. Hospital Beds Are in Catholic Facilities That Prohibit Essential Health Care for Women
Women Who Have Been Denied Medically Necessary Health Care at Catholic Hospitals Speak Out
NEW YORK
The American Civil Liberties Union and MergerWatch today released reports that reveal that one in six hospital beds in the United States is in a facility that complies with Catholic Directives that prohibit a range of reproductive health care services even when a woman's life or health is in jeopardy. In some states, more than 40 percent of all hospital beds are in a Catholic facility, leaving entire regions without any option for certain reproductive health care. The ACLU's report shares firsthand accounts from patients who have been denied appropriate care at Catholic hospitals, from health care providers forbidden from providing critical care because of the Directives, and from physicians at secular hospitals who have treated very sick women after they were turned away from a Catholic facility.
"When a pregnant woman seeks medical care at a hospital, she should be able to trust that decisions about her treatment will be based on medicine, not religious policies," said ACLU Deputy Legal Director Louise Melling. "Distressingly, in an increasing number of hospitals across this country, that is not the reality. We all have a right to our religious beliefs--but that does not include the right to impose those beliefs on others, particularly when that means closing the door on patients seeking medical care. "
The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, promulgated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, set forth standards that are to govern at Catholic health care facilities. The Directives prohibit a range of reproductive health services, including contraception, sterilization, many infertility treatments, and abortion, even when a woman's life or health is jeopardized by a pregnancy. Because of these rules, many Catholic hospitals across the country are withholding emergency care from patients who are in the midst of a miscarriage or experiencing other pregnancy complications. Catholic hospitals also routinely prohibit doctors from performing tubal ligations (commonly known as "getting your tubes tied") at the time of delivery, when the procedure is safest, leaving patients to undergo an additional surgery elsewhere after recovering from childbirth. Catholic hospitals deny these essential health services despite receiving billions in taxpayer dollars. Transgender and gender-non-conforming patients suffer the same and other similar harms when seeking reproductive health care.
"A Catholic hospital denied me necessary care in the midst of the worst medical emergency my family and I have ever experienced," said Jennafer Norris, a woman who was denied a tubal ligation at a Catholic hospital in Arkansas at the time she delivered her baby, even though she had experienced serious complications and another pregnancy would be life-threatening. "My family and I should have been reassured that the hospital would do everything it could to protect my health and safety. But instead, they prohibited my doctor from providing the care I desperately needed. I don't want other women to have to go through what I did."
Top Report Findings:
Looking to new data from MergerWatch, the ACLU report finds:
- One in six hospital beds in the United States is in a Catholic hospital
- A total of 548 hospitals, or 14.5 percent of all short-term acute care hospitals in the U.S., comply with the Directives, because they are owned by a Catholic health system or diocese, affiliated with a Catholic hospital or system through a business partnership, or are historically Catholic hospitals that continue to follow the Directives despite now being owned by a secular non-profit or for-profit health care system. This reflects an increase of 22 percent since 2001
- In some places, such as Washington State, more than 40 percent of all hospital beds are in a Catholic hospital, and entire regions have no other option for hospital care
- In 10 states, more than 30 percent of all hospital beds are in Catholic facilities, and in nearly half the states, more than one in five hospital beds is in a Catholic facility
"The sickest patient I've ever treated came to me after a Catholic hospital denied her the most appropriate care because the procedure was prohibited by its religious policies," said Dr. David Eisenberg, M.D., M.P.H., at the Washington University School of Medicine. "As medical professionals, we have a responsibility to follow medical standards of care and do what's best for our patients--period. It is unconscionable that some hospitals will deny a patient life-saving care because of their religious affiliation."
Report Recommendations:
- A statement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) clarifying that all hospitals, regardless of religious affiliation, are required by federal law to provide emergency reproductive health care;
- A systematic investigation by CMS into violations by Catholic hospitals of federal laws requiring emergency care, and a commitment to taking all necessary corrective action where violations are found;
- Most importantly, a change in public policies, to protect women in need of reproductive health services and the practitioners who are prohibited from providing this essential care.
The ACLU and MergerWatch are at the forefront of the fight to ensure that hospitals cannot deny essential health care to women because of their religious affiliations. For instance, the ACLU has filed lawsuits against hospital system giants, including Trinity Health in Michigan and Dignity Health in California, for violating federal law requiring the provision of emergency health care and for discriminating against women; against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for imposing the Directives on Catholic hospitals; and against the U.S. government for allowing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to deny reproductive health care access to survivors of human trafficking.
For the full ACLU report that features testimony from medical experts and personal stories from women who were denied care at Catholic hospitals, please visit: https://www.aclu.org/healthcaredenied
For the full MergerWatch report, please visit: https://www.mergerwatch.org/
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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House Dems Unveil Sweeping Bill to Protect Worker Rights and Safety
"This bill will help level the playing field and, once again, restore the balance of power between workers and their employers," said Rep. Bobby Scott.
Jul 26, 2024
A group of Democratic U.S. House members on Friday unveiled legislation "aimed at bolstering protections for America's workers and ensuring accountability for employers who flout labor and employment laws."
The Labor Enforcement to Securely (LET'S) Protect Workers Act was introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.)—the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce—and House Labor Caucus Co-Chairs Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), and Steven Horsford (D-Nev.).
The bill's sponsors said their legislation is based on the premise that "employment laws are a promise to our nation's workers" meant to "secure the most basic rights of work."
"That promise is broken," they contended. "Recent shocking revelations about massive increases in the number of children illegally overworked and trafficked into dangerous jobs—just over 85 years since the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was enacted to eliminate that very problem—is the latest example of the ways that this promise to America's workers is broken."
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The LET'S Protect Workers Act sponsors highlighted rampant wage theft and overtime violations, workplace injuries, and union-busting by employers who "know that even if a resource-starved Department of Labor catches a violation, the penalties are a mere slap on the wrist."
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According to House Education and Workforce Committee Democrats, if passed, the LET'S Protect Workers Act would:
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- Improve mine safety and reliable funding of black lung benefits through new and increased civil monetary penalties and the option to shut down scofflaw operators;
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"Every American should be fairly compensated and be able to return home safely at the end of the day," Scott said in a statement Friday. "Unfortunately, shortcomings in our labor laws enable unethical employers to exploit workers, endanger children, and suppress the right to organize—with little accountability."
"That's why I'm proud to introduce the LET'S Protect Workers Act, which will hold bad actors accountable and strengthen penalties for labor law violations," he added. "This bill will help level the playing field and, once again, restore the balance of power between workers and their employers."
In a joint statement, Dingell, Horsford, Norcross, and Pocan said that "the lack of meaningful enforcement makes it all too easy for bad faith actors to get away with illegally violating workers' rights—from firing workers for organizing a union, to allowing children to work overnight shifts, or jeopardizing workers' safety by ignoring workplace regulations."
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Earlier this month, nearly 50 labor organizations led by the AFL-CIO and representing a wide range of U.S. workers urged congressional Democrats to resist Republican efforts to roll back rules enacted by the Biden administration to protect worker rights amid relentless attacks by abusive employers.
Specifically, the labor groups warned that Republicans are trying to use the Congressional Review Act—which was enacted to strengthen oversight of federal rulemaking—to overturn pro-worker rules enacted by the Department of Labor and other government bodies.
Meanwhile, Republicans including former President Donald Trump—the 2024 GOP nominee—have been trying to woo U.S. workers with proposals including a tax exemption for tipped employees panned as a "
hollow promise" by experts and by inviting Teamsters president Sean O'Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention last week.
In response to Republicans' dubious courting of U.S. labor, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas)—who is a co-sponsor of the LET'S Protect Workers Act—recently called for holding what would be a largely symbolic vote on the PRO Act. The bill was revived last year by Scott and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and, if passed, would expand labor protections including the right to organize and collectively bargain.
"If Republicans wanna talk like they're pro-worker, then let's have a vote on the PRO Act next week," Casar
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Amnesty International on Friday demanded a "prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial investigation" into the use of antipersonnel landmines, "which litter territories in Ukraine formerly and currently occupied by Russian forces."
The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor says that Ukraine is "severely contaminated" with antipersonnel landmines, which Russia's troops have used since 2014, but particularly since Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
"Landmines have been documented in 11 of Ukraine's 27 regions: Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia," according to the monitor's latest update, published in November. "Russian forces have used at least 13 types of antipersonnel mines in Ukraine since February 2022."
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Patrick Thompson, a Ukraine researcher at Amnesty, said Friday that "in every region in Ukraine that was formerly occupied by Russia, we have seen evidence of civilians killed and injured by antipersonnel mines left behind by Russian forces."
"They are a daily, deadly threat to civilians. Some have been deliberately placed in civilian homes where they maim and kill," Thompson highlighted. "There must be an effective investigation into all such incidents as possible war crimes."
The group shared just one survivor's story of encountering a mine:
In March 2022, Russian forces evicted Oleksandr* (not his real name) and his mother from their flat in Snihurivka, in the region of Mykolaiv. A Russian military unit took over the entire apartment block until it was forced to withdraw following fierce fighting around Snihurivka in November 2022.
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Thompson called on the international community to "commit to sustained financial and technical assistance to help Ukraine get rid of a danger that continues to wreck lives and livelihoods," and to continue fighting for an end to the use of the weapons.
"Countries must uphold the ban on the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of antipersonnel mines worldwide," he said. "There must be an end to the use of such indiscriminate weapons."
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Despite pushback from the United States delegation, finance ministers at a meeting of the G20 countries in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday agreed on the need to develop a global taxation system in which the richest in the world are taxed at a higher rate—potentially unlocking hundreds of billions of dollars annually to help close the international wealth gap.
Ahead of the G20 Summit scheduled for November, which Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government will host, the finance officials met this week to discuss economic issues and ultimately agreed to start a "dialogue on fair and progressive taxation, including of ultra-high-net-worth individuals."
The Lula government pushed for a proposal by progressive economist Gabriel Zucman, who serves as a G20 adviser and is a professor of economics at University of California, Berkeley.
Zucman's proposal calls for a minimum 2% tax on the fortunes of the world's roughly 3,000 wealthiest billionaires, which could raise approximately $250 billion globally per year.
"With full respect to tax sovereignty, we will seek to engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed," the ministers wrote in a declaration that was viewed by Politico.
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Although the agreement only states that countries will discuss the need for the wealthy to pay their fair share to help fight poverty and fund public education and other services, the global anti-poverty group Oxfam International said the meeting represented "serious global progress."
"For the first time in history, the world's largest economies have agreed to cooperate to tax the ultra-rich," said Susana Ruiz, tax policy lead for Oxfam. "Finally, the richest people are being told they can't game the tax system or avoid paying their fair share. Governments have for too long been complicit in helping the ultra-rich pay little or zero tax. Massive fortunes afford the world's ultra-rich outsized influence and power, which they wield to shield, stash, and supersize their wealth, undercutting democracy and widening inequality."
An Oxfam study released ahead of this week's meetingfound that the richest 1% of people in the world increased their fortunes by $42 trillion over the past decade, while taxation fell to "historically" low rates.
Ruiz called on G20 heads of state to "go further than their finance ministers" at the G20 Summit in November "and back concrete coordination: agreeing on a new global standard that taxes the ultra-rich at a rate high enough to close the gap between them and the rest of us."
"Brazil has kickstarted a truly global approach to tax the ultra-rich. But the work is just beginning and international cooperation is crucial," said Ruiz, adding that the task of ensuring the wealthiest people in the world are taxed fairly must not be left up to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—"the club of mostly rich countries."
Zucman expressed hope that the agreement between the G20 finance ministers marked a "historic" moment, and called it "an important step in the right direction."
"Our proposal for a common minimum tax on billionaires is now on the map. G20 finance ministers have started to engage with it—and there is no going back," said Zucman. "In its declaration, the G20 finance ministers commit to important preliminary steps. They need to do more and commit to a coordinated minimum tax on the super-rich. We know that it is practically doable—we know the solutions exist. And I'm confident, because there is overwhelming popular demand everywhere to get there."
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The findings released this week by Oxfam highlighted polling that "consistently" found people across the world support raising taxes on the richest individuals.
"Eighty percent of Indians, 85% of Brazilians and 69% of people polled across 34 countries in Africa support increasing taxes on the rich," said the group. "Nearly three-quarters of millionaires polled in G20 countries support higher taxes on wealth, and over half think extreme wealth is a 'threat to democracy.'"
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"To take this forward, G20 should support work on this at the Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation currently being negotiated at the United Nations," said Jayati Ghosh, co-chair of the ICRICT.
A U.N. committee is scheduled to submit "terms of reference" regarding a tax convention framework in August, and a final vote on the framework is expected by the end of 2025.
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