Vatican Will Only Let Infertile Women Get Hysterectomies at Catholic Hospitals

The Catholic Church is known for opposing birth control, vasectomies, tubal ligations, and anything else that might get in the way of a possible pregnancy. Now it’s going even further. The Vatican says it will only approve hysterectomies for women who can prove that pregnancy is a life-threatening condition — or if a doctor decides that her uterus is “no longer suitable for procreation.”

Anyone else who needs a uterus removed in a Catholic hospital will have to figure out a Plan B.

If “medical experts have reached the certainty” that any future pregnancy would end in a “spontaneous abortion” before viability, then the patient can have a hysterectomy, because it won’t have the (immoral) effect of sterilizing them, the Vatican said late last week.

… In the United States, directives issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops govern one in six acute-care hospital beds; in some states the number is closer to half. In at least 46 regions nationwide, a Catholic hospital is the only accessible option.

“Life-threatening” can have multiple definitions. In my case, my anti-depressants are incompatible with a growing fetus — having to go nine months without them could be life-threatening. Children are also expensive: parents who go into poverty because they can barely take care of themselves, let alone a growing child, could also stake a claim to a possible life-threatening condition.

Women on Twitter responded to this decision with stories of their own:

I've had 9 (NINE) failed pregnancies, between ectopic and miscarriages, cysts on my ovaries, endometriosis, a fibroid, and they still won't do a god damned thing because, "I am of child bearing age". So ridiculous.

— Unlikable_SKI13 (@FeministAnnie) January 7, 2019

The hospital where both my sons were born is Catholic. I elected to have my tubes removed and had to wait 6 weeks to be cleared, another 30 days after I signed the paperwork and still had to go to a different hospital for the procedure. So much time and energy wasted.

— Snide Sally (@snide_sally) January 7, 2019

As a woman with a laundry list of health problems, my “Baptist” hospital refuses to help me manage my health. They refused to do a hysterectomy citing there’s always a chance I’d get better. Kidney disease & all its problems do NOT get better w/ a transplant. ��

— Jackie Graves (@Gravelark) January 7, 2019

The hospital where I had my endometrial ablation (a procedure that makes pregnancy dangerous but not impossible) would not tie my tubes at the same time, as a non-catholic hospital would have.
1/2

— Patty G-M (@ElephiPelephi) January 7, 2019

Before I had the chance to have the sterilization at another hospital, I accidentally became pregnant. Because pregnancy in this condition is life threatening, I had to have an abortion. Oh, the irony.
2/2

— Patty G-M (@ElephiPelephi) January 7, 2019

You would think that the Catholic Church would consider it a lesser evil to prevent pregnancies than abort them. The bottom line is, men who can’t get pregnant and will never have the responsibility of raising a family have no business telling women what to do. Yet their decisions will impact countless women who will only find that out after it’s too late.

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