Here’s what I don’t understand. Aren’t hospitals private/publicly held corporations and don’t they reserve the right to do certain procedures that they deem wrong? If they are against IVF, they simply don’t offer it, so why would they be required to offer abortions?
You’re thinking like an American. But the liberals have tried to push totalitarian bills like this, and when they own the politicians and the judges, they have been pretty successful.
For instance, there are several states where pharmacists MUST provide abortion drugs to customers, even if it is against their conscience and even if their employers have agreed that they can follow their conscience.
Pharmacists have been fired over this issue, and others have been prosecuted. They may win in the end, but meanwhile their lives have been destroyed and their savings cleaned out.
This issue has come very close to happening in New York City, where Bloomberg said that Catholics could not have freedom of conscience. So far, he has backed down. But these issues don’t go away, and with the liberals riding high we cannot count on the courts to defend our rights.
Some Catholic institutions HAVE backed down, and that encourages the enemy. For instance, a lot of “Catholic” colleges have gay associations on campus, or show The Vagina Monologues, or otherwise violate Catholic principles, and they seem to get away with it. So liberals have reason to hope maybe the hospitals will back down, too. One or two have, in fact, on contraceptives, but then have eventually been pulled back into line by bishops.
But it’s a serious issue. And a lot of people can get hurt, or driven out of the medical profession, so you have no lone left but abortionists and euthanists.
They almost certainly get lots of govt. help in the form of grants, etc. I am pretty certain that all kinds of hospitals do, no matter what their ownership. When the govt. gives you money, they heap all sorts of requirements on you. If you want to the dough, you agree to what do they want. TOf course, this does not address the issue at hand. Just replying to your general questions about why private hospitals (like private colleges and universities, same principle) would be subject to govt. regulations.