Posted on 01/25/2013 5:39:10 PM PST by Alex Murphy
DENVER - In contrast to typical Church doctrine, lawyers for a Catholic hospital in Canon City are arguing fetuses aren't people, in response to a wrongful death lawsuit that is now being appealed to the state Supreme Court. Although the court case has stalled, a recent article gave it a burst of national attention.
Lori Stodghill died of pulmonary emboli on Jan. 1, 2006 at St. Thomas More Hospital, according to a district court judge's summary judgment on the case in 2010. At the time of her death, Stodghill was pregnant with twins who did not survive.
Stodghill's husband, Jeremy, filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of himself and the couple's daughter, Elizabeth.
Judge David Thorson was the first to rule against the Stodghill family. In his summary judgment from Dec. 2010, the judge sided with the hospital's argument that "to be a 'person' one must at some point have been born alive."
The hospital's legal argument appears to be a notable departure from that position, but it is couched in Colorado legal precedent, instead of religious belief.
Referencing the hospital organization's promotional literature in an article about the case, The Colorado Independent wrote that "Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops."
"The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn," the article quotes.
According to the judge's ruling, the hospital's lawyers argued that a "person" covered by Colorado's wrongful death statute does not include a fetus which was not born or delivered alive. Lawyers for Stodghill argued that a viable fetus should be considered a person for the purposes of the statute.
The judge sided with the hospital.
"The Colorado general assembly is and has been free to extend the scope of the wrongful death statute to causes of action on behalf of unborn fetuses, viable or not. To date, it has chosen not to do so," Thorson wrote.
The ruling was affirmed by the court of appeals in August of 2012 and appealed to the State Supreme Court on Sept. 9, 2012, court spokesman Rob McCallum said.
McCallum pointed out that the Supreme Court accepts only a small fraction of the cases appealed to them. This case, given the designation 12SC730, has not yet been accepted.
Based on that timeframe, McCallum was at a loss to explain why the case has gotten so much news coverage during the past day.
The story that seems to have sparked the fire of recent coverage for the case was written by John Tomasic of the Colorado Independent. His story was picked up by other Internet sites, including Gawker.com.
"I thought it was a great story and, as you know, I'm really gratified that a lot of other people do too," he told 7NEWS.
Tomasic said the story came to his attention through an editor in his organization. He said the editor learned about the case from one of the lawyers involved, but wasn't sure which side the lawyer was on.
-- Bishops reviewing lawsuit --
Colorado's three Catholic Bishops issued a statement Thursday evening on the controversy:
The Catholic bishops of Colorado learned recently of the deaths of Lori Stodghill and her two unborn children, which took place at St. Thomas More Hospital in Cañon City, Colo. in 2006. We wish to extend our solidarity and sympathy to Lori’s husband Jeremy, and her daughter, Elizabeth. Please be assured of our ongoing prayers.
From the moment of conception, human beings are endowed with dignity and with fundamental rights, the most foundational of which is life.
Catholics and Catholic institutions have the duty to protect and foster human life, and to witness to the dignity of the human person—particularly to the dignity of the unborn. No Catholic institution may legitimately work to undermine fundamental human dignity.
Catholic Health Initiatives is a Catholic institution which provides health care services in 14 states, providing care to thousands of people annually. Catholic Health Initiatives has been accused by some of undermining the Catholic position on human life in the course of litigation. Today, representatives of Catholic Health Initiatives assured us of their intention to observe the moral and ethical obligations of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic bishops of Colorado are not able to comment on ongoing legal disputes. However, we will undertake a full review of this litigation, and of the policies and practices of Catholic Health Initiatives to ensure fidelity and faithful witness to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Most Rev. Samuel J. Aquila, S.T.L., Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Denver
Most Rev. Michael Sheridan, S.Th.D, Bishop of the Diocese of Colorado SpringMost Rev. Fernando Isern, Bishop of the Diocese of Pueblo
The bishops are autonomous in most matters. IMHO, the local bishops should have acted as the bishop in Arizona did, when he sanctioned a hospital for getting out of line. The hospital argument is pure sophistry.
The bishops are autonomous in most matters. IMHO, the local bishops should have acted as the bishop in Arizona did, when he sanctioned a hospital for getting out of line. The hospital argument is pure sophistry.
I think you're spot-on. I haven't paid much attention to this case, and if all I had to go on were the headlines, I'd think the Catholic Church is being entirely hypocritical in this case.
But then, that's what the headlines WANT people to think.
So I stopped and read this article and the subsequent posts - and I'm glad I did. Your response makes the most sense of what I've read this morning.
Prayers for the father and daughter who must now find their way without their Wife/Mother and siblings. God bless and keep them both near to his heart.
The left and certain freepers too. Maybe they are one and the same, maybe not, but they are bed-fellows...
True, down to their statement that no work on sabbath, not even lighting fires
And even as the Adventists said in Patriarchs and Prophets, page 761, "...He (Jesus) was revealed to them as the Angel of Jehovah, the Captain of the Lord's Host, Michael the Archangel".
Though I find it strange that the Adventists don't mention that they believe that "Christ will place all our sins upon Satan, the originator and instigator of sin...so Satan, bearing the guilt of all the sins which he has caused God's people to commit."
Maybe I wasn’t clear. The way it had been set up was a lose-lose scenario, at least how it was described by the media. What I was suggesting was that it could be changed into, if not a win, then a break-even for the church.
The way the media described it, either the church would denounce its own doctrines (which their lawyers did); or it would insist on its doctrines, and lose the case. In either case this would make the media, and the anti-Catholics, happy. As such from the media’s point of view, it was a lose-lose.
What I suggested was that the church could still insist that life begins at conception, upholding their doctrines, and yet this would *not* cause them to lose the case, since the case is based in Colorado law, which does not even consider the doctrines of the church.
Thus, the case would still be decided that the fetuses were not human beings, and thus the church does not have to pay, though it believed them to be human. Which decision would be a loss as far as the media and the anti-Catholics are concerned. And the church would not waver at all from its beliefs.
That wouldn’t be the same as saying Satan worked the Atonement, if it were true. It’s just saying that Satan gets all the blame in the end for the sin that he wanted to exist, namely all of it in the universe. Which many would believe logical, even though the bible does not spell it out explicitly. A controversial idea? It is truly yawnworthy.
Most Christians believe in pre-incarnational appearances of Christ, including some called the angel of the Lord, but wouldn’t agree necessarily to identify the angel Michael
as having been one of these. Like your other mention about a detail concerning sin and the devil, these are internal theological matters. Good Christians can differ on details or on the identification of vaguely defined biblical personages. The 7DA are typically quite bold about how to live a Christian life, mistakes or not.
No, these are not. If the SDAs say Jesus is an Angel, just an angel, even the highest one,that is saying that He is not God
That puts the group in the same category as it's sister religion, the Jehovah's Witnesses (they grow up out of the same mileu)
Christianity at it's basics is: There is One God, the Father is God, Jesus is God, The Holy Spirit is God. Jesus is 100% man and 100% divine. He died for our sins. Without His sacrifice we could not be saved by our own efforts.
That's it in a nutshell.
If one says that Jesus is not God, either just a holy man (Jehovah's Witnesses) or a super-angel (SDA), that is not Christian.
Neither is saying there is more than 1 God -- Mormonism -- that instantly cuts off the continuity with Judaism.
Neither is saying that Jesus was only Spirit or only man, either way negates the incarnation and eliminates the purpose of the incarnation and sacrifice as does the last (Jainism -- not even Pelagianism which acknowledges that the sacrifice was necessary)
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