Well, I’m divided on this one.
Yes, the Catholic Church teaches that an unborn baby is still a human being.
But this is a lawyer defending against a lawsuit, not a Catholic theologian who is speaking. And not a doctor who is excusing abortions. Yes, he represents a Catholic hospital, but his job is to win the case. And he is correct to imply that the law says that a fetus is not a human being—even though it is.
No babies are killed by his saying this. No babies are threatened, either. If the lawyer prevails, the only result is that the hospital won’t have to pay up a couple of million bucks to this husband.
It was a tragic death, but I’m not persuaded that it was the hospital’s fault. An hour’s delay for the doctor to show up? They need to look into the reasons, but they could be reasonable. Evidently there was no chance for the woman, and the unborn children’s lives really depended on hitting an emergency room where someone could act almost instantly. If you’ve ever been to an emergency room, I’m afraid that’s not very likely. A matter of luck, really. Not something to make the hospital pay for, unless there are factors not hinted at in the article.
If all of this is the case, then there's no reason to go into the "unborn babies aren't people" argument. I realize that the lawyer is doing his job ... but his client needs to remind him who and what he's representing.
Now ... I looked up Catholic Health Initiative ... interesting bunch. There are NO clerics in their National Leadership or Board of Stewardship Trustees. There are a half dozen or so sisters from a list of Participating Congregations, the overwhelming majority of which are unhabited, elderly sisters ... ie. '60s left-over 'social justice' types. This does not bode well, and strongly suggests (to me) a critical lack of authentically Catholic oversight.
They deserve rebuke, IMO, for giving scandal. This argument that the law doesn't define unborn as people, therefore you can't sue us does come across as hypocritical.