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By Amber Sandhu of the Redding Record Searchlight

A San Francisco Superior Court judge sided with Mercy Medical Center and denied a Redding woman's request for a temporary restraining that would have allowed her to undergo postpartum tubal ligation.

Rebecca Chamorro, 33, of Redding is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, who filed the lawsuit on the behalf of her and Physicians for Reproductive Health.

Elizabeth Gill, senior staff attorney at ACLU, said she was disappointed the temporary restraining order wasn't granted, as it would have prevented Mercy from using religious doctrine to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. The ACLU has already filed a preliminary injunction for a hearing next week because of Chamorro's impending due date.

Dignity Health was satisfied with the ruling.

"We are pleased by the court's decision to deny the ACLU's request for the (temporary restraining order) which will allow Dignity Health to continue to operate consistent with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services," Dignity Health spokeswoman Lauren Davis said in a prepared statement.

Chamorro is due for a caesarean section Jan. 28, and is under the care of Dr. Samuel Van Kirk, who requested he be allowed to perform the tubal ligation procedure from the hospital. Instead, he was sent a denial letter that stated the procedure did "not meet the requirement of Mercy's current sterilization policy or the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services."

According to the directives, also known as the ERDs, sterilization along with abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide are all considered "intrinsically evil" and not permitted in a Catholic health care institution.

"There should not be a reason why a hospital open to the general public, receiving public funds, should be using religion to deny care," Gill said.

In August 2015, Rachel Miller, 32, contacted the ACLU after she was denied permission to undergo tubal ligation at Mercy. After ACLU sent a demand letter, citing that the denial of care constitutes sex discrimination, Miller was granted the procedure. Miller was also a patient of Van Kirk, who in court documents stated having to turn away 50 women in the last eight years who wanted the sterilization procedure.

"Doctors continue to be denied the ability to give this kind of care," she said. "This is not surprising from a legal perspective that this is going to take a while to resolve."

She added that this issue goes beyond Redding and she hears from women all over the state who have expressed their feelings about the case.

"Women are shocked to learn medical decisions made with a doctor can be overruled by a hospital based on a religious directive," she said.