Just another example of the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, but a pretty bad one.

According to The Colorado Independent, Lori Stodghill, a 31-year-old woman, pregnant for 7 months with twins, went to St. Thomas More Hospital in Cañon City, Colorado, feeling ill. She promptly had a massive heart attack induced by a blood clot. The obstetrician was paged, but didn’t answer. Stodghill died and so did her twins.

Stodghill’s husband sued the hospital on the grounds of wrongful death, arguing that a Caesarian section could have saved the twins even if the mother died.

Now comes the hypocrisy, for the hospital is supposed to abide by Catholic directives:

The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood-based nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital as well as roughly 170 other health facilities in 17 states. Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and to be guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those rules have stirred controversy for decades, mainly for forbidding non-natural birth control and abortions. “Catholic health care ministry witnesses to the sanctity of life ‘from the moment of conception until death,’” the directives state. “The Church’s defense of life encompasses the unborn.”

Yes, fetuses are people, unless the Church gets sued for letting fetuses die. My emphasis in the story below:

But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights. As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

Well, Catholic Church, make up your mind. Are fetuses people with rights or not? I guess it depends on whether the Church stands to lose money when they make the call.

Naturally, Catholic Health Initiatives had no comment on the case.