Reminder: Jesus healed people without a copay or a personal morality test.

According to the ACLU, one in six hospital beds in this country is attached to the Catholic Church in some way or another. Even as an atheist, that fact alone doesn’t bother me too much. After all, it’s not like their doctors don’t take the same Hippocratic Oath and wouldn’t be sworn to “do no harm” just because of their religious beliefs right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. In fact, the ACLU is also reporting that many Catholic-run hospitals deny absolutely critical services to women, and they use their religious beliefs to justify it.

A new ACLU report shares their firsthand accounts and uncovers discrimination and harm caused by Catholic hospitals across the United States. These hospitals adhere to a set of religious rules — written by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that prohibit abortion or tubal ligation — “getting your tubes tied” — even when a patient’s life or health is in jeopardy. (source)

Umm. No. That’s not how medicine and healthcare delivery is supposed to work in a secular country. There’s nothing wrong at all about a church running a hospital, that’s not the issue. The issue is that they are withholding potentially life-saving healthcare because of their personal religious beliefs. I wonder, how would these good, God-fearing Christians feel if someone who literally worshiped the same God they do, but in a different way, said their hospital would only service Mulsims, and that any Catholic woman coming in for health care services must praise Allah, and adhere to strict Sharia Law about female conduct while in their hospital.

Something tells me they’d shit little purple Twinkies shaped like crucifixes.

I also have to really wonder here if the Catholic hospitals that are denying things like tubal litigation services to women are in any way familiar with Jesus Christ, the dude upon which they built their religious beliefs. Granted, I have not been a practicing partaker of the Magical World of Jebus, but I do remember my Bible verse memorization quite well. For the life of me I can’t remember at any point when Christ was allegedly healing the sick that he stopped and asked them if they were true believers of his.





If Jesus was real, he was clearly someone who understood you attract more files with honey than vinegar. Christ knew that the way to lead was by example, and since his whole shtick was that his healing powers came from God himself, he didn’t need to be assured the person he was healing was living a good, clean ,Christian life. He knew that healing them would make them see the power of God, and that they’d be unable to resist becoming a believer in said God, but also in Christ.

What we have in all these Catholic hospitals is the absolute opposite of Christian charity and outreach. Instead, it’s the kind of hypocrisy and judgmental behavior that would have made Christ, the guy who went ape shit in the church on money changers and pharisees, insanely, royally pissed off.

It’d go down like this:

JESUS: Umm. Guys? This woman here is sick and could die if we don’t tie her tubes. Can we do that now?

CATHOLIC HOSPITAL: No, sorry Jesus, because we believe that interferes with your dad’s plan for this woman to maybe have 10,000 babies in her life timel.

JESUS: LOL. No, really, let’s do it.

CATHOLIC HOSPITAL: No, Jesus. We can’t.

JESUS: What about your Hippocratic Oath? If you won’t follow my example at least you can abide by your word.

CATHOLIC HOSPITAL: Muh religious freedoms!

JESUS: Goddamnit.

It really does boggle my mind that a hospital would deny any medical services to anyone. But it really throws the logic centers in my brain into utter spasms at the idea of a Christian hospital doing it. Their lord and savior literally taught against this kind of fake Christianity. He warned them that hypocrites and judgmental people are no better people than the sinners they are casting judgment on.

Let’s not kid ourselves. This kind of creepy behavior is all because of abortion, plain and simple. They think they can get around Roe Vs. Wade if they just ignore that pesky little oath they took. They believe that their heartless indignation to the lives of women across the country is justified by their skewed view of human biology and reproduction. It’s not even thinly veiled political misogyny. It’s the very public kind. And these kinds of idiotic policies are why many of us are so militant about so-called “religious freedom” laws. They only open the door for more of this kind of insanity.

Any hospital who denies any life-saving procedure to patients should be shut down, period. We’re not a theocracy here. And while people have the right to believe anything they want, they don’t have the right to do anything they want to do, and they certainly do not have the right as doctors to deny legitimate health care to someone who needs it. If they wanted to be judgmental pricks they should have chosen a line of work that doesn’t involve people’s health. Like satire.

Wait what?

Here’s hoping these Catholic hospitals take a crash course in Christian values before a woman dies in their front lobby waiting for a procedure that could save her life, but they won’t do because they think their imaginary friend is far more important than the un-imaginary person dying in front of them.

Forgive them Father, they know what they do, but they’re fucking stone cold judgmental asshats, too.