U.S. News and World Report is onto a story that I think is going to be huge over the next decade; the question of medical conscience.

With assisted suicide on the march and the pro-choice movement becoming more openly pro-abortion, Catholic hospitals and Hippocratic physicians are under pressure to buckle to secular sensibilities on issues such as euthanasia, abortion, sterilization and contraception.


As I have discussed, the ACLU is suing Catholic hospitals in California and elsewhere to force them to violate Catholic moral teaching.

If those suits win, it could result in hospitals closing. From the story:

When faced with violating their core beliefs, Catholic hospitals may feel they have no choice but to shutter their facilities. This occurred in Illinois, where Catholic charities shut down their adoption services rather than follow the state’s requirement to allow children to be placed with same-sex couples. Laycock says he isn’t aware of hospitals or medical facilities closing because of these laws but says he thinks that could be on the horizon. “It’s a harsh result from the religious perspective,” Laycock says. “The other result would be a harsh result for the patient. There is not a good answer here.”


Is that what secularists really want: Less healthcare availability in the name of forcing religious communities to buckle to their ideology?

Because if a hospital is truly Catholic in its mission, that is precisely what they will get.