Loss of hospital services criticized

Northern Kentucky faces serious threats to access to some services following last year's hospital merger.

The issue centers on the loss of birth control services after the merger. After the area's hospitals merged, they in effect became Catholic hospitals. Previously, St. Elizabeth was a Catholic hospital; St. Luke was not. Following the merger, these hospitals are all now bound by Catholic teachings. Thus, birth control services have been eliminated.

As far as I'm concerned, a church can teach whatever it wants about birth control. The real problem is that local residents (regardless of their own beliefs) are now losing the choices they had before the merger.

As a result, groups including the ACLU are urging Kentucky officials to find a way to make sure the public still has this choice.

Amazingly, some are "outraged by the outrage", as they think nobody should have ever had a choice in the first place.

The larger picture is that as health care facilities all over America are allowed to merge, the public loses services and choices. As long as there is no check on these mergers, people are effectively forced to follow church teachings. Church-state separation has been nearly gutted.

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20090114/NEWS0103/901140369)