The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is accusing Catholic hospitals in the U.S. of denying reproductive health care services to women due to the hospital administrators' religious beliefs.
In the report, titled "Health Care Denied," the ACLU and the health advocacy group MergerWatch said one in six hospital beds in the U.S. is in a Catholic hospital.
"Catholic hospitals also receive billions in taxpayer dollars. These hospitals should not be permitted to turn away patients seeking emergency medical care, to discriminate against women by refusing to provide critical reproductive health services, or to force their values on patients who may not share them," the report said.
It said the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, promulgated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, prohibit health services including contraception, sterilisation, many infertility treatments, and abortion, even when a woman's life is in danger.
The report also noted that transgender and gender-non-conforming patients also suffer the same fate.
It said the belief that in emergency cases, Catholic hospitals will provide abortion services, does not happen.
Medical ethics and federal law bar hospitals from denying emergency care. Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), hospitals that receive Medicare funds and operate emergency departments are required to provide stabilising treatment to patients experiencing emergency medical condition.
ACLU, however, claimed that it has collected numerous stories of women being denied emergency care at Catholic hospitals.
As of March 2016, there are 548 hospitals in the U.S. that adhere to the Catholic directives, or 14.5 percent of all acute hospitals in the country.
Catholic leaders criticised the ACLU for the report.
"The ACLU has long waged war on Catholics over the issue of abortion. Now it has joined with Planned Parenthood to author a report that sounds the alarms over the 'news' that one in six hospitals in the nation is Catholic-run," said Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights' Bill Donohue.
Human Life International's Director of Research and Training Brian Clowes told LifeSite News that both the ACLU and MergerWatch "have one objective in mind: To force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions and sterilisations as a blanket policy."
