{"id":251150,"date":"2021-08-12T10:30:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T15:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=251150"},"modified":"2021-08-12T13:30:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T18:30:57","slug":"women-claim-catholic-hospital-system-referred-abortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/women-claim-catholic-hospital-system-referred-abortions\/","title":{"rendered":"DISTURBING: Women claim Catholic hospital system referred them for abortions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On its <\/span>website<\/span><\/a>, the SSM Health family of hospitals claims it \u201cvalue[s] the sacredness and dignity of each person.\u201d However, some allege that what SSM purports to practice and what actually transpires within the walls of its institutions may be two very different things. Over the last few years, many people who have gone to St. Louis-area SSM hospitals in Missouri for prenatal care claim they have been instead directed, with varying degrees of coercion, to the Hope Clinic for Women, an abortion facility just across the border in Granite City, Illinois. If these claims are true, this is a direct violation of the Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives by which SSM Hospitals claim to abide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Multiple reports of parents referred for abortion by SSM hospitals<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Ryan, a veteran sidewalk counselor who often stands outside the ironically named Hope Clinic to offer actual hope and life-saving alternatives to the women going inside, has documented an emergent pattern over the past three years: women arriving at the facility have stated with increasing frequency that they were referred by SSM hospitals \u2014 primarily St. Mary\u2019s and Cardinal Glennon Children\u2019s Hospital.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first time this happened, Ryan reported the incident to SSM, assuming in good faith that the referral resulted from the actions of a renegade doctor, and expecting that the organization would deal with the situation according to the ethical principles under which it is bound to operate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But that is not what happened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years that have followed, Ryan has counted 18 additional cases of women referred to Hope by SSM hospitals, and, in spite of repeated and ongoing efforts by Ryan and others to call them to account, SSM has done absolutely nothing about the situation except to deny that it is happening, in spite of <\/span>video<\/span><\/a> recordings of parents stating they were referred by SSM institutions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n