{"id":71841,"date":"2017-03-06T20:40:45","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T03:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/aclu-mercys-policy-against-abortion-is-illegal\/"},"modified":"2017-03-07T03:40:45","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T03:40:45","slug":"aclu-mercys-policy-against-abortion-is-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/aclu-mercys-policy-against-abortion-is-illegal\/","title":{"rendered":"ACLU: Mercy\u2019s policy against abortion is illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=bb986294-d8c0-4412-9d6b-f515c4cc42bc&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"240\" height=\"378\" alt=\"Bruzzese\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Bruzzese<\/span><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In a letter sent Wednesday to the state, the ACLU charged that Mercy disciplined a doctor for suggesting a patient\u2019s condition might be fatal if she chose to continue her pregnancy.<\/p>\n<p>ACLU lawyer Sara Rich sent the letter to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment asking for an investigation of Mercy\u2019s policy against recommending abortions for women with life-threatening conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Mercy is owned by Catholic Health Initiatives, and it follows the Ethical and Religious Directives for health care adopted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The directives include a ban on associating with abortion providers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMercy Regional\u2019s moral objection to abortion does not exempt the hospital from complying with the laws \u2026 and the hospital cannot invoke its religious status to jeopardize the health and lives of pregnant women seeking medical care,\u201d Rich wrote in her letter.<\/p>\n<p>Mercy spokesman David Bruzzese said the hospital is aware of the ACLU\u2019s complaint and is following up directly with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe feel the statements made in the complaint are based on inaccurate information and look forward to resolving the issue directly with CDPHE,\u201d Bruzzese wrote in a prepared statement.<\/p>\n<p>Mercy is a faith-based hospital, and its employees are committed to carrying out its mission and ministry \u201cin a manner that is consistent with our religious and ethical directives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/\/dur-cjweb.newscyclecloud.com\/assets\/pdf\/CJ1458771114.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">ACLU Letter about Mercy (PDF)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bruzzesedu1-i-syn In a letter sent Wednesday to the state, the ACLU charged that Mercy disciplined a doctor for suggesting a patient\u2019s condition might be fatal if she chose to continue her pregnancy. ACLU lawyer Sara Rich sent the letter to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment asking for an investigation of Mercy\u2019s policy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2612,13,68],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-abortion","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-mercy-regional-medical-center"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71841"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}