ACLU of Kentucky

This letter to the editor appeared in the July 20th edition of the Courier-Journal.

In a June 7 Op-Ed in The Courier-Journal, leaders of University Hospital, Jewish/St. Mary's Hospitals and St. Joseph Health System declared that the merger of their institutions would aid the community and would not result in a “reduction in services available to the community ... includ[ing] family planning and reproductive health services.”

But they failed to identify how the newly merged entity would ensure the continued availability of such services, particularly in light of the Catholic Ethical Directives (ERDs) — the religious-based directives largely banning those services in Catholic-owned hospitals. We raised this question, and others, in a June 16 letter to the editor and called upon University Hospital officials to be more transparent about the effects on reproductive health services that will result from the merger and what plans, if any, they have to maintain the current level of health services to Louisville's poor.

Sadly, Sunday's article in The Courier-Journal confirmed that those services will be discontinued at University Hospital — a state-created hospital funded by state and local tax dollars — which will, as a result of the merger, effectively operate as a Catholic, not public, institution. As was highlighted in the article, University Hospital will no longer offer tubal ligations to women due to the ERDs.