Hospital Mergers — Clergy Advisory Board Responds To AMA Decision

June 21, 2000

We, the members of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Clergy Advisory Board, represent a diverse group of clergy and lay leaders that come from every segment of American society.

We have watched with dismay as the increasing number of mergers between Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals has deprived too many communities across our nation of reproductive health services. Therefore, we applaud the American Medical Association for its recent statement that no community should be denied "'access to pregnancy prevention services'" simply because a hospital that provided such services is purchased or merged with another hospital.

Volunteers, local donors, government funds, and certain tax benefits all help to support our hospitals, including those sponsored by religious institutions. Consequently, religiously affiliated hospitals have an obligation to provide for the basic health care needs of all members of the community, with due respect for the diversity of their religious beliefs.

We recognize that cost pressures are driving hospitals to merge in order to become more efficient, eliminate redundancies, and provide quality care with fewer resources. Standard reproductive health care services, which are relatively inexpensive, have surely not contributed to these pressures. Cutting such services, therefore, can only inflict great hardship on the poor and the young in the community.

We also recognize that each religion in our increasingly multi-cultural and multi-religious democracy is entitled to honor its respective ethical, moral, and theological tenets and that each has the right to establish and sustain whatever institutions it chooses. While we urge respect for all faiths in our society, we dare not permit any one theology to dictate the medical care that an entire community may receive, particularly when the only available hospital in a community is governed by a particular theology.

In the name of justice and compassion, we believe that our hospitals must provide the full range of reproductive health care, and we commit our efforts to safeguarding these services in the communities where we live and practice our faiths.