IN THE NEWS: A Fetus Is Not a Person if it Costs us Money, Says Catholic Church

As a former Catholic, I must say that the church has gone wrong in so many ways. It's not just the church spending millions to prevent gay marriages. Or the fact that the heirarchy of the church has covered up, denied and ignored sexual abuse from some of the priests. The latest stupidity into the political arena is about fetuses. During the recent Presidential election, the church (and many of the other religions) tried to convince their congregations that "a fetus is a living, thinking person" and said that abortions are the same as killing a living, thinking person.
  It's disgusting how MONEY can change an attitude in certain situations like the following. I'm just so disgusted with religions that have lost their way. Religions are supposed to teach love, forgiveness, help others in need and religious people are forced to live a life of poverty, when the Pope and the heirarchy live comfortably and surrounded by all they need.
  A nun I befriended (who since passed) lived in poverty her entire life. All she owned fit in two suitcases. She was denied basic comforts and gave her life to others.
**2/5/13 10:08am UPDATE: from Reuters News today: Catholic hospital group apologizes for fetus lawsuit defense  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/05/us-usa-catholic-lawsuit-idUSBRE91405U20130205?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

A Fetus Is Not a Person if it Costs us Money, Says Catholic Church

Forced to put its money where its mouth is, the Catholic Church backs off on the idea that the fetus is a person
STORY in the COLORADO INDEPENDENT: 
http://coloradoindependent.com/126808/in-malpractice-case-catholic-hospital-argues-fetuses-arent-people
This Article in ALTERNET.ORG: 
http://www.alternet.org/belief/fetus-not-person-if-it-costs-us-money-says-catholic-church?akid=9970.1080404.6d4dLO&rd=1&src=newsletter782577&t=5
January 24, 2013  |

   You know how the Catholic Church is always going on and on ... and  on about the sanctity of life and also a bunch of vague concepts about liberty 'n stuff? We can't have abortion because every sperm is sacred. We can't have insurance coverage for women's health care because  something about Taco Bell and freedom. We can't even  fund cancer screening because apparently Jesus was cool with women dying of undetected breast cancer.
    And all of this—all of it—goes back to the Church's insistence that life begins with your very first hell-worthy dirty thought and must be protected at all costs, despite all consequences, including, of course, the consequence of dead women, whose lives are not nearly as valuable as the "life" of an unborn fetus. In just the past year, the Church has called upon its faithful followers to march, to starve themselves, to go to jail, to even take up arms—all to protect those fetuses. No exceptions. None. Not if the fetus is already dead inside the womb. Not if the fetus is going to kill the actual living woman carrying it. No exceptions EVER.
     Well, except for one: when it's going to cost the Church money.
           Turns out, when a man sues a Catholic hospital for malpractice because his wife and the twins she was carrying inside her died when she turned up in the emergency room and her doctor never bothered to answer a page—well, things get a little tricky. Yes, the Catholic hospital adheres to the strict Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church, as set forth by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And yes, those directives include the claim that "[t]he Church's defense of life encompasses the unborn" and a mandate to uphold "the sanctity of life 'from the moment of conception until death.'" But come  on. That obviously does not apply when Catholic Health Initiatives, the Church-affiliated organization that runs the Church-affiliated St. Thomas More Hospital where a young woman and her two unborn fetuses died, is the lead defendant in a lawsuit:
Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that  those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

Thank you, counselor, for totally undermining everything the Catholic Church has ever said about women and health care and fetuses and the "sanctity of life," just to save a buck, thereby confirming how very empty and meaningless all that rhetoric really is. Praise the Lord.