After a vote by the National Convention of Catholic Bishops last Friday, sterilization will now be officially prohibited at all Catholic and affiliated hospitals. In the United States 620 Ñ- 11 percent of all hospitals nationwide — will be affected by this decision. In their declaration, the bishops compare sterilization to abortion and euthanasia, calling it “intrinsically evil.”
This resolution also comes at a time when Catholic hospital chains are rapidly growing, largely from mergers with non-Catholic hospitals, meaning the Catholic church’s decision potentially prevents many women of non-Catholic faith from having access to tubal ligation and non-Catholic men from access to vasectomies. “It’s tragic because women who depend upon these Catholic facilities will have to seek reproductive health care elsewhere,” said Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “And they will.”
