Have you seen the brief? I don't see a link to it in the original article so do you know that they don't actually say that a fetus isn't a person? Anyway the problem is that the basis of their argument is that they accept the state's position that a fetus isn't a person. It's not exactly the same since the father isn't arguing whether people should drink but the level of alcohol content. The argument would be better if his son caused an accident while driving at .07and was sued by the victim on the basis that the son had consumed to begin with. If the father argued that the alcohol wasn't an impairment and so his son is liable then I would say the father was hypocritical. Understandable but still hypocritical if the father's moral position was that consuming alcohol at all was immoral. The point that these arguments are made all the time doesn't mean it is the hypocrisy. People and institutions are frequently hypocritical.
That argument involved a case in Florida and not the subject of this article which is about a case in Colorado. [rquoter]"We've never contended that a fetus is not a person," Kuntz told the Orlando Sentinel in 1996. "We've always said that an unborn person does not have the right to bring a lawsuit in Florida."[/rquoter] We don't know for sure that is the argument that was made since the basis of the lawsuit and the law might be different. As I noted above the article does state [rquoter]A Catholic hospital in Colorado has argued in court documents that it is not liable for the deaths of two 7-month-old fetuses because those fetuses are not people.[/rquoter]
From the original post: According to published reports, a brief filed by the hospital, owned by Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives, said that the fetuses are not covered by state's Wrongful Death Act. "Under Colorado law, a fetus is not a 'person' and plaintiff's claims for wrongful death must therefore be dismissed," the hospital argued. A state district court and an appeals court agreed with the hospital. The case, originally filed in 2007, is currently on appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court.
If you read the first post it includes an alleged quote from the brief (put in quotation marks) that clearly uses the qualifier of under the law, not in the opinion of the hospital.
Yes, you can, and this is frequently exactly what lawyers do. My question would revolve more around why they didn't perform the c-section, and what their legal obligation was to do so or not. Does it look bad when put basically? Yes, but like someone said, they win either way on this one.
They aren't making both arguments. A fetus is a person. The law says it is not. Now if a priest was to vote for said law, that would be hypocrisy. Without knowing the details involved, tough to say if the hospital's actions in not performing the C-section were hypocritical.
I feel that we might be judging this prematurely. We are focusing too much on the one word "Catholic" and making the leap of stating that Catholic Hospital == Catholic Church (Vatican). The entity being sued is a hospital that just happened to be financed by the church. Just like most hospitals, they are being administered or managed by non-ordained individuals (people like us). The statements made about the law are more than likely, coming from these individuals. According to the link, "The bishops said they could not comment on ongoing legal disputes". This means that the Catholic church has made no specific formal statements about this issue. We probably have to see if they make a comment.
As I said earlier I agree that is the correct legal argument to make and the courts are ruling correctly that said the Catholic church policy is that life begins at conception so a fetus is a person. Those arguing against that this as hypocrisy are saying that the hospital is accepting the state's view though if they accept that argument then that is clearly in opposition to the Church's position. I don't see how that isn't hypocritical then whether they state it or not.
As I said in the post you respond to that is a case in Florida not a case in CO. There may be differences in the law between the two states where the argument is phrased differently. That said as in my reply to Major above even accepting that they aren't putting forward the argument that a fetus isn't a person they are accepting and basing their legal defense on that position which directly contradicts the Church's teaching. That certainly seems like hypocrisy to me. Consider a similar example. I am a minority and let's say I am completely against minority set asides but in order to get a government contract I argue that I should get it under the government's set aside program for minorities. Now there is nothing illegal about doing that but that is hypocritical since based on my prior rhetoric I don't deserve the project just because I am a minority.
From the original article they did say: [rquoter]"Catholics and Catholic institutions have the duty to protect and foster human life, and to witness to the dignity of the human person — particularly to the dignity of the unborn," the bishops said. "No Catholic institution may legitimately work to undermine fundamental human dignity."[/rquoter] Also from the original article it does point out that the institutions standing as a Catholic Institution is affected by the question of how they deal with the abortion / personhood issue: [rquoter]In 2010, St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix lost its standing as a Catholic hospital after doctors there performed an abortion they believed was needed to save a mother's life. Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Roman Catholic diocese of Phoenix said that the hospital should have followed Catholic teaching, which bans any abortion.[/rquoter] Further as mentioned in the original article it is hypocritical of Catholic Institutions to argue for an exemption of the ACA regarding things like providing contraceptive coverage to employees based on Catholic teaching but then to look to a provision of state law that contradicts Catholic teaching to protect them from lawsuits.
A different scenario. In the one you are presenting the person is asking for special treatment based on something they object to. That is not what is happening here. The hospital is not asking the courts to get involved, someone else is. The better example (since this is a moral argument) is drinking and driving. I am morally against driving drunk. I get a ticket for drunk driving but according to a blood test I actually came in under the legal limit. My argument in court would be that the law doesn't recognize me as drunk and therefore I shouldn't get a ticket. That argument in no way makes a claim about my own personal feeling about whether driving the way I did was actually wrong. It's a little hard to make a comparison because it's such a unique situation, but I think mine is a little closer. Extrapolate it to me making the legal argument for someone else (as the church didn't actually make the decision not to do the csection a doctor did) and it works better probably. If my child got the above referenced ticket I may personally believe what they did was wrong, dangerous, etc. but that doesn't mean I would believe that the law should punish them as currently written.
Again, I don't see it as hypocritical. They aren't the same thing. They aren't looking to a provision of state law like it's some technicality. They are saying that since the state doesn't recognize the child as a life they have no right to hear a case about whether they did something wrong. I'm willing to bet the Catholic Church would love to pay whatever a court would award in damages in this case if in return the courts would establish personhood for a child.
As I mentioned in my post, this is not a direct statement about this lawsuit. I talks about the Catholic's church's general conviction. With regards, to their actions on St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, they made this renouncement on Dec 21, 2010 even though the abortion procedure was done on 2009. It took them a while before they formally announced this. Just an FYI, I feel that in general, the Catholic institution is hypocritical in a number of things. If I am judging only for this incident, will wait to see what they do or say. [/QUOTE]
I don't see the hypocrisy. They're respecting Colorado law, as they should. Of course, if some malpractice was involved in the death of the twins, I'd still want them to be liable. If you murder a pregnant woman, they charge you for murdering the fetus too, so I'd like to see the same thing here, regardless of whether the fetus is a person.
I'm an atheist but it sure as hell is not going to prevent me from invoking acts of God out clause in contracts when it suits my purpose. Move on.
