CCI Editor’s Note: Calling all Catholics – Please take the time to write or call Cardinal Blase Cupich and ask him how a hospital can call itself Catholic when it facilitates the prescription of abortifacient contraceptives and referrals for abortion, claiming they don’t intervene. Apparently for Presence Health, abortion is just another choice.
Is anyone it charge? Does anyone defend the teachings of the Catholic Church in Chicago? What does “intrinsic evil” mean? When is murder of the innocent permitted?
Pray for the Church and the bishops to fulfill their duty to teach, sanctify and rule.
A subsidy for Presence Health to build its downtown headquarters is backed by Mayor Emanuel, the NAACP and a union but opposed by downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly, shown Sept. 13, 2016, Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women’s Chicago chapter.
By Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune, January 12, 2017
Chicago aldermen on Friday gave preliminary approval to a $5.6 million subsidy for Presence Health to build its downtown headquarters despite concerns about the Catholic organization’s opposition to abortion and birth control.
The City Council Finance Committee voted 13-7 to approve the deal. It’s backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the NAACP and a union representing hospitality workers but opposed by downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly, Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women’s Chicago chapter.
At issue is Presence Health’s policy of hewing to U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ directives that “elective abortions are never permitted” and “direct sterilization of either men or women, whether permanent or temporary, is not permitted in a Catholic health care institution,” unless it is the only available option to a medical malady.
Those policies were weighed against Presence’s pledge to spend $15.5 million to build or redevelop four community care centers in neighborhoods where local health services are scarce.
The plan is part of the overall agreement aldermen were considering, but the $5.6 million subsidy was for Presence Health’s $13.3 million headquarters at 200 S. Wacker Drive. The city money would come out of a downtown tax increment financing district fund, from which property taxes are set aside to spur development and create jobs.
Dr. Laura Concannon, regional chief medical officer for Presence Health, addressed the issue of reconciling her company’s “ethical and religious directive” with some patients’ desire for abortions or birth control.
Women who want “elective abortions” are referred to facilities and doctors able to provide them, she said.
“We do not refuse it, we do not discourage it, we do not counsel patients against it,” she said. “We open up to whatever they feel like is the best for their care, and then we make sure that it happens.”
And doctors working at Presence facilities who are not directly employed by the company can prescribe contraceptives if they are “medically indicated,” Concannon said. Only 10 percent of the doctors are directly employed by Presence, she added.
“We do not intervene in the relationship between the patient and the physician,” she said. “There are many medical indications for birth control.”
Those explanations weren’t enough to satisfy Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, in whose ward the Presence headquarters was built.
“My issue here is not with the quality of care that Presence Health provides,” said Reilly, who added that he was not invoking aldermanic privilege to try to kill the request because Presence provides services at facilities throughout the city. “They have a sterling reputation. They serve many thousands of medical clients and they do it well.
“For me, the issue comes down to: Should the city of Chicago be providing a public subsidy — city tax dollars — to fund a hospital system that does not provide those basic reproductive health services? And for me, as pro-choice, also Catholic, I can’t support this request.”
But several aldermen spoke out in favor of Presence, saying they and the people they represent had been treated well at Presence facilities. One was Ald. Michelle Harris, 8th, who said people she knows who use the system had been able to get abortions and contraceptives when they chose to go that route. “If they don’t do it, they refer you out,” Harris said.
Emanuel spokesman Grant Klinzman said the subsidy was sponsored by the mayor, who supports abortion rights. The ordinance is moving forward “at the request of 16 aldermen who strongly advocate for its benefits to neighborhoods and residents who would otherwise be unable to access critical health services,” he said.
“It supports four other health care centers in areas of need, including the only cancer center serving the West Side of Chicago north of I-290,” Klinzman said in a statement.
hdardick@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @ReporterHal
Contact by mail or phone
Cardinal Blase J. Cupich
Archbishop of Chicago
PO Box 1979
Chicago, IL 60690-1979
Tel: 312.534.8230
Fax: 312.534.6379
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