“It is damning that here in California, where abortion care is a constitutional right, we have a hospital implementing a policy that’s reminiscent of heartbeat laws in extremist red states,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said.

A Catholic hospital in Northern California is facing a lawsuit by the state’s attorney general after it reportedly refused to perform an abortion on a woman whose pregnancy was not viable and whose life was in danger.

Anna Nusslock was already in severe crisis when she and her husband Daniel arrived last February at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, according to the suit, which AG Rob Bonta filed Monday in Humboldt County Superior Court. A doctor examined Nusslock, who was 15 weeks pregnant with twins, and told her they would not survive, the suit explains.

Without a dilation and evacuation procedure, or, what is commonly known as “an abortion,” Nusslock was also at risk of death, the complaint contends.

However, it goes on, “Providence refused to allow Anna’s doctors to treat her, as the hospital’s policies prohibited them from terminating a pregnancy so long as they could detect fetal heart tones. The only exception was if the mother’s life was at immediate risk, a high threshold that Anna apparently did not yet reach. Only at some poorly defined point in the future, when Anna was close enough to death, would Providence permit her doctors to intervene. Until then, Anna and her physicians could do nothing but wait, worry, and hope.”

        • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
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          11 days ago

          I’m pretty sure they mean human-caused catastrophes. Although if we count meat consumption as a sort of quasi-religious behavior then maybe you’re right.

        • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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          I’m aware, and I stand by what I said.

          Estimates place death from all wars since recorded history at 1.1 billion. I’ll grant you a bone and say religion has been responsible for an additional 2 billion deaths through any other means throughout all of history.

          Mosquito borne diseases are estimated to have killed 52 billion people throughout history.

          Original comment said religion killed more than all other causes put together. That’s just simply not true.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            Cause in the context above would probably be ideological. So the meaning is compared to other forms of ideology or other reasons for people to kill each other. Not natural disaster or diseases. Because obviously most people die from natural causes, and are not killed.

            The original quote that was probably thought of is:
            George Carlin: “More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason”

        • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
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          Which is like 95% of all war. Mein Kampf mentions god literally dozens of times. No secular democracies have ever gone to war with each other, and virtually all autocratic regimes are religious.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          There’s SO many causes of heart disease, many of which are exacerbated and sometimes even caused by religion.

          Besides, if you’re religious enough to be a creationist, it stands to reason (to use the least appropriate word possible) that you believe ALL misery was created by your deity, including malaria.

      • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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        Yeah, I have to agree it’s basically assuredly not true, even when accounting for:

        • Wars, genocides, and individual people killed over religion.
        • Suicides linked to religious abuse by institutions and by zealots.
        • Religion stifling the advancement of medicine such as in the case of stem cell research.
        • The brand of “god’s will” bullshit that leads to preventable deaths in lieu of treatment.

        Undoubtedly religion is hugely harmful, and I’m its biggest detractor that I personally know, but we live in an era where heart disease and cancer exist. Even saying religion causes a plurality of deaths would be wrong; “more than all others combined” is bullshit on a level that I can’t believe it got so many upvotes.

        We can say that religion results in a fuckload of unnecessary deaths without lying.

        • Zexks@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          So what about the hundreds of years where medical science was banned from studying the body. Where they had to steal corpses and learn in secrecy. How many deaths from cancer and heart disease could have prevented had we not been stifled.

          • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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            11 days ago

            We are still banned from studying stem cells to a degree or using them for cures if they came from a fetus. Religion is still preventing medical advancement for no reason.

          • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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            11 days ago
            • You want to elaborate on when and how this happened? Because it wasn’t “hundreds of years”; it was like 20 and limited to European Christians.
            • Do you have even vague figures grounded in fact that can make this comparable to current deaths by all other causes? That scientists during this 20-ish year period would have discovered something groundbreaking? Because by this line, I can say the leading cause of death – moreso than others combined – is Grug tripping over a rock circa 40,000 BCE and hitting his balls, thereby preventing the greatest scientist of all time from being born and curing cancer.
            • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
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              11 days ago

              And the dark ages?

              Look, any non-natural human-caused suffering I can think of can be linked to cults. And religion is just a super popular cult.

        • nfh@lemmy.world
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          I’ve been thinking about this for a minute, and I think a good standard here is making a list of (relatively) non-overlapping causes of death that have claimed over a billion human lives.

          Infectious disease is almost certainly at least one entry on this list, primarily secular war as well, starvation/famine probably a few times over, cancer and heart disease are probably distinct entries, and death attempting to grow/hunt food. I suspect deaths by religion could be on that list as well, but it’s the entry I’m least confident in.

          In every sense of the word, this is a bad list to be on, but I don’t think religion is near the biggest culprit on the list, even if you do a lot of special pleading, and group all deaths by religious cause together, but split each disease, war, etc up for some reason.

    • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
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      I religion is shit, but mosquitoes (and the myriad of illnesses they transmit) have killed more humans than humans have.

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Maybe let’s leave the edgy atheist bullshit back on reddit. It adds nothing to the conversation and is just said to piss people off

  • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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    Faith is less than nothing when weighed against observable, measurable fact. Religion should never be allowed to overrule science.

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
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      I believe in freedom of religion, but if your religion prohibits you from the practice of medicine, you are not allowed to have a hospital. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists don’t have hospitals either.

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        Religion is like your dick: keep it to yourself in public, only share it with the consent of others, and you’re solely responsible for any consequences arising from its use.

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        if your religion prohibits you from the practice of medicine, you are not allowed to have a hospital.

        That should be obvious, but to the religious it’s apparently not.

        Freedom of religion is an overused term, to allow special treatment for religion.
        Religions should have no more rights than ideology, because they are nothing more.
        They should have no more protection against discrimination than ideology, because they are nothing more.
        That means a harmful religion can be banned, and it is NOT discrimination but civilization.
        We have freedom of thought, but religion should not have priority or privileges over other types of thought.

    • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Nearly all our hospitals are run by church folk, so their beliefs are applied to all patients. Certain elective or life saving procedures alike have seen this story in some form.

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    Hospitals should not be owned religious institutions. Here is a general reminder to anyone who has a Primary Care at a Catholic or Christian hospital. If you have an alternative hospital that supports the full spectrum of reproductive health, then leave the religious zealot hospital and tell them why.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      This is my take. They’re pretty much a business.

      Catholic colleges too. They’re making money AND taking public funds.

    • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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      People should also be aware that not all catholic hospitals are open about being catholic. In some areas they are buying up smaller practices and entire hospitals but keeping it’s previous name so it’s confusing and harder to avoid them.

  • Regna@lemmy.world
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    At least they had compassionate nurses…

    Painted into a corner, the Nusslocks were forced to drive to a nearby facility that was not bound by religious restriction — but not before a nurse at Providence handed them a bucket and some towels “in case something happens in the car.”

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      Our healthcare system is so efficient that after a hospital refuses to provide care thanks to religious nutjobs, the at-risk patient has to take a bucket and a towel and drive themselves to another hospital instead of being taken by an ambulance with actual medical personnel. Maybe they were just 10 grand short of being able to afford it.

      Holy fuck.

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Religion is not necessary for humans to come together in a shared plan to cause harm to others.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            11 days ago

            I think you need to religiously hold an ideology to die or kill for it.
            The only form of ideology that is always religious is religion.

            Also your post is whataboutism.

            • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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              You don’t need religion to do that. I got two words for you: Donald Trump. And it isn’t whataboutism, it’s filling in more context to make a truer and broader point. It just kills the anti-religion jackoff fest the internet loves so much.

              There’s plenty that can be awful about religion, and we just make ourselves look stupid when we wrongly try to make its evils singular, exclusive to itself. It’s far less comfortable to see that this is a human thing, rather than a religious thing. Pretending It’s only a religious thing and then not being religious pushes the problem away to a nice, safe distance, where we can talk about “them” and fundamentally leave ourselves out of it.

              Do note that religion only ever seems to be a problem when it’s conservative or authoritarian, a pattern that holds for many things outside of religion as well, and with startling consistency.

              • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                11 days ago

                The comment was:

                Daily reminder that religion is a monstrous evil.

                And you wrote:

                Religion is not necessary…

                That’s the definition of whataboutism.

                Do note that religion only ever seems to be a problem when it’s conservative or authoritarian

                Religions claim authority and are authoritarian by definition, religion is extremely harmful just by the fact that it preaches immortality. You also don’t need to be conservative to believe in faith healing. There may be few exceptions to the rule, but by far the most religions contain these harmful doctrines.

              • Senal@programming.dev
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                Do note that religion only ever seems to be a problem when it’s conservative or authoritarian, a pattern that holds for many things outside of religion as well.

                That’s disingenuous at best.

                Religion is a problem when it used to push principles on to other people ( specifically when those principles are harmful and unwelcome ), conservative and authoritarian principles happen to lend themselves to this kind of behaviour quite readily which is why you see criticism aimed at those types of religions.

                and with startling consistency.

                Perhaps it might be worth looking in to why this consistency exists.

            • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              I think you need to religiously hold an ideology to die or kill for it.

              Thank you for telling me you’re not worth talking to, bye.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    Freedom of religion my ass.
    Religion is harmful and dangerous, and should absolutely be required to follow the law at the very minimum.
    Otherwise it cannot be acknowledged in a civilized society. And should not only lose tax benefits, but be outlawed.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      “Freedom of religion” at this point is a relic from when literally everyone was severely delusional. Religion and voting is like drinking and driving.

  • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.social
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    I think to call yourself a hospital the law should require them to adhere to medical science, not a religious belief. If they want to be religion first, and medical second, then they should be a private clinic that is labeled as such so people know they are not going to get the full hospital medical care one would expect from an institution calling itself a hospital.

    • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
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      We should have a law that keeps religious organizations from receiving Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements. That would stop this shit real quick.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    supreme court gonna allow this deadly nonsense and turn hospitals into religious death panels. Let the doctors decide things not a bunch of bean counters