On Monday night’s episode of “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” Bee gave American women the pep talk we so desperately needed after last week’s presidential debate.
She sat down with Madeleine Albright and totally destroyed Trump over his comments about abortion ― and she also delivered a powerful takedown of why Catholic hospitals are so bad for women’s health.
After taking Trump to task for his dangerous language about late-term abortions ― Bee brings up the increasing trend of Catholic churches merging with or buying hospitals. In recent years, many of the Catholic church’s health care systems like OSF Healthcare in the midwest and Providence Health & Services in the west have purchased more and more medical facilities around the country. The problem, though, is that once these facilities are sponsored by the Catholic church, they are obligated to provide care that is based on the church’s religious principles.
This means that hospitals owned by Catholic health care systems won’t perform sterilizations or provide contraception. This also means that they won’t provide abortions for any reason ― even if pregnancy or birth will cause severe harm or even death to the mother.
Several women featured in the video had already-traumatic health scares made even more traumatic due to Catholic hospitals’ refusing treatment. One woman was even denied a tubal ligation after having endured an emergency C-section that almost killed her.
And, according to one of the experts in the segment, for many American women these hospitals are the most accessible. For women with reproductive health care emergencies ― like one woman in the segment who was forced to give birth to her son who had fatal birth defects, putting her life at risk ― these hospitals pose an incredible risk to women’s health.
Watch the clip above for Bee’s take on why Catholic hospitals are so dangerous for women.
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