A hearing on Providence St. Joseph Hospital’s request to dismiss large portions of a lawsuit the California Attorney General’s Office filed last year alleging the Catholic-based provider violated state laws by denying a local woman emergency abortion care is set for Feb. 14 in Humboldt County Superior Court.
In filings this week, the AG’s Office asks Judge Timothy Canning to allow the case to proceed, disputing Providence’s arguments for requesting the dismissal — including that the hospital’s First Amendment right to the free practice of religion protects its faith-based policies.
The AG’s rebuttal also notes St. Joseph’s demurrer does not dispute that California’s Emergency Services Law “requires hospitals to provide abortion care when needed to treat a medical emergency,” and, in fact, “affirmatively argues” its own policies — set in accordance with Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services created by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — contradict the law.
“The stakes of this could not be clearer: having acknowledged that they have, and will continue to, violate a law which requires them to adequately care for patients experiencing life-threatening medical emergencies, SJH now asks this court to condone their conduct by dismissing this action,” the AG’s Office states. “The court should overrule SJH’s demurrer because each of SJH’s six arguments fail.”
Brought in September, the lawsuit argues the hospital broke the ESL by not only refusing to provide the care doctors determined was medically necessary for the pregnant mother of twins, whose water broke at 15 weeks, leaving no chance for the children’s survival, but discharged her to get the procedure at another facility, with the woman saying in a declaration that a nurse gave her a bucket and some towels “in case something happens in the car” on the way.
By the time Anna Nusslock was admitted to the now shuttered labor and delivery unit at Mad River Community Hospital, she says she’d passed “an apple-sized blood clot” and a doctor there described her condition as “not clinically stable,” saying she “appeared to be deteriorating.”
The Emergency Services Law (ESL), the AG’s Office argues, “represents a basic promise to all Californians: If you experience a medical emergency, a hospital will provide the care you need without regard to your ability to pay or other characteristics” and the “only time a hospital can decline to treat a patient is if it lacks the personnel or facilities needed to provide the requisite care.”
“While nonpregnant patients can expect SJH doctors to treat them to the limits of their ability, pregnant patients, and pregnant patients alone, see their care vetoed by hospital policy,” the AG’s Office states.
While the state of California and Providence St. Joseph reached an agreement in October, under which the hospital’s medical staff would follow the law’s requirements by allowing a patient’s pregnancy to be terminated when necessary to protect a mother’s health, a footnote in the hospital’s demurrer appeared to undercut the stipulation.
In its own footnote, the AG’s rebuttal states: “Concerningly, SJH asserts that it only intends to comply with this court’s October 29, 2024, order to the extent doing so does not contradict the Ethical and Religious Directives that are the foundation of its First Amendment argument. “
“This court’s order has no such limitation and requires SJH to comply with the ESL without regard to its internal policies,” the AG’s footnote continues. “The People reserve all rights to enforce the court’s order. Should SJH refuse to provide care to a patient as required by the ESL and the court order, the People will seek all appropriate forms of relief including contempt for willful, premeditated disobedience of a lawful court order.”
On the First Amendment issue, the AG’s Office says St. Joseph’s arguments fail because the ESL does not violate the hospital’s free speech rights, pointing to a Ninth Circuit case in which a student in San Diego challenged a vaccine mandate that allowed for medical but not religious exemptions to the requirement.
“The court rejected plaintiff’s argument that this mandate impermissibly favored secular activity over similar religious conduct, explaining that “the medical exemption . . . serves the primary interest for imposing the mandate — protecting student ‘health and safety’ — and so does not undermine the district’s interests as a religious exemption would.”
The rebuttal also disputes Providence’s arguments on the AG’s jurisdiction to lawsuit, including that the state Legislature gave the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) the primary role of investigating and determining potential violations of the ESL, as well as the authority to penalize hospitals for a violation.
In addition to asking Canning to dismiss the bulk of the lawsuit, Providence is also asking that the rest of the suit be stayed pending a state investigation by that agency.
“Although the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) also has a role in enforcing the ESL, the law explicitly authorizes the Attorney General (AG) to bring lawsuits such as this one,” the rebuttal states. “There is no basis to indefinitely delay this lawsuit while a potential CDPH administrative investigation proceeds.”
The hospital also faces a similar suit filed Dec. 12 on behalf of an anonymous woman referred to as Jane Roe, alleging she was also denied emergency medical services in the form of a needed abortion under circumstances similar to Nusslock’s.
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This article appears in Enter the Papaya Lounge.
Next, please help me sue St. Josephs for throwing me out of a hospital bed, and into the streets after needing an “Emergency Rape Kit” after a violent rape. When the Arcata policeman, Ortega, told them not to see me because he wouldn’t investigate the rape, the hospital threw me out without care!! I literally walked into their glass doors I was so abused and mistreated and in shock!!!! That hospital did major negligence and abuses to me.