Bishops and Bodies

Reproductive Care in American Catholic Hospitals

Lori Freedman

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781978828865
  9781978828872
• eBook ISBN:
  9781978828896
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gynecology, Obstetrics & Midwifery
• Index: Social Sciences

Winner of the 2024 Donald W. Light Award for Applied Medical Sociology, American Sociological Association's Section on Medical Sociology

One out of every six patients in the United States is treated in a Catholic hospital that follows the policies of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. These policies prohibit abortion, sterilization, contraception, some treatments for miscarriage and gender confirmation, and other reproductive care, undermining hard-won patients' rights to bodily autonomy and informed decision-making. Drawing on rich interviews with patients and providers, this book reveals both how the bishops' directives operate and how people inside Catholic hospitals navigate the resulting restrictions on medical practice. In doing so, Bishops and Bodies fleshes out a vivid picture of how The Church's stance on sex, reproduction, and "life" itself manifests in institutions that affect us all.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Debra Stulberg
• Prologue: Unsafe and Unequal
• Introduction: Doctrinal Iatrogenesis
• 1. Growth: How Catholic Health Care Expanded
• 2. Inferior: How Catholic Directives Contradict Medical Standards
• 3. Consumer Medicine?: Patients and the Illusion of Choice
• 4. Emergencies: Patient Loss and Suffering
• 5. Mostly Above-Board Workarounds
• 6. Under-the-Radar Workarounds
• 7. Separation of Church and Hospital
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Positionality, Methods, and Scholarly Journey
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• Series Titles