Politics
Tuesday January 8, 2008
Catholic Hospital Sued for Refusing Breast Surgery to Make Man Look Like A Woman
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Hilary White
NEW YORK, January 8, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the case of a California Catholic hospital being sued by a man who demanded breast enhancement surgery, the US Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has reminded the media that there is no such thing as a "right" to "sex-change" surgery.
A man named Charlene Hastings, referred to in the media as a "transgender woman", has launched a suit against Seton Medical Center, a Catholic hospital in San Mateo County, near San Francisco, claiming officials had discriminated against him because of his "sex-change operation".
So called "sex-change" surgery is the popularly prescribed solution when a person suffers from the conviction that he or she was "born as the wrong sex." The Catholic League issued a media release saying that the suit is a threat to the hospital's right to operate as a religiously based institution.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented, "There are some medical procedures that run counter to Catholic moral teaching, and they include direct euthanasia, embryonic stem cell experimentation and cloning. If Catholic hospitals are denied the right to proscribe such operations, it effectively nullifies their right to remain Catholic."
The hospital, run by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, says the request violates Catholic teaching. The Catholic Church holds with the scientific evidence that a person's sex is determined genetically at the moment of conception and no surgical mutilations or drug treatments can change this most fundamental aspect of an individual's human nature. A "sex-change", therefore, is impossible since a person's sex is built into his genetic code.
Much of the psychiatric and medical community, however, has adopted the notion that an individual's sex is a malleable, self-determined concept that can be changed at will.
Homosexual activists have targeted, with lawsuits, Catholic and other Christian institutions for what they allege is the Church's "hatred" of homosexuals because of its refusal to accept this concept. Donohue pointed out that there are other institutions that would happily grant the plaintiff's request.
He said, "What this case represents is nothing short of vengeance against a Catholic hospital simply because it practices Catholicism. Such intolerance, and such complete disdain for the diversity that Catholic institutions offer, has no legitimate place in our society."
Elizabeth Nikels, vice president of communications for Daughters of Charity, said that the hospital "provides medically necessary services to all individuals."
"However, the hospital does not perform surgical procedures contrary to Catholic teaching; for example, abortion, direct euthanasia, transgender surgery or any of its related components."
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.