American Civil Liberties Union

Today is an historic day, no doubt. President Obama signed into law a bill repealing the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Now that that has been checked off the list, we need to remind his administration that there are lots of other things to address, including ensuring that hospitals provide emergency abortion care to pregnant women.

This issue came to the nation’s attention when a hospital in Phoenix, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, provided a life-saving abortion to a young mother of four children who was dying from pulmonary hypertension and was 11 weeks pregnant. (We’ve previously blogged on this issue here and here.) Last week, the Bishop in Phoenix threatened to strip St. Joseph’s of its status as an official Catholic hospital unless St. Joseph’s agreed to sign a written pledge that it would not perform another life-saving abortion. The diocese made good on that threat yesterday, and stripped St. Joseph’s of its endorsement after the hospital defended its actions. As Amie Newman of RH Reality Check discussed last night, St. Joseph’s refused to agree to allow their patients to die. The hospital said, “Morally, ethically, and legally we simply cannot stand by and let someone die whose life we might be able to save.”

In a disturbing development, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix is pressuring one of the nation's largest hospital systems to stop providing life-saving abortions. This extreme stance by the diocese was made public yesterday after the media published a vitriolic letter that the Bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olmsted, wrote to Catholic Healthcare West (CHW).

(A version of this blog post was originally posted on Huffington Post.)

Tomorrow morning, the Kentucky Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case of Cochran v. Commonwealth, a case that could have enormous consequences for healthy moms and babies in that state.

Ms. Cochran's road to Kentucky's Supreme Court has been a long one. Almost four years ago, Ms. Cochran gave birth to a baby girl. Her daughter allegedly tested positive for cocaine, and for that alone, Ms. Cochran was charged with felony child abuse. However, before her case could go to trial, the court dismissed the prosecution. The court was right: Ms. Cochran never should have been charged. In 1993, in Commonwealth v. Welch (the ACLU represented Ms. Welch in that case), the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky's criminal laws could not be used to punish women who become and choose to remain pregnant despite a substance abuse problem.