Bishops and Bodies: Reproductive Care in American Catholic Hospitals [Paperback]

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 Bodiesfleshes out a vivid picture of how The Church’s stance on sex, reproduction, and “life” itself manifests in institutions that affect us all.Four out of the ten largest U.S. health care systems follow the policies of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that forbid abortion, sterilization, and related treatments in their hospitals. Drawing on rich interviews with patients and providers,Bishops and Bodiesshows how these opaque restrictions conflict with medical standards, producing unjust and unequal reproductive care.

LORI FREEDMANis a sociologist, bioethicist, and professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences with the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author ofWilling and Unable: Doctors’ Constraints in Abortion Care.

DEBRA STULBERGis a professor and department chair of family medicine at the University of Chicago.

Foreword by Debra Stulberg
Prologue: Unsafe and Unequal
Introduction: Doctrinal Iatrogenesis
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