Catholic Health Care System Restricts Same-Sex Fertility Benefits
OSF HealthCare, a Catholic hospital system out of Illinois, has restricted the employee health plan benefits it offers to LGBTQ employees.The health care system changed its policy by narrowing the insurance plan’s definition of “infertility” from any person unable to get pregnant to “the inability for a married couple of opposite sex spouses to conceive.” According to Bloomberg News, OSF HealthCare has characterized the policy shift as attempting to “assist married opposite sex spouses” in conceiving a child.OSF HealthCare operates around 147 medical facilities in Illinois and Michigan, with over 24,000 employees. By amending the definition of fertility, only straight people — more accurately, employees in opposite-sex relationships — will be able to have their fertility treatments covered by their employee health care plan.Given the Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality and marriage, it is not surprising to see religious institutions or religiously-affiliated employers adopting policies that exclude LGBTQ individuals from benefits typically offered to married couples.Critics were quick to denounce OSF HealthCare’s new policy, arguing that an employer is not denying treatment to some of its workers due to “objections to the treatment they are seeking” — as it might in the case of an abortion or gender confirmation surgery — but merely due to their LGBTQ identity.Peter Romer-Friedman, an attorney who is representing a same-sex male couple who claims they were denied coverage for in vitro fertilization under New York City’s health insurance plan, told Bloomberg that he believes OSF HealthCare’s actions are a clear “violation” of federal workplace discrimination.