It’s a tragic case, where a pregnant Michigan woman apparently did not get the best medical care from a Catholic hospital in her crisis. But rather than go after the medical staff involved, who may have not provided the right information and treatment, the ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan are suing the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, claiming that the Church’s “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” wrongly prevent Catholic health professionals and institutions from performing abortions even when these are needed for the sake of the woman.

Why sue the bishops and not the doctors? Kevin Walsh at Mirror of Justice suggests that one reason is to get around the statute of limitations that applies in this instance. Another reason? “[T]o place a dark cloud over Catholic healthcare more generally.”

It is that second possibility that has grabbed the attention, of course: those backward Catholics casually endanger women’s lives by clinging to their obsolescent and anti-empirical views on abortion. The government should force Catholic doctors and hospitals to abandon their cramped theology and instead always render the best medical care possible.

The reality of law, ethics, faith, and medical practice is, of course, more complicated.

Here’s what the USCCB said in response to the lawsuit:

“The [Ethical and Religious Directives] urge respectful and compassionate care for both mothers and their children, both during and after pregnancy. Regarding abortion, the ERDs restate the universal and consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on defending the life of the unborn child-a defense that, as Pope Francis recently reminded us, “is closely linked to the defense of each and every other human right” (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 213). This same commitment to the life of each human individual has motivated Catholics to establish the nation’s largest network of nonprofit health care ministries. These ministries provide high-quality care to women and children, including those who lack health coverage and financial resources. The Church’s rejection of abortion also mirrors the Hippocratic Oath that gave rise to the very idea of medicine as a profession, a calling with its own life-affirming moral code.

“A robust Catholic presence in health care helps build a society where medical providers show a fierce devotion to the life and health of each patient, including those most marginalized and in need. It witnesses against a utilitarian calculus about the relative value of different human lives. And it provides a haven for pregnant women and their unborn children regardless of their financial resources.”

And here’s what The American Prospect noted (in an article that grudgingly notes in its title, “Bishops May Not Be the Crooks This Time”):

“The very notion that hospitals can decide what kind of care they will provide based on their religious affiliation is ensconced in federal law; shortly after Roe v. Wade was handed down, Congress passed a broadly worded ‘conscience clause’ prohibiting public officials from requiring doctors or institutions who receive government funds to perform abortion or sterilization procedures if they object on moral grounds. Since then, virtually all of the states have enacted some kind of conscience clause legislation–Michigan allows both individual providers and institutions to refuse to provide abortion–and the federal government’s protections on the religious right of refusal have only expanded.

“[T]he heart of the ACLU’s complaint seems to be less about the directives themselves than the government’s broad protections for conscientious refusal, which provides the legal justification for the guidelines in the first place. It’s hard to argue that the USCCB shouldn’t tell Catholic hospitals to follow Catholic teachings when U.S. law allows so much leeway for individual health care providers’ religious beliefs, and explicitly counts institutions among those individuals.”

Patients ought always to get the best medical care possible. But medical care is and must be a matter of ethics and not just techniques, and our society does not have a uniform view of ethics. However this particular medical tragedy should be understood and its recurrence prevented, nothing should be done to drive ethical considerations out of medicine–even if we cannot agree exactly on the ethics.