Members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops during the annual fall meeting in Baltimore. © AP PHOTO/GERALD HERBERT

After their November meeting in Baltimore, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops announced that the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) will be revised following direction from the Vatican. According to a press release from the bishops’ conference, in February the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) instructed the USCCB to revise the ERDs’ language “to ensure that Catholic health care institutions neither cooperate immorally with the unacceptable procedures conducted in other health care entities with which they may be connected,” referring to agreements that are sometimes made in mergers with non-Catholic institutions.

American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Legal Director Louise Melling explained the potential impact of the changes to Modern Healthcare magazine: “Anything that tightens the nature of the agreement such that Catholic health care facilities would have to impose those requirements on others, including those that they just partner with, continues to increase the threat [to women’s] access … to reproductive health services throughout the country.”