UC's planned partnership with a Catholic hospital chain could be unconstitutional

[trotsky]

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-ucsf-dignity-partnership-20190503-story.html

Some of the troubling issues raised by the proposed “affiliation” between UC San Francisco, the state’s premier medical school, and the Catholic hospital chain Dignity Health are becoming clear.

There are the moral issues bound up in the idea of a public university partnering with a system that openly discriminates against women and transgender patients purely on religious grounds. And the ethical issues related to doctors having to misrepresent their patients’ conditions in order to fend off Catholic bishops’ interference with their professional judgments.

But another issue may have a greater impact on whether the UC regents ultimately give the plan their blessing: whether it’s even legal or constitutional.

...On Thursday, the Trump administration issued a final rule allowing healthcare workers — including doctors, nurses, paramedics and pharmacists — to refuse to provide care based on their own “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” The rule is being cast as protection for religious practices, but in fact it’s a weapon aimed at “women, LGBTQ people and religious minorities,” says Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The rule’s text makes clear that clearing the way for healthcare providers to refuse to perform abortions is among its chief goals.