HOSPITAL SYSTEM PLANS TO DENY LGBT WORKERS FERTILITY COVERAGE

A Catholic hospital system operating 15 hospitals and another 132 facilities in Illinois and Michigan has adopted a policy to cover fertility treatment only for workers in opposite-sex marriages.

 

Illinois-based OSF HealthCare, which has more than 24,000 health care workers, changed the language of its fertility treatment policy to explicitly refer to opposite sex-couples, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg Law, meaning employees who are in same-sex marriages would not be covered.

 

The policy could be illegal under federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

 

It would also would likely run afoul of the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, which ruled an employer cannot discriminate against an individual based on their sexual orientation, as it would violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

 

OSF HealthCare is owned by the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, a Roman Catholic organization in Peoria, Ill.