According to reports, on Monday, a Catholic hospital changed its decision to refuse post-birth sterilization to a pregnant woman following the ACLU threatened to take legal action against it. This shows the reproductive health differences emerging at religiously-affiliated hospitals in the country.

The San Francisco-based Dignity Health, which is California's largest private health care network and the fifth-largest in the nation, is the owner of Mercy Medical Center. The hospital said in April that it wouldn't give patient Rachel Miller a tubal ligation following her caesarean section, which has to be done next month. The hospital referred to Ethical and Religious Directives of church that disallow reproductive health care procedures such as sterilization.

Miller is an attorney, belonging to Redding, California. She joined the ACLU for protesting the decision that the hospital had told her doctor. The ACLU said in a letter to Dignity Health that there was discrimination based on sex as the hospital denied Miller a tubal ligation, and it leads to "theological tenets over patient health".

According to Elizabeth Gill, senior attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, "While we’re grateful Mercy Medical has agreed to provide medical care in this instance for Ms. Miller, the reality remains that there is a clear conflict between the best interests of patients and the directives of the Catholic hospital system”. Gill added that religious institutions that offer services to the public should not make decisions on the basis of religion for discriminating or denying health care.