Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Editor’s Note, April 25, 2025: MercyOne and the other defendants initially filed their reply in support of its motion for application of the noneconomic damages cap on March 31. In a court hearing on April 18, the attorney for CHI and MercyOne informed the court it was withdrawing from the motion to cap damages.
It also released a statement that the argument was “accurate from a purely legal standpoint” but “has caused confusion and concern” as it “called into question” its “belief that human personhood would ever be called into question.” After Roe fell in 2022, MercyOne, a Catholic health system based in Iowa, released this statement: “As a Catholic health system, MercyOne believes all life is sacred including the lives of pregnant women and unborn children. MercyOne does not allow elective abortions” but “will save the life of the mother” if she has “life-threatening complications in pregnancy.” Abortion remained legal in Iowa for another two years and is still legal if a fetal heartbeat is undetectable. But MercyOne has said it remains committed to the sanctity of unborn life.
With apparently one exception. Recently, within a medical malpractice lawsuit arising from the stillbirth of a baby at approximately 36 weeks of pregnancy, a MercyOne hospital in Des Moines and its fellow defendants sang a different tune. They argued that this death of an unborn life wasn’t a serious injury or a substantial loss of bodily function.
The defendants, again including a Catholic hospital, argue that the baby’s stillbirth wasn’t even a death, arguing that fetal death is not death and referring to the baby as a nonexistent person. Why would the Catholic hospital belittle unborn life so? Simply, money.
Minimizing the injury is within their financial interests. And apparently, financial interests are strong enough to override the sacredness of unborn life. In the abortion context, a sacred, unborn life is killed.
In the context of allegations that medical malpractice caused stillbirth, really nothing happened. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The hypocrisy is obvious. But don’t overlook the crassness, only adding to the trauma for these plaintiffs grieving their daughter’s potentially preventable stillbirth.
Those plaintiffs are Miranda Anderson and Landen Anderson. In 2021, the Andersons were looking forward to the birth of their daughter, whom they had named Eloise Irene. Miranda was 35 weeks, 5 days pregnant when she began having symptoms of preeclampsia.
She received medical treatment numerous times in the next week and was always sent home. Eight days after her first visit after the appearance of symptoms, her baby was dead. Miranda gave birth to her dead baby daughter via C-section delivery.
The Andersons’ lawsuit alleges that Eloise would be alive today had the medical providers acted properly and timely induced labor. Advertisement Related From Slate The Courage To Be Decent Read More The defendants are trying to limit their liability by way of Iowa’s cap on the recovery of noneconomic damages—damages without a market value, like damages for emotional distress and lost parent-child relationship—in a medical malpractice claim. Under state law, plaintiffs in these cases can recover only $250,000 in noneconomic damages unless the plaintiff’s injury constitutes “substantial or permanent loss or impairment of bodily function, substantial disfigurement, or death.” MercyOne and its fellow defendants argue that none of these exceptions apply.
Again, the Catholic Hospital even argues that fetal death as late as 36 weeks is not death; baby Eloise was not (yet) alive. Advertisement MercyOne’s argument also includes another minimizing sentiment—that the Andersons really haven’t suffered much injury because they can have another baby. This is common in wrongfully caused pregnancy loss cases (and in pregnancy loss narratives generally); the loss is often devalued because the woman can simply have another baby.
Specifically, the defendants argue that Anderson’s reproductive abilities still “function in a normal manner.” Well, yes, but this sentiment ignores the possible trauma of subsequent pregnancy and the increased risk of stillbirth due to her prior stillbirth. Relatedly, the defendants dismiss the possibility of Anderson’s C-section scar as disfigurement even though it will likely mean more C-sections in those future pregnancies. This problem-solved sentiment that the impacted couple can just have a new baby is yet another curious juxtaposition to the hospital’s apparent view on the sacredness of life lost in abortion.
Surely the hospital would never suggest that a sacred life lost in abortion could be so simply replaced with a future baby. Yet, the Andersons’ injury is minimal because, again, their reproductive abilities still function in a normal manner. Advertisement Advertisement MercyOne is hypocritically bending itself into a pretzel to serve its financial interests.
Perversely, “dead babies”—those who do not survive childbirth—are much cheaper in medical malpractice litigation that “damaged babies”—those who do survive but with traumatic injuries—especially in a state like Iowa with a cap on noneconomic damages. A living but injured baby means both economic and noneconomic damages, and the economic damages could be extensive—medical expenses for a NICU stay, possibly long-lasting medical expenses continuing for injuries. Medical expense economic damages are not capped; defendants will have to pay all of them if liable for medical malpractice.
But dead, unborn babies create only noneconomic damages for the parents. From a medical malpractice liability perspective, dead, unborn babies are preferred. Advertisement Advertisement We wait to see how Iowa courts will handle this Catholic hospital’s arguments diminishing the Andersons’ injury.
If the courts agree, as I argue in my recently published book Stillbirth & the Law, the result would not be unique to Iowa. Noneconomic damage caps are common in red states, the same states that are more likely to ban abortion. There is no question in Texas law that if medical malpractice causes the death of unborn life, the health care provider is liable to the formerly pregnant woman only for $250,000—even though Texas legislators, like the Iowa-based Catholic hospital, claim to believe in the sacredness of unborn life.
This may be surprising, but it shouldn’t be. Again, apparently not all unborn life is sacred.
