title: The role of Catholic nurses in women's health care policy disputes: a historical study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Catholic Church oversees the nation's largest group of not-for-profit health care facilities, and in certain areas a Catholic hospital is the only hospital available. Recently, Catholic hospitals' provision of health care services to women in the areas of reproductive procedures has come under scrutiny.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This article examines the role of Catholic sister nurses in health policy for women.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using historical analysis, this article focuses on the tensions between Catholic religious priests and sister nurses over access to health care.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A historical examination of Catholic hospitals' influence on health policy offers a vehicle to contemplate the role that religion plays in the area of women's health.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Catholic sister nurses used the Catholic Church's organizational power to influence health policy that affected their hospitals. However, they exercised due restraint in their advocacy efforts, always having to be mindful of ecclesiastical barriers they could not abridge, particularly those that pertained to reproduction. This has significantly affected health policy for women.
authors.affiliation: Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Electronic address: wallbm@nursing.upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Barbra Mann
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Wall
mesh_terms: D002410:Catholicism / Q000266:history*; D005260:Female; D006291:Health Policy / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D016519:Hospitals, Religious / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000266:history*; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D014481:United States; D016387:Women's Health / Q000266:history*
keywords: Contraception; Policy; Religion; Reproduction