Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 01/20/2011 2:39:57 AM PST by markomalley
In Texas, a Catholic bishop made two hospitals cease doing tube-tying operations for women who are not going to have more babies. In Oregon, another bishop cast a medical center out of his diocese for refusing to discontinue the same procedure. In Arizona, a nun was excommunicated and the hospital where she works was expelled from the church after 116 years for allowing doctors to terminate a pregnancy to save a woman's life.
Such disputes between hospitals and church authorities appear to be arising because of a confluence of factors: Economic pressures are spurring greater consolidation in the hospital industry, prompting religiously affiliated institutions to take over or merge with secular ones, imposing church directives on them. At the same time, the drive to remain competitive has led some medical centers to evade the directives. Alongside those economic forces, changes in the church hierarchy have led increasingly conservative bishops to exert more influence over Catholic hospitals.
The clashes have focused attention on the limitations on care available at Catholic hospitals. In Montgomery County, concern about those constraints has emerged as an issue in the battle over whether Holy Cross Hospital, a Catholic institution in Silver Spring, or Adventist HealthCare in Rockville should be authorized to build a new hospital in the county.
A coalition of advocacy groups Wednesday urged the state to reject Holy Cross, citing concerns about access to reproductive health care, especially for poor women and teenagers. A decision in that case is expected Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Now mind you we are not talking about them getting government money...we're talking about them getting permission to use their OWN money to expand.
The ironic part of this is that, at least in the case of Holy Cross, they do a goodly amount of indigent care for charity patients (don't know one way or the other about Washington Adventist).
Liberals disgust me.
ping for your lists
There has to be more about the situation about the mother whose life was saved, because AFAIK the Catholics have no problem with a fetal death occurring as a consequence of treatment of a mother’s life threatening illness, however inexorable that consequence may be (such as removing the part of the uterus involved in an ectopic pregnancy).
Oftentimes the religious-affiliated take money from the government in other ways, and are beholden to them for that. While the expansion money may be from the religious group, they are probably subsidized in another way by the state; they’d have to be for the state to dictate terms to them. In NJ the Catholic hospitals are slowly dying off; the state continuously reduces the amount they will reimburse for “charity care” in a state (and especially our cities, where most Catholic hospitals are) that is filled with “charity care” (between the permanent underclass and a HUGE illegal alien population).
The “State” has effectively destroyed competition from religious groups in terms of education & healthcare in NJ; I’m sure the same is happening in areas where the religious institutions were as old & widespread (they’ve become unsustainable, for a number of reasons).
Hi HiTech, there was more, and the hospital in question had been disobeying/disregarding Church teachings in it’s practices for around seven years before. The bishop had tried to speak with administrators, but words fell upon deaf ears. I agree with markomalley completely.
The Catholic Church maintains that every effort must be made to preserve both lives; doctors are not to decide who lives and who dies.
An ectopic pregnancy is in a Fallopian tube, not in the uterus.
And yes, Catholics do “have a problem” with an unborn baby’s dying under those conditions: human life is human life. However, we consider it an unfortunate outcome of preventing injury to the mother, not a sin.
I’d believe this if I saw them trying to re-graft ectopic pregnancies. Otherwise it’s killing with a long face.
There is nothing about “conservative bishops” that has lead to any change in Church policy regarding these hospitals; the fact that some had become de facto “secular hospitals” in “the spirit of Vatican II” (as many Catholic schools did) in no way indicates that prior practices were legitimately “Catholic”. While the American Catholic hierarchy may be completely spineless, the fact that we live in an “information age” has pressured them to perform as nothing else has: do something stupid, and it will be broadcast far & wide literally in seconds; the hierarchy is very quickly pressured to act on it. Cellphone pics of liturgical abuses flourish, complete with names & dates of the offenders. The “progressive” media, intent on destroying the Church, has become the best vehicle in keeping it true to its roots; the example of a First Communion a few years back in a NJ diocese is a case in point. One of the recipients was a young girl with some allergic reaction to gluten; when the “nun” in charge of the affair went ahead and had a special gluten-free “host” used for her (and was widely praised for her ingenuity), the bishop had to promptly declare the sacrament null & void until they used a low-gluten host to actually administer the sacrament (the ingredients of the host were central to the sacrament - even alcoholic priests must use wine with a very low alcohol content for the same reason).
The Church didn’t cause the ectopic pregnancy, and therefore didn’t “kill” anyone.
If it gave the nod to doctors who cut out the involved “tissue” and do not make heroic attempts to retransplant it, that would not be true.
You can’t re-graft an ectopic pregnancy. Usually by the time the Mother and doctors know the pregnancy is ectopic, it is a serious medical matter. You can’t remove a fetus from one area and stitch it in another. Unfortunately, it is one of those horrible situations where the best hope is to save the Mother period. At least now they have the medical capability to save the Mother. It really isn’t that many years ago that it was pretty much a death sentence. Just a thought
It would be nice if that were possible, but there may be technical issues with that.
For one thing, once the placenta implants, is it possible to remove it and cause it to re-implant somewhere else? For another, the ectopic pregnancy in a fallopian tube is life-threatening to the mother because the pressure of the baby growing in there can cause tube rupture. What is the effect of that pressure on the baby? It might already be crushed or grossly deformed by that pressure, to the point where even if it is not already deceased, it may not be viable.
Same with "religious" schools that receive tax payer money. He who pays the fiddler, calls the tunes and the gov will never quit fiddling with our money.
Kiss off, WaPo. I salute the Catholics for have the courage of their convictions. I am convinced my wife and I should have had more children, but it is too late now, alas.
The State licenses these hospitals to keep competition down, so the Catholic hospital can’t get a permit to expand.
Even if they don’t take the money.
Welcome to Hell.
There is nothing "reproductive" about abortion.
142. Ethical delegitimization applies to all forms of direct abortion, since it is an intrinsically blameworthy act. The use of substances or means which impede the implantation of the fertilized embryo or which cause its premature detachment is also an act of abortion. A doctor who would knowingly prescribe or apply such substances or means would cooperate in the abortion.
If the abortion follows as a foreseen but not intended or willed but merely tolerated consequence of a therapeutic act essential for the mother's health, this is morally legitimate. The abortion in this case is the indirect result of an act which is not in itself abortive.[273]
273. CF Pius XII " Nov. 27, 1951, in AAS 43 (1951) p. 859.
(such as removing the part of the uterus involved in an ectopic pregnancy).
Ectopic pregnancies occur outside the uterus.
Speaking as one who finds repugnant the fact that the Catholic Church won't allow an abortion to save the life of the mother:
So, in other words, because abortions cannot be performed at Holy Cross, to Hell with anybody who could use those prospective extra hospital beds.
It seems at times that liberalism is a mental disorder.
Maryland "Freak State" PING!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.