Posted on 09/14/2004 2:12:44 PM PDT by AskStPhilomena
The news was a real bummer. A reporter named Tom Szyszkiewicz, who writes for the Catholic publications Our Sunday Visitor and the National Catholic Register, was calling to tell me he had discovered two Catholic hospital systems were committing the induced labor abortion procedure - live birth abortion - on handicapped babies.
The bad news warped to bizarre when Szyszkiewicz said these hospitals were waiting until babies were 23 to 26 weeks gestation before aborting them, i.e., until they were of viable age, so they could say these weren’t abortions at all but simply labor inductions and, thus, sanctioned by the Catholic Church.
That’s crazy, I thought. Most hospitals I’m aware of that commit LBA do just the opposite: They make sure to abort babies before 23 weeks - the most recent viability cut-off date according to the American Heart Association and American Academy of Pediatrics - to avoid the ethical and legal dilemmas of deciding whether to resuscitate a baby they just tried to kill.
The Catholic hospitals’ abortion strategy seemed even more risky when taking the Born Alive Infants Protection Act into account. It states that live born babies, no matter what their gestational age or circumstances of birth, are “persons.” According to the 14th Amendment, “persons” born in the U.S. are automatic citizens who cannot be “deprive[d]… of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor den[ied[… equal protection of the laws.”
This means live aborted babies can’t be cast aside to die in hospital soiled utility rooms, or drowned in buckets of water, or sealed to suffocate in biohazard bags. They must be medically assessed and cared for just like wanted babies.
Last week I contacted both hospital systems to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I wasn’t.
Loyola Health System in Chicago, and Providence Health System on the west coast and Alaska, both commit live birth abortion.
But they don’t like the word, “abortion.” They call what they do, “early induction of labor.”
Webster’s Dictionary defines abortion as, “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.”
So now “termination of pregnancy” is called “early induction of labor.” Euphemisms, what would abortion proponents do without them?
Other Catholic hospitals may also be involved. Szyszkiewicz reported in the March 7, 2004, Our Sunday Visitor that Providence is the 10th largest U.S. Catholic health system, and, “spokespersons for the other nine… were either vague about their hospitals’ practices or did not return calls.”
Loyola and Providence say they are acting in accordance with the 2001 U.S. Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services that states, “For proportionate reason, labor may be induced after the fetus is viable.”
Theologian James LaGrye from the bishops’ doctrinal office said the term “proportionate” is used “for situations in which some grave risk would be incurred if an action were not taken to avoid it,” wrote Szyszkiewicz, who added, “LaGrye said the mental health of the mother ‘is a reason’ to perform early induction.”
In addition to having “mental health” concerns, Fr. Jack O’Callahan, staff ethicist at Loyola, said they are trying “to ward off the physical complications of bringing to term a child who is not going to live anyway.”
To be frank, LaGrye is a psychobabbling fraud to the faith, and Fr. O’Callahan is a crackpot. Euthanizing one’s handicapped child is not the solution to maintaining mental health, nor do handicapped babies normally spread voodoo vibes to make their mothers sick.
What about the physical and mental complications of abortion?
Even fatally ill babies, left to develop until term, give their mothers the gift of lowering their risk of breast cancer. Contrarily, mothers who abort dramatically increase their risk.
Aborting mothers also stand a much greater chance of ending up in hospital high-risk maternity departments next time they get pregnant. Their forcibly stretched cervixes will have difficulty keeping subsequent babies inside until full term.
But I digress.
The August 19 New England Journal of Medicine reported that the smallest known surviving preemie just celebrated her 15th birthday.
In 1989, Madeline Mann was born at Loyola Hospital at 27 weeks, weighing 9.9 ounces. She is now a violin playing, rollerblading, high school honor student.
Doctors at Loyola delivered Madeline early by caesarean section after determining she might fare better in their care than in her mother’s uterus.
Oh, the irony.
Ping
A "gut wrenching" alert would have been appropriate.
Here is an earlier OSV piece by the reporter about this:
Where to Draw the Line? Prenatal Ethics.
An Our Sunday Visitor investigation has revealed that some Catholic hospitals perform a procedure called "early induction for fetuses with anomalies incompatible with life" known by its acronym, EIFWAIL, or simply as "early induction." This procedure induces a woman into labor after her unborn child reaches viability around 23 to 26 weeks in cases when the child is known to have a condition that makes death inevitable soon after even a full-term birth. The child born in this way is made comfortable and often held by the mother until death.
The two most common conditions for which this procedure is performed are anencephaly, in which the child's brain and skull fail to develop beyond the brain stem, and renal agenesis, in which the kidneys and lungs are underdeveloped. Children with these conditions generally do not live beyond a few minutes to a few hours outside the womb (although some anencephalic children have lived for months after birth).
...
The Catholic hospitals OSV spoke with that use this procedure emphatically denied they are anything like Christ Hospital, which is not Catholic-run. But pro-life and other Catholic leaders say the EIFWAIL procedure resembles abortion too closely and many called it abortion outright.
A 1998 statement on early induction for anencephalic children, issued by the U.S. bishops Committee on Doctrine, clearly sides with the latter opinion.
"The two most common conditions for which this procedure is performed are anencephaly...and renal agenesis"
I've personally seen with my own eyes a full-term baby that was murdered for supposed "renal agenesis incompatible with life". Unfortunately, when the postmortem was conducted, the child was found to be totally normal (i.e. 2 normal kidneys). Amazingly the couple involved elected not to sue because "no amount of money could bring their baby back".
I think the fact that this procedure is performed in any supposedly Catholic hospital is an utter disgrace.
"The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bad bishops.
--St. John Chrysostom: Bishop and Doctor of the Church
The Apocalypse of Peter ca 135 "I saw a gorge in which the discharge and excrement of the tortured ran down and became like a lake. There sat women, and the discharge came up to their throats; and opposite them sat many children, who were born prematurely, weeping. And from them went forth rays of fire and smote the women on the eyes. These were those who produced children outside of marriage and who procured abortions." -26
"Those who slew the unborn children will be tortured forever, for God wills it to so."
-2:264
Ping to #8
Hey ... I just wanted to thank you for directing me to Hanceville. THAT is actually the place I had in mind when contemplating the little side pilgrimage en route home.
Road work and a detour on 278 out of Gadsden caused me to miss Mass (one wherein ALL the women cover their heads, I see). But I was able to make a visit, listen to midday prayers from behind the screen and spend some time in adoration. Also had a strange chat with a fairly recent convert who is a devotee of the Holy Face and lent some interesting insights on the nuns in the process of telling me about a blind dog they were hoping she'd adopt.
I thought it interesting I arrived on Grandparents' Day. My grandmother was my prime Special Intention.
But I also needed very much the time to think and am really glad I made the time to take the time. It is so very beautiful there. Almost like Kentucky on the approach.
Thanks again.
Commendation to you for your answer ! but it would also be quicker and easier to quote the FIFTH COMMANDMENT...........THOU SHALT NOT KILL.
no wonder the hurricanes come right after one another !! Dear God,sweet Mother Mary..stop those who are killing the Babies !! Teach the Ten Commandments and the Rosary !
P.S.
Hats off to a friend and devoted servant of the unborn who managed to make a stink (in an almost painfully discreet fashion) until the biomanufacturers at a local Catholic hospital finally booted the artificial reproduction enclave that somehow managed to find a home there.
He's the one who -- like you -- pointed out to me that the back-alley abortion thing is largely a myth given how many Catholic hospitals, even, were performing abortions prior to Roe.
Depends.
If the mother has pre eclampsia, you might have to deliver the kid this early.
If the mother has an anencephalic baby, and polyhydramnos, the mom's health is in danger, and there is no way the kid will survive. So you deliver early.
If the child has Potter's syndrome, or no kidneys, the kid won't survive, so you might deliver early.
If they do this because the child is merely retarded-- a Down's syndrome child, or a child with meningomyelocoel, then it is wrong. These kids live long lives, and carrying them to term does not endanger mom's health or life.
Where to Draw the Line? Prenatal Ethics....
The Catholic hospitals OSV spoke with that use this procedure emphatically denied they are anything like Christ Hospital, which is not Catholic-run. But pro-life and other Catholic leaders say the EIFWAIL procedure resembles abortion too closely and many called it abortion outright.
A 1998 statement on early induction for anencephalic children, issued by the U.S. bishops Committee on Doctrine, clearly sides with the latter opinion.
Thank you BKnotts for supplementing this thread.
This is horrible.
Its beyond horrible.
I want it stopped. What can I do?
What about delivering once a donor has been identified? Highly risky, but better than death.
What you can do to end Abortion. 56 things.
http://www.priestsforlife.org/brochures/youcan.html
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