Posted on 05/17/2010 8:58:40 PM PDT by GonzoII
To understand this, you need to recognize that Bishop Olmsted did not excommunicate her. He publicly stated that she excommunicated herself by her actions.
Next, you need to understand that with religious orders, there are two distinct types: institutes of diocesan right and institutes of pontifical right. The bishop only has a significant role with the first type of order. With the second type of order, he has the right to do a visitation (and give a report to Rome); he also has the right to talk to the superior of the order. Otherwise, all real rights are reserved to the Vatican. (thus, "pontifical right")
The Sisters of Mercy is an Institute of Pontifical Right. And they are very, very liberal. So don't count on the superior of that order to do much, if anything.
And, frankly, it is very, very likely that the Vatican has no idea that this even happened.
In this post on another thread I gave the phone number, fax number, e-mail, and mailing address for the Papal Nuncio (the Pope's official representative in this country) and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the official Vatican office that oversees this order. If you are concerned, I would write respectful, concerned letters (e-mails) to both, attaching news articles to support any claims, and asking them to look into this.
I'm not saying that your letter (e-mail) will do anything in of itself, but if enough people do this enough times about enough religious, it will eventually get their attention.
Thank you for the explanation.
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This case appears to be a truly “hard case.”
The articles have all described an emergency. I posted a review article several days ago describing the death rate from pregnancy with pulmonary hypertension - for some types, as high as 60-70%.
http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/3/256.long
This should be considered a case of self defense, faced with the life of one person being the immediate cause of a threat to the other - the equivalent of facing a loaded gun or a ticking bomb. She does not have to consider the motive of the other or wait until the other pulls the trigger (leads to a cascade of physiological events which cause a circulatory collapse or pulmonary emergency).
The mother has the right to self defense and to have others assist her in self defense. She can ethically (and metaphorically) pull the trigger first and to call on society/medicine to do so in her defense.
The mother had an emergency due to pulmonary hypertension. Here’s a review article on the risk of death due to pulmonary hypertension in pregnancy.
http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/3/256.long
The mother had the right to defend her life.
While I agree that a legitimate life of the mother case is an understandable reason (not a required reason)for terminating a pregnancy, something about this particular case is wrong.
Wagglebee has carefully pointed out that such a decision is NOT against Catholic teaching.
He has also pointed out that the Bishop would know far more about this particular case than you or I or even than the sister who was let go over the incident.
Apparently, he is knowledgeable of Catholic teaching to have risen so high in the church.
In short, for him to react as he has done is to suggest that the public reports on this case do not give all the information.
I still vote for the Bishop and his take on this case. It would be insane for him to oppose a legitimate life of mother exception when his own church allows him to support such a decision.
As someone who has had a number of pregnancies with that condition, I have a VERY difficult time seeing my babies as holding a loaded gun on me. Whatever weaknesses I was born with, physiologically, that made my pregnancies all high risk, were not cases of “kill or be killed.” We who have those high-risk pregnancies are not “victims” we are mothers of babies, grateful for medical care that gives us a fighting chance. I cannot believe that anyone who has ever carried a child inside herself would EVER think that “self-defense” would involve killing the child. Sick!
I find that to be one of the most inhumane metaphors, unworthy of ethical considerations, that I have ever heard. It goes right along with seeing pregnancy as a disease.
From your link:
“Although a publication bias cannot be excluded, overall maternal mortality was significantly lower compared with previous era (25 vs. 38%, P = 0.047) and was 17% in iPAH, 28% in CHD-PAH, and 33% in oPH.”
My pregnancies all occurred before 1985. My ob was from Germany, which may have made a difference in my care, which was very good.
One of the women in that report died at 12 weeks due to circulatory collapse.
I’m not sure about this Bishop. I’m very doubtful about the circumstances of the announcement of the crisis.
Apparently, this mother had an “emergency.” I can’t interpret that as anything other than a life or death situation for her. There was no chance of saving the baby at 11 weeks’ gestation.
In this very rare case, where there appears to have been a complicated life-threatening situation, a D&C under local anesthesia or even medical termination with methotrexate or RU46 (which wouldn’t have required anesthesia) was the least force and the safest course to save her life. We all know that any of these would not be acceptable under the strictest interpretation of Catholic law. I’m not sure what would have been acceptable, other than a Ceasarean-Hysterectomy — which would have necessitated anesthesia, another life-threatening risk, according to the review article.
We can engage in all sorts of philosophical sophistry when we are discussing hypotheticals. We may choose to sacrifice our selves: *self*- sacrifice. We may not condemn another for saving her life or for demanding that her right to life be protected. The Spirit of the Law should apply, not the Letter.
Of course it is an abortion. We have separately classified these, but to cause the death of the child, even indirectly is an abortion.
This is a Catholic hospital. There are Catholic rules. Anyone who wanted to kill a child to save a mother could have gone to any other hospital in the area which was non-Catholic, and would allow it.
This was rigged to provoke exactly the hysterical controversy which ensued. Women like me, who face the same threat, must have a sanctuary where our children will not be murdered in “self-defense” and where physicians will use their learning to give us both a chance, instead of regarding the innocent child as a predator.
This is the most pertinent information: “a last-minute, life-or-death drama in late 2009.”
If you are not Catholic, then it is presumptuous for you to comment on the Ethics Committee of a Catholic hospital. If you are Catholic, then you are either mistaken, or deliberately wrong according to Catholic ethical doctrine.
Oh really? One wonders how they managed to fit in an Ethics Committee, physicians, parents, and family in this decision to eschew medical intervention and kill the helpless infant.
Your “most pertinent information” is merely the sensational copy used to sell the abortion-as-solution story by the writer.
Apparently, all words provided by the media are sacrosanct to you.
I still vote for the Bishop and his take on this case. It would be insane for him to oppose a legitimate life of mother exception when his own church allows him to support such a decision.
That's my take on this as well. Obviously these procedures are not routine, but they do happen often enough that a Catholic hospital knows when it's necessary. If the bishop is singling this one out it seems to me that he considers it to be a problem.
Who used this term?
Was it the Bishop? Nope.
Was it the hospital? Nope.
Was it the nun or a doctor? Nope? So, who called this a "last-minute, life-or-death drama"? This was in an article in The Arizona Republic which is a newspaper owned by Gannett and that means that it is anything but an unbiased source.
Every single subject of one of Dr. Mengele’s experiments would have “very likely” ended up dying anyway; and, after all he was a medical professional.
.
Dr. Paul A. Byrne, Director of Neonatology and Pediatrics at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Toledo, Ohio, disputes the claim that an abortion is ever a procedure necessary to save the life of the mother, or carries less risk than birth.In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Dr. Byrne said, “I don’t know of any [situation where abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother].
“I know that a lot of people talk about these things, but I don’t know of any. The principle always is preserve and protect the life of the mother and the baby.”
Byrne has the distinction of being a pioneer in the field of neonatology, beginning his work in the field in 1963 and becoming a board-certified neonatologist in 1975. He invented one of the first oxygen masks for babies, an incubator monitor, and a blood-pressure tester for premature babies, which he and a colleague adapted from the finger blood pressure checkers used for astronauts.
Byrne emphasized that he was not commentating on what the woman’s particular treatment should have been under the circumstances, given that she is not his patient.
“But given just pulmonary hypertension, the answer is no” to abortion, said Byrne.
Byrne emphasized that the unborn child at 11 weeks gestation would have a negligible impact on the woman’s cardiovascular system. He said that pregnancy in the first and second trimesters would not expose a woman with even severe pulmonary hypertension – which puts stress on the heart and the longs – to any serious danger.
A pregnant mother’s cardiovascular system does have “major increases,” but they only happen “in the last three months of pregnancy,” Byrne explained.
The point of fetal viability is estimated at anywhere between 21 - 24 weeks, he indicated, at which point a baby can artificially be delivered and have a good shot at surviving. In the meantime the mother’s pulmonary hypertension could be treated, even by such simple things as eliminating salt from her diet, exercising, or losing weight.
“It’s not going to be any extra stress on the mother that she can’t stand,” said Byrne. “Eventually you get to where the baby gets big enough that the baby can live outside the uterus and you don’t have to do an abortion.”
“I am only aware of good things happening by doing that. I am not aware of anything bad happening to the mother because the baby was allowed to live.”
“The only reason to kill the baby at 11 weeks is because it is smaller,” which makes the abortion easier to perform, he said, not because the mother’s life is in immediate danger.
“I’ve done this work just about as long as neonatology has existed,” said Byrne. “The key is we must protect and preserve life, and we have to do that from conception to the natural end.”
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