Phoenix Catholic hospital defends abortion that took place there; bishop warns of excommunication

catholicculture.org ^ | May 17, 2010

[GonzoII]

In late 2009, an abortion took place at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix after a hospital ethics committee deemed the abortion necessary to save the life of the mother. Sister Margaret Mary McBride, the hospital’s vice president of mission integration, was a member of the committee that made the decision and has since been assigned new duties.

The hospital has defended its decision, while Bishop Thomas Olmsted warned that Catholics who formally cooperated in the abortion were automatically excommunicated.

The Diocese of Phoenix said in a May 14 statement:

The Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, released the following statement today in response to the acknowledgement by officials at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center to the media that an unborn child was killed several months ago at St. Joseph's through a direct abortion:

[GonzoII]

[PetroniusMaximus]

“If a Catholic formally cooperates in the procurement of an abortion, they are automatically excommunicated by that action. “

Pelosi?

[PGR88]

Time to make some examples of people

[Salvation]

1:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2271  (618 bytes )  preview document matches 1 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2271.htm

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2:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2272  (580 bytes )  preview document matches 2 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2272.htm

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3:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2322  (290 bytes )  preview document matches 2 From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a "criminal" practice (GS 27 § 3), URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2322.htm

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4:	CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2274  (554 bytes )  preview document matches gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2274.htm

[Judith Anne]

Pelosi is not the only one.

Is there a mother on FR who would not surrender her own life for that of any of her children? Who would not risk her own life for that of any of her children?

I do not understand this. The statement by the hospital that the family, the parents, the doctors and the so-called ethical committee all concurred that the child had to die is just completely outside my understanding. Surely every woman knows, the moment she learns she is pregnant, that the child’s welfare will forever come before her own.

[MayfairFly]

Someone must have ratted them out.
Good.

[notaliberal]

[GovernmentShrinker]

These situations often involve a choice between abortion now, or losing BOTH the mother and the baby later. No hospital that receives one penny in federal funds should be telling a woman they won’t do what has to be done to save her life, and especially when the baby would very likely end up dying anyway. Medical decisions need to be made by medical professionals. This was obviously not an elective abortion.

[elisheba]

There is a difference between delivering the baby when the mothers life is at stake and aborting the baby. If the baby has to come out, for the mother to live, he has to come out. But when the baby is near viability, he deserves not to be killed during delivery or left to die in a back room. I know a young mom who recently turned eclamsic and had to have her twins delivered very, very early. When doctors need to do this to save the mom, they do it. One baby weighed about 2 lbs and the other was a little under 2 lbs. Both are fine now and so is Mom. They are all home.

[Brellium]

In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother’s life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy. This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee, of which Sr. Margaret McBride is a member.

[Judith Anne]

Yes, I am intimately aware of what these decisions involve. There is no abortion that is not elective.

[GovernmentShrinker]

This woman was 11 weeks pregnant. The fetus was literally months away from even a tiny chance at survival.

[nj26]

Seems to me like the effort would be better spent on stopping the millions of elective abortions which are undertaken every year.

Nancy Pelosi should be excommunicated before these hospital workers.

[Tamar1973]

This woman was 11 weeks pregnant. The fetus was literally months away from even a tiny chance at survival.

And yet the Church thinks the life of the fetus was more important than the life of the mother and excommunicated those who made the decision that for the sake of her survival, she needed the abortion. Makes me question how pro-life the Catholic church is when it would condemn a woman to death for getting pregnant but refuses to condemn convicted murderers to death. Something wrong with this picture.

[TNdandelion]

The exact details of the case have been withheld due to federal privacy laws but what I did learn from the article and subseqent links) is that the pregnancy was terminated at 11 weeks and it described the mother as having, "The actions involving the administrator, mostly taken within the past couple of weeks, followed a last-minute, life-or-death drama in late 2009. The patient had a rare and often fatal condition in which a pregnancy can cause the death of the mother."

The story also mentions surgery. As a mother, I can tell you that when I was facing a last minute, life or death drama at 9weeks gestation carrying an ectopic pregnancy that required immediate removal of both the pregnancy and the fallopian tube that it was imbedded in and had ruptured, I would have told any religious leader poo-pooing the medical emergency to go to h3ll if he thought it was better for me to die along with the baby.

[TNdandelion]

And sometimes, the baby has to come out long before the age of viability. In the case of ectopic pregnancies, it is a medical emergency that appears in the first trimester. There is no luxury of inducing labor/performing a c-section and hoping that the baby can survive outside the womb. No hope at all.

[Judith Anne]

Surgery for ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion.

[boatbums]

I am in 100% agreement with you on this. It was a matter of the child dies or BOTH die. Never a happy decision but one that sometimes has to be made. I do know that this is also a rare case, but sadly, the ONLY thing that can be done. I hope you were allowed to grieve for your child and take comfort in knowing that he/she is with the Lord and will one day greet you there.

[TNdandelion]

Thank you, boatbums. After the initial shock of being found in that situation and recovering from surgery, there was quite a bit of emotional pain. My child was very much wanted and loved and it was a terrible loss to both my husband and I. I was fortunate that it was caught in time and that the rest of my reproductive organs were intact. 1year later, I gave birth to my oldest child.

[MamaDearest]

“If a Catholic formally cooperates in the procurement of an abortion, they are automatically excommunicated by that action. “

Pelosi?

Pelosi very definitely should be excommunicated. She advocates abortion and considering her political influence on others, that the Catholic Church she belongs to does NOT excommunicate her is despicable and shows a blatant disregard for Church doctrine.

Phoenix Catholic hospital defends abortion that took place there - bishop warns of excommunication

Snip: Every Catholic institution is obliged to defend human life at all its stages; from conception to natural death. This obligation is also placed upon every Catholic individual. If a Catholic formally cooperates in the procurement of an abortion, they are automatically excommunicated by that action. The Catholic Church will continue to defend life and proclaim the evil of abortion without compromise, and must act to correct even her own members if they fail in this duty.

Speaker Pelosi's progressive Catholicism and the antidote

Snips: Search as I did to find a united statement of condemnation from the shepherds of the Catholics of this country, there was nothing to be found. One has to wonder what could possibly be so intimidating about the woman that the bishops would merely move on with their agenda without taking note of this remarkable redefining of Catholic identity by a public figure who, as far as we can tell, is still claiming to be Catholic.

It was clearly a crowning achievement in Pelosi's campaign to deconstruct the teachings of the Catholic Church — making it a good thing to kill babies and a bad thing to defend Christ in the Holy Eucharist — and she pulled it off without a single reprimand or announcement of excommunication from her beloved bishops. What a travesty.

Where was your conviction that we must respect the dignity and worth of the individual when you insisted, "To me it isn't even a question [of being a faithful Catholic while being pro-abortion]. God has given us free will. We're all responsible for our actions. If you don't want an abortion, you don't believe in it, then don't have one. But don't tell somebody else what they can do in terms of honoring their responsibilities."