Posted on 05/17/2010 8:58:40 PM PDT by 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:
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicculture.org ...
It’s safe to assume that this mother didn’t want an abortion unless it was absolutely necessary. You don’t choose a Catholic hospital to go to with your life-threatening pregnancy complication, unless you’re hoping to avoid the abortion route. This was most certainly not an elective abortion. A choice to terminate a first trimester pregnancy in order to avoid losing BOTH the mother and baby, is a pro-life choice. Anyone who thinks two dead is better than one dead, is not pro-life in any meaningful sense of the term.
It is preposterous to declare that if I’m not Catholic, I’m not allowed to discuss medical ethics as they pertain to Catholic hospitals. I regularly describe and defend those ethics to the secular and pro-abort. I practice in a Catholic hospital, in fact.
More than that, I voluntarily spend much of my own time and money in order to fight for ethics in medicine, in law and in “Bioethics.” Too often, our “ethics” are redefined to “bioethics” and become what I call the “formal study of who we can kill,” just as our laws become the formalized infringement of freedom.
This is not just an exercise in theoretical or classroom ethics - this case appears to be one of the “hard cases.”
It is never right to kill — In truth, the command is “Do not murder.”
Each person has the right to life, including the right to actively defend that life. It is always acceptable to defend one person’s life from the direct threat caused by another, even if that means shooting first at someone who is threatening the life of the first. The intent or competency of the one causing the danger does not matter. By the same right to self defense, it is ethical to wield a surgical instrument to remove the child from his mother’s uterus when there is an emergency situation caused by the pregnancy and which can’t be solved any other way.
This is from the hospital’s statement:
“At St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, our highly-skilled clinical professionals face life and death decisions every day. Those decisions are guided by our values of dignity, justice and respect, and the belief that all life is sacred.
“We have always adhered to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services as we carry out our healing ministry and we continue to abide by them. As the preamble to the Directives notes, ‘While providing standards and guidance, the Directives do not cover in detail all the complex issues that confront Catholic health care today.’
“In those instances where the Directives do not explicitly address a clinical situation - such as when a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life - an Ethics Committee is convened to help our caregivers and their patients make the most life-affirming decision.
“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.”
I agree, when did I ever make such a suggestion?
In all likelihood, this woman's condition was so imminently life-threatening that the delay and stress involved in transferring her to another hospital would probably have killed her. I'm sure this Catholic hospital would have taken that easy way out if it could have. Emergency committee meetings can be done in just a few minutes, sometimes even with participants "meeting" in a telephone conference call, if there isn't time to get them together in person.
This is post #47:
“To: xzins
The problem is that nobody seems to be saying conclusively that the mother’s life was at risk. Certainly something needs to be done about ectopic pregnancy, but I don’t think any sort of relocation procedure exists at this time. It is my understanding that most ectopic fetuses are already dead by the time it’s discovered.
47 posted on May 18, 2010 12:44:43 PM EDT by wagglebee (”A political party cannot be all things to all people.” — Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies | Report A”
It was not directed to you, nor was it about you. I’m confused.
Not to mention that a huge chunk of "Catholic" hospitals' budgets come from various taxpayer-funded programs. They must answer to all parties that they take money from, and that includes the US taxpayers, the majority of whom are not Catholic. And telling a patient "Sorry, we're just going to have to let you die, because we're Catholic" is NOT acceptable. In reality, I think there are very few Catholics who would not choose abortion if they found themselves in the situation this woman was in (though there are plenty who *say* they would, as long as it's not their own or their spouse's life that's actually on the line).
Judith Anne made the statement, in #75, I believe.
What is your response to post 80?
Your response to post 80?
I was including you in the discussion, since you indicated interest.
BTW, the hospital has stated that there was an “emergency” due to the mother’s life being at risk due to Pulmonary hypertension, not an ectopic pregnancy. That statement says that there was no other way to save her life.
I disagree with any assertion that ethics are dependent on who is paying the bill.
Do you have no comment on post *80? If you do not respond, I will conclude that you do not.
Actually, she didn't.
Thank you so very much for posting this comment here. Those who want to kill an unborn child, those who demand life without risk, those who demand a perfect outcome on every single event in their lives, will always find it easier to kill an unborn child “in self-defense” than to go through the necessary treatments, inconvenience and discomfort of nurturing the child through to viable birth.
This was true in the 70s and it is true now. Those arguing ectopic pregnancy are ignoring the REAL problem in this case: pregnancy related hypertension. At 11 weeks, there would not even be the issue of weight gain.
If there was enough time to convene a committee then it couldn’t have been a major emergency.
Keep in mind, most of the dramatic rhetoric in this case is coming from a Gannett newspaper.
The problems that arise early in the pregnancy are more like auto-immune or blood vessel disease, rather than high blood pressure due to increased fluids and demand on the lungs and heart due to increased burden of circulation. The blood vessels are narrowed by constriction and by the formation of tissues in and around them, and tiny clots are formed in the narrow arteries. The same problems that cause some types of pulmonary hypertension can cause an increased tendency to form tiny clots, and so can a normal pregnancy.
(and that first article I linked to had one patient who died at 12 weeks.)
Here’s an few articles about the pathophysiology of some sub-types of Pulmonary Hypertension,
http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/content/89/3/383.long
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/84/2/191.long
I was doing more research, for links and clarity. (and, I was finishing up my ACLS recertification today - so not at the computer. That leaves lots of catching up to do.)
I was mistaken about the post #. It’s #73:
“Wednesday, May 19, 2010 7:55:47 AM · 73 of 97
“Judith Anne to hocndoc
“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.”
Many hospitals have protocols for almost immediate “committee meetings” using phones and on-staff clinical ethicists.
BTW, I’m away from the computer for a few hours, now.
Whether or not a person is Catholic, I would think that all hospitals are going to handle it differently.
The FACT remains that ALL Catholic hospitals terminate pregnancies when a woman’s life is at stake. We have VERY LITTLE actual information about this situation (keep in mind that it is Gannett that called it a “life and death drama”); however, the bishop DOES have access to all of the information. So, don’t you think it is at least possible that the bishop is right? The incident took place in 2009, the bishop didn’t say anything until the other day, my guess is that the bishop consulted with a lot of people before e issued his statement.
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