This exchange is the latest with Pediatric Cardiologist, Judith Becker, M.D. whose opinion is that Sr. Margaret McBride made the right call in signing off on an abortion in a patient with Pulmonary Hypertension.
Dr. Judith Becker
Since I am being quoted in this string I feel I should speak for my self as I have being quoted out of context and though I answered Dr Nadals questions, he apparently did not see that portion of my response. I also asked for some clarifications of his response and I have not yet seen a response from him.
As you will read in my final entry on the prior string this morning, I would respond here as well to Dr Nadal, “You may argue this all you want from the perspective of canon law, but do not use my words to argue it from a medical perspective. And, if, in fact in it’s infinite wisdom, the church rules that it is less sinful to lose two lives than save one, I can understand why there is a crisis of faith.”
In context my responses can be found at:
https://gerardnadal.com/2010/05/17/the-bishop-the-nun-the-mother-and-child/
This discussion began on the 17th and my first 2 responses occurred on May 20.
May 20 10:30 AM:
I am a pediatric cardiologist whose expertise is in fetal diagnosis and care. In this capacity I see patients with pulmonary hypertension far more frequently than my colleagues. I also see other complications of pregnancy as a direct result of my work. I have 3 times in my 20 years of practice seen patients turn up in an emergency room in pulmonary hypertensive crisis without having known they had significant pulmonary hypertension prior to that time. Two of those patients never left the hospital but rather died over days to weeks in out ICU. A patient in that condition may or may not be easy to transfer elsewhere, depending on how much support she needed. There are experimental medications for pulmonary hypertension (including viagra and similar pulmonary vasodilators) but these therapies have a spotty performance record and it would not be known for months whether they had done enough to improve the patients condition significantly. Pregnancy effects the heart in these mothers in two ways. First it puts an increased volume load on the heart which if already failing can push it over the edge. Then in the process of straining, the right heart can acutely fail with this disease leading to sudden death.
The upshot of all this is:
1 – Yes, the mother could have arrived at the hospital for the first time in poor condition, could have required stabilization and may have been too sick to move.
2 – An abortion early in the pregnancy of a patient like this is far safer than taking a wait and see
attitude.
3 – To deny this mother lifesaving medical care at the time of the admission denied her access to long term therapies that might save her life. Also without her survival, the fetus could not survive so on the logic of not killing the fetus, we condemn both to death or murder, if you like. We also deny the previously delivered children of this mother the care of that mother in the future.
As a physician, this is an ethically untenable position. We take an oath when we complete our training to do no harm…..In a terrible situation like the one being discussed therefore it is far better to save the mother than lose both the mother and the child.
May 20 12:35 AM
Dr Nadal I have to take issue with you on this case. As Linda points out and as you yourself say, no one knows all the details, yet further on in your article you then rush to judge that a Bishop’s but not a nun’s word should be taken for whether an ethical line was crossed. I would, given that none of us know the specifics, and that both sides of the issues are represented by those in God’s service, tend to respect the nun’s position since she was right there at the time hearing ALL the arguments on both sides. If that is not good enough, then how about bringing the case into the light (without exposing the name or identifying info of the patient) and let us all be presented with all the known facts on both sides before running to judge?
I know it’s a bit off issue, but why have there not been ANY excommunications of priests who are recognized by the community to have rape multiple children, but a nun is excommunicated in a murky controversy of preserving the rights of the mother over that of an ultimately nonviable fetus.
In answer to your questions about my post above, the two deaths I mentioned related to Pulmonary hypertension were not preceded by an abortion. We had another case where a young mother was admitted and found to have free aortic insufficiency (another abnormality where pregnancy can be lethal and is contraindicated). That mother was counseled that her best hope for a good outcome was to ‘terminate the pregnancy’ (medical terminology), have her aortic valve replaced, and then go on to become pregnant with a functioning valve. She did choose that course, and as a result has a healthy heart which will function properly in future gestations.
When you comment: “Other of your colleagues would beg to differ with you on this approach to the management of both patient’s lives.” I have to ask if those are physicians who have cared directly for patients with Pulmonary hypertension in this situation?
May 22 8:22AM:
Dr Nadal has chosen to speak for me but he is taking my words out of context to make his own case and in the process has no regard for his own warning that we do not know all the facts and therefore should be careful about our assumptions….he is over and over making a huge assumption and it is inappropriate for him to use my words to support that assumption when in fact I was suggesting he not assume and that the opposite could be true.
Let us be clear.
1 – Pulmonary hypertension is a terrible disease and is very commonly quite lethal
2 – It is something that cannot quickly or easily be fixed or even improved WITH ANY KNOW MEDICAL THERAPY. It carries an unacceptably high mortality rate when it occurs, and IT RARELY REARS IT’S HEAD BEFORE THE PATIENT IS QUITE ILL AND THE HEART IS FAILING bringing them to medical attention.
3 – Fortunately it is uncommon, BUT THAT IS VERY DIFFERENT FORM CONTENDING IT IS NOT LIKELY TO HAVE HAPPENED IN THIS CASE. If it was a common enough occurrence a consult to the ethics committee would not have been necessary.
3 – Fortunately it is an uncommon disease BUT it does happen and FROM A MEDICAL PERSPECTIVE, if that was the case, Sister McBride and her medical staff DID EVERYTHING RIGHT.
You may argue this all you want from the perspective of canon law, but do not use my words to argue it from a medical perspective. And, if, in fact in it’s infinite wisdom, the church rules that it is less sinful to lose two lives than save one, I can understand why there is a crisis of faith.
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Dr. Gerard M. Nadal
Dr. Becker,
You raise several issues in your posted comments, and I shall address them, I hope to your satisfaction.
First, as to your contention that Bishop Olmsted is missing data and not in a position to know with certitude if a line has been crossed, that simply is untrue from the standpoint of Roman Catholic moral theology and the bioethics that issue forth from those moral norms. I am certain that you are well-acquainted with the Principle of Double-Effect, which in essence allows for the removal of a diseased organ in order to save the life of the mother. The stipulation is that the organ containing the child (tube or uterus) is sufficiently diseased that it would certainly kill the mother prior to bringing the baby to viability at 23-25 weeks. In performing the procedure, the unintended consequence is the death of the baby, which is nevertheless an objectively evil action.
In the Phoenix case, the deliberate and intended action was the killing of the child. It was a direct targeting of the baby for death.
In Roman Catholic Christian anthropology and moral theology, both mother and child have equal human identity and moral standing as human beings, as human persons. It is impermissible to deliberately kill the one in an attempt to save the other. Bishop Olmsted, a Doctor of Canon Law, understands the rationale behind this better than most. Sister McBride too understood this, as well as the penalty for formal cooperation in procured abortion. The penalty is automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication. It is not imposed by a bishop or court, but is an automatic cutting off of oneself from the Body of Christ by one’s very actions. It ranks with desecration of the Eucharist and murdering a Pope.
As for your gratuitous dig regarding pedophile Priests not having been excommunicated, that is a line of argumentation made this week by NPR.
The line of argumentation in the NPR article that suggests as much illustrates a dangerous conflation of issues and ignorance of morality and justice.
There is no doubt that the sexual abuse of children is truly horrifying, whether by a Priest, a parent, a school teacher, scout leader, or any other person betraying a position of authority and trust. Whether or not that abuse merits excommunication is an argument that I would love to see vetted by moral theologians and canon lawyers.
Suppose it were an offense that merited excommunication? Further suppose that pedophile Priests incurred the penalty. Excommunication is a penalty intended as a medicinal remedy. Readmittance to the Church is made through confession to a Bishop (unless he delegates that authority to his Priests). Even if all of that were already operative, it would have no bearing on the intrinsic merits or demerits of the case in Phoenix.
Further, the Pope is the one with the authority to promulgate canon law. The NPR piece deceptively leads one to the erroneous conclusion that Bishop Olmsted, or any other Bishop, has discretion in excommunicating pedophiles, when in fact he doesn’t. Bishops can only adjudicate as much as Church law allows them to adjudicate, and I have not heard of Bishop Olmsted being implicated in cover-ups of pedophiles.
Yet this will be the new narrative when going after other abuses, “But what about the pedophiles…?” The pedophiles are now being dealt with decisively.
Returning then to your concerns, I do believe that I characterized your position well from your initial comments. If I have not, please detail for me how this is so.
I take issue with the following that you wrote:
“Fortunately it is uncommon, BUT THAT IS VERY DIFFERENT FORM CONTENDING IT IS NOT LIKELY TO HAVE HAPPENED IN THIS CASE. If it was a common enough occurrence a consult to the ethics committee would not have been necessary.”
In your initial comments, you claim to have seen only three sudden, acute cases of PHT in twenty years as a specialist. That’s one case every 6.7 years, which qualifies as rare. Though there are medical treatments both standard and experimental, you stated in your original post:
“2 – An abortion early in the pregnancy of a patient like this is far safer than taking a wait and see
attitude.
3 – To deny this mother lifesaving medical care at the time of the admission denied her access to long term therapies that might save her life.”
However, Catholic bioethics and morality requires that every effort be made to save both patients’ lives. Your approach in #2 is a direct contravention of this principle and practice.
Further, the convening of a bioethics panel for something which is expressly forbidden is an exercise meant to give cover to the institution for something a priori known to be morally evil. We do not engage in morality by consensus in the Catholic Church.
The ethics panel made a decision, and now would mandate that the entire Magisterium of the Church be guided by their decision’s precedent, effectively usurping Apostolic Authority, particularly divinely instituted Papal Authority of the Pope as the sole law-giver.
No. The answer is no.
This same group has engaged in a slow, selective leak of information to carefully craft a narrative wherein they are the heroes. Along the way they have essentially betrayed this woman’s identity by divulging her age, month of admission, pregnancy, condition, and course of action. Anyone who knows this woman knows the identity of the individual being discussed, and can divulge that to all the world if they so choose. It’s a dirty, scummy tactic that may well comprise a violation of HIPAA law. To say the least it is unethical, but to quote Scarlet O’Hara after she murders the Yankee soldier in Gone With The Wind,
“I done murder; I can do anything.”
And they will do anything, including this smear campaign against Bishop Olmsted.
I suspect that what hasn’t been said of this case says much in defense of Bishop Olmsted’s actions in removing this excommunicated nun from her post.
The hard reality, Dr. Becker, is that we simply do not see the child as lacking humanity or full moral worth. That’s the real issue between us.
Coming Home 
[…] but he presents here in detailed response to a doctor’s comments, his own settled belief that the Catholic Church’s position is that the pregnant woman should have been left to die: i…. Leave a […]
[…] see they’re hammering in the nails. Gerard Nadal, affronted by the woman not only not dying, but not being made invisible as she dies, claims he has written to the accrediting body for the hospital to say that he would prefer next […]
What is the church’s stand on other taking of one life to save another? Say, a schizophrenic believed that his neighbor was a dangerous space alien plotting the destruction of the earth, and he started shooting at the neighbor. Where would the church stand on a Catholic cop putting a bullet in the (admittedly innocent but deadly dangerous) schizophrenic in order to save the neighbor’s life? Is the church’s stand that the cop may not use deadly force, even if he knows that this will mean that the innocent neighbor dies?
I’m just not comfortable with the placing of one life above another, and in those extraordinarily rare cases like these, what options are there? What other action could the cop take to save the neighbor from the violent schizophrenic? And, more to the point, what action could the nun possibly have taken to save the mother’s life?
Dr Nadal
I have some straight forward and simple questions for you that would need to be answered for this discussion to progress as an intellectually honest exercise:
1- As I asked in all posts, you suggested “Other of your colleagues would beg to differ with you on this approach to the management of both patient’s lives.” I have to ask if those are physicians who have cared directly for patients with Pulmonary hypertension in this situation?
2 – In the rare BUT still experienced medical situation where there is a CLEAR CHOICE of loosing 2 lives or saving one …no other choice possible, is it acceptable to lose both lives. You have cited cases where a mother has offered to give up her life to save her child and that was quite acceptable to you and the church. What if it were (as may be in this case) the other way around…..The Fetus would die regardless. Would it still be wrong to save the mother?
3 – If an ethics committee is purely cover for an unacceptable decision, why have an ethics committee in the first place? If all medical care is black and white to the church, and if there is a clear dogma to be followed, why does any Catholic hospital have an ethics committee?
4 – You indicate that “This same group has engaged in a slow, selective leak of information to carefully craft a narrative wherein they are the heroes. Along the way they have essentially betrayed this woman’s identity by divulging her age, month of admission, pregnancy, condition, and course of action.” If this is true, regardless of the circumstance, you have a HIPPA violation as you mention. It you do, has anyone sought to bring the hospital up on charges? Do you have data to support your charges?
Amen Dr. Nadal, keep up the good work on clarifying the issues. William Holland.
Christina,
Your question differs from this situation in several substantial ways. The police would clear out the surrounding homes in order to protect innocent life.
From there, they have several non-lethal options at their disposal to subdue the mentally ill man, including tear gas, tranquilizer darts, rubber bullets, tasers, etc.
It is a very dangerous exercise to equate the baby with a belligerent entity such as a gunman. The great difference between these two scenarios is that the baby is not the life-threatening disease itself.
Pulmonary hypertension is not a curable condition, but one that can be managed with medication.
Which brings us back to the case at hand, and Dr. Becker’s stated preference for earliest possible abortion over medical treatment and taking a wait and see attitude (which is the morally preferable approach to treating the baby as a patient with equal dignity and moral standing).
Considering that Dr. Nadal makes clear the Catholic position is contrary to the medical position, should Catholics be maintaining emergency rooms at all?
I think that the obvious answer is no. If they can’t bring themselves to provide treatment that may be necessary then maintaining Catholic emergency rooms begs for one of two outcomes: future Catholics will be forced to violate canon law or patients will die in their care.
Is either outcome worth it?
ST,
Your error is in assuming that there is a monolithic medical position. Medicine is an art, not a science.
The rest of your argument crumbles along with your flawed premise.
Let’s begin here:
Do you, or do you not accept that the fetus is also a human being with full moral worth and equal moral standing as the mother?
For the record the Sister’s excommunication was a form of self excommunication by her actions. By making the decision she did in regards to the abortion she excommunicates herself with or without the Bishops knowledge or decision in the matter. It’s not quite the same as if the Bishop had passed judgement himself. I believe that Priests can be similarly excommunicated for solicitation (hence I would think sexual abuse etc). I’m not an expert but that is my understanding of cannon law in regards to that.
I think Dr. Nadal is right in stating that we ultimately get to the question (one again) of whether an unborn child is a human being who has a right to live the same as any other human being. “Yes” is a reasonable answer to that question, and it is legitimate to build a framework for morality on an answer of “yes. “
“(once again)”
ST
yes wouldn’t the secular humanists of the world just love to get rid of all the Catholic doctors in the world
Then we would have a world rife with human experimentation, eugenics, abortion, euthanasia and so forth…
The only reason we currently do not have a society not yet quite similar to that of the Nazi’s is due to the Catholic church’s refusal to bow to the Peter Singers, Margaret Sanger’s and Nancy Pelosi’s of the world….
Considering that Dr. Nadal makes clear the Catholic position is contrary to the medical position, should Catholics be maintaining emergency rooms at all?
I agree, they should not. Neither should Catholic hospitals offer OB/GYN services.
Gerard quotes an ethicist, by Father Tad Pacholczyk, as a later post: I read it and was inspired to fiery agreement – too fiery: Gerard deleted the comment. There are moral absolutes, and it is absolutely wrong for a hospital to require doctors and nurses to leave patients to die against the will of the patient, and where they know and can provide the treatment that will save the patient’s life.
It’s just plain wrong, and letting it slide would be just plain wrong. I’ve written to the accreditation body responsible for St Joseph’s, and will join any campaign I can to ensure this kind of immorality ceases. No hospital should have a religious adviser who controls what medical treatment the hospital is / is not allowed to provide, and the Catholic Church should advocate to Catholics interested in medicine that they do not study or practice in any area of healthcare where their professional obligations would require them to save lives against the will of the church.
Do you, or do you not accept that the fetus is also a human being with full moral worth and equal moral standing as the mother?
Before ST can answer that question, there’s one you need to answer, since you are asking the about equal worth of fetus with mother:
Do you, or do you not, regard the mother as a human being with a right to live?
If you build a framework on the presumption that the mother does not have a right to live and the fetus is of equal worth with the mother, then Sister McBride made the wrong call: your framework in which neither has a right to live means they should both have been left to die, equally unvalued.
If they have an equal right to live, then the hospital had the right to save the one who could be saved, since the fetus was going to die either way.
To jesurgislac:
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps some of us would WANT to go to a hospital where our right to bodily integrity (not deep assaults on our bodies) and our baby’s right to life would be PROTECTED? I WANT to go to such a hospital, and to have such a doctor. I don’t want to go to a hospital where people reason that if we can’t save both lives, it’s OK to shoot the one we can’t save. Because that’s effectively what you are saying. You and others really have no right to tell US that we must submit to unethical medicine just so some people can have a “choice”. Or even in the rare case where some people erroneously conclude that a major assault on a mother’s body might just happen to save her life. (After all, if she’s strong enough to endure that kind of assault, she will probably live without it, given proper care.) Please understand that some people CHOOSE to go to hospitals and doctors who find abortion unacceptable. For you to decide we have no right to that choice makes hypocrisy out of the claim to be for choice. I choose to stay away from doctors and hospitals that believe abortion is good medicine. Don’t try to compel our choices away from us by insisting that if a hospital won’t commit abortions, it shouldn’t exist.
Pat: Did it ever occur to you that perhaps some of us would WANT to go to a hospital where our right to bodily integrity (not deep assaults on our bodies) and our baby’s right to life would be PROTECTED? I WANT to go to such a hospital, and to have such a doctor.
And you have the absolute right to do so, at any hospital in the US or in the UK. You make clear your wishes – in writing, ideally, so that there can be no confusion, but a simple verbal statement on arrival at the hospital is sufficient – that under no circumstances, not even to save your life, is anyone to perform an abortion on you. Then, if you are in the same tragic situation as this woman at St Joseph’s, in order to protect your baby’s right to life, the doctors and nurses would follow your wishes and let you die with your unborn baby, if an abortion were the only way to let you live and you unalterably rejected that option.
Any doctor who overruled your wishes would be acting as immorally and irresponsibly as the doctor at St Joseph’s who would, apparently, have overruled his patient’s wishes and let her die with her unborn baby, if Sister McBride had not said that Directive 47 permitted a Catholic hospital to save the mother’s life, given the unborn baby was dead either way.
I don’t want to go to a hospital where people reason that if we can’t save both lives, it’s OK to shoot the one we can’t save.
Ah, that’s a different matter. You have a right to have your wishes respected, and to refuse treatment that goes against your moral values, even if that means your death.
You do not have the right to insist that the hospital shall kill others who do not wish to die.
Please understand that some people CHOOSE to go to hospitals and doctors who find abortion unacceptable.
Hospitals and doctors have no business finding abortion unacceptable when it’s performed to preserve a woman’s life or health. Hospitals and doctors have a professional obligation to preserve life and to maintain health, and they do not have any obligation to kill or to harm simply because some of their patients want them to kill or to harm other patients. The segregated whites-only hospitals of the Deep South, which denied care to some patients because of the prejudices of other patients, were the same kind of abomination of health care.
For you to decide we have no right to that choice makes hypocrisy out of the claim to be for choice.
I would stand by you to the death for your right to choose NOT to have an abortion. I will not support your claim to choose death or harm to others.
I choose to stay away from doctors and hospitals that believe abortion is good medicine.
That would be all of them. You may need to become a Christian Scientist.
Don’t try to compel our choices away from us by insisting that if a hospital won’t commit abortions, it shouldn’t exist.
I wouldn’t say that. A hospital could provide services such that it would never need to perfom abortions: it could cease to provide emergency services, cease to have an OB/GYN department, and ideally, deal either primarily with geriatric patients or primarily with men only. A hospital could still provide valuable, if limited, services to the community if it refused to provide full healthcare services to girls and women. But obviously, the community – unless it was an all-male community or an older-citizens community for over-55s – would need to have a real hospital providing full services to complement the Catholic limited-service hospital.
Pat and Jesurgislac
relating to the question of where a patient has a right to determine what therapies can and can not be performed, in ALL nonsectarian hospitals, Jesurgislac is correct. You have the absolute right even if it means losing your life to abstain from any medical or surgical procedure. Because of the litigious society we live in, you may find an accompanying not in you chart stating that you are not following medical advice, but it should have no effect on subsequent care, and if you choose your Drs carefully it will not (Drs like all human beings have their good and bad apples and therefore it is always preferable to get to know and feel you trust your Dr before you are in a situation where you life is on the line. A good example of this is how Jehovah’s witnesses and others who refuse transfusions are handled. Pat, if you could run your own hospital in an ideal world and a Jehovah’s witness was brought in with a bleeding ulcer and a huge blood loss, could you accept their demand that you NOT give them blood products? Many JW find this an absolutely unacceptable therapy and they can be excommunicated for having it.
But Jesurgislac, you are wrong in saying that Catholic hospitals must function the same as nonsectarian hospitals. That is actually a medico-legal question, and as long as they have a health certificate, they can function within the confines of the law. As has been stated, anyone going there of their free will, should know what they can expect from that kind of medical facility. In the ED, is the only place this might get a little tricky, but even there, these kind of questions rarely come up, and in almost all cases Catholic hospitals do an admirable job taking care of their patients.
Judith, your comment to me is what I’d assumed was correct – that Catholic hospitals, providing they weren’t the ONLY source of healthcare a woman had available to her, could provide an adequate service.
But Gerald Nadal (and others who have presented their views publicly and on blogs) has changed my mind: Nadal’s presentation of the Church as unalterably pro-death, believing that fetus and mother should die together when an abortion could save the woman’s life, convinces me unalterably that the Catholic Church has no business running hospitals.
Gerard, not Gerald – apologies for that.
Dr. Nadal: Do you, or do you not accept that the fetus is also a human being with full moral worth and equal moral standing as the mother?
I agree with Exodus 21 on this matter: I do not accept that to be the case.
Dr. Nadal: Your error is in assuming that there is a monolithic medical position. Medicine is an art, not a science.
Your error is assuming that medical ethics can fit comfortably under the guidelines of Catholic cannon law.
Examples such as the Phoenix case prove that it cannot. And yet you still argue that wider society should somehow be constrained by a set of religious beliefs.
We should not accept Catholic emergency rooms if they cannot provide the services necessary to save people’s mortal lives.
ST,
You seem to labor under the illusion that medical professionals and medical administrators are somehow relieved of moral constraints in how they practice medicine. They are not. Each is a free moral agent bound by a common set of mandated ethics. Beyond what is mandated, they are free to choose how they practice medicine in the areas not proscribed by their accrediting bodies or by law.
Abortion presents such a scenario.
Abortion is a legal option under positive law and acceptable practice in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology. That does not mean, however, that all OB/Gyn’s are bound to perform abortion on demand. Each is free to follow his or her own conscience on the matter. However, that freedom can be restricted by the administrative policies of the institution in which the physician practices, such as a Catholic hospital. There are physicians who refuse to employ their knowledge and skills in the pursuit of this barbaric practice just as I, a Ph.D. microbiologist, would rather starve to death than ever use my skills to develop biological weapons.
Ethics in the areas not proscribed by law become very much an expression of the moral norms that govern the lives of physicians and scientists. Catholic hospitals, not being mandated by law to perform abortions, are free to stipulate patient care according to the moral norms of the Church. Physicians are free to accept or reject employment with the understanding of the restrictions placed on their practice by those moral norms, and are bound to abide those restrictions for so long as they remain in the Catholic hospital’s employ.
So, no, I am not in error in stating that medical ethics can fit comfortably under the guidelines of Catholic Canon Law. Physicians and patients not comfortable with those guidelines are free to pursue employment and care in the overwhelming majority of hospitals where this is not an issue.
In the case where a patient such as this presents and desires abortion, no physician or administration is bound by a patient’s wishes to violate their conscience and commit murder.
Jesurgislac, I find your comments incredibly ironic, especially these:
“You do not have the right to insist that the hospital shall kill others who do not wish to die.”
I can guarantee you that the fetus does not wish to die (as all living things fight for their lives) and therefore by your assertion, the mother does not have the right to insist that the hospital shall kill it. There is a difference between actively killing and allowing to die. If somebody dies from natural causes, you cannot say that the hospital killed them.
“Hospitals and doctors have a professional obligation to preserve life and to maintain health, and they do not have any obligation to kill or to harm simply because some of their patients want them to kill or to harm other patients.”
Ask any good OB/GYN and they will say that they view every pregnancy as effectively 2 patients: the mother and the fetus. While hospitals have the obligation to preserve health, they do not have an obligation to actively take life. As you say “they do not have any obligation to kill or harm simply because some of their patients want them to kill or to harm other patients” therefore the mother can not oblige the hospital to kill or harm her fetus even if she requests it. If the hospital were to try everything to save both lives, and both sadly die, the hospital did not kill either of them. It is the human condition to die from acts of nature. If the hospital killed the fetus to save the mother, though, it would be actively killing, which is outside of the scope of life-saving medicine and good ethics.
I also found it odd that Dr. Becker appealed to “first do no harm” as a reason to actively kill the fetus to save the mother. This demonstrates an ignorance of the mantra. First do no harm means it is better to not act than to do harm, hence it is better to not act and let them both die than to actively kill the fetus to save the mother. But nobody is saying don’t act. The hospital should have tried every medical option short of “doing harm.” By actively and purposefully killing the fetus, the hospital violated “first do no harm.”
–A medical student
“first do no harm”
I suppose some may take this to mean a utilitarian-esque summation of goods and evils, and if it comes out with more goods than evils then that means one can act.
But utilitarian ethics is very scary and justifies all kinds of things most people would be uncomfortable with.
However, for Catholics “first do no harm” means something different. One cannot do an evil act even in order to bring about a good. (The ends don’t justify the means).
Only good or neutral acts may be performed.
Therefore, “first do no harm” means one cannot actively kill a human being even if that human being would foreseeably die if no action were taken.
Dr. Nadal,
Perhaps we are talking about two separate incidents? The situation that I am referencing is the one in which multiple doctors and a hospital ethics review board agreed that the procedure was medically necessary and it was done. After the fact, the nun was excommunicated.
When I said “Your error is assuming that medical ethics can fit comfortably under the guidelines of Catholic cannon law,” the error to which I referred was a categorical one. Medical ethics is not a subset of Catholic cannon law, nor is it bound by Catholic cannon law. Instead, there is a subset of medical ethics that is informed by Catholic beliefs and dogma.
Unfortunately, these Catholic-informed limits are narrower than the more widely accepted ethical guidelines, and are rather more severely enforced at Catholic hospitals.
So, even though the doctors had no ethical problem doing the procedure and the review board found that it was necessary to prevent the death of the mother (an event that I assume the hospital would have been found legally culpable for), the Church has made it perfectly clear that in the future the pregnant woman should be left to die.
This puts a lot of people in a bad situation. Patients may show up at a hospital (unwillingly, in some imaginable circumstances) and be left to die. Or their doctors may provide their care and their reviewers may be excommunicated.
You have said “I am not in error in stating that medical ethics can fit comfortably under the guidelines of Catholic Canon Law,” but that is both generally and specifically wrong. Generally, medical ethics do not fit under the guidelines of Catholic cannon law. Specifically, this case proves it, or else we would not bother to converse upon it.
I am severely sorry that this is even a topic. It seems to me that the Catholic Church should be happy to see a loving mother survive to tend to her children. I am quite surprised to find it so contentious.
But I find that the point that I leave still convinced that my point still stands. I’ll slightly rephrase for clarity: If the Catholic Church cannot stomach running emergency medical facilities (and understand what the doctors must sometimes do to save the lives of some of their patients) they should cease running them and find some way of divesting themselves of such responsibility.
Follow the debate with Dr. Becker by clicking here .
Pat: Did it ever occur to you that perhaps some of us would WANT to go to a hospital where our right to bodily integrity (not deep assaults on our bodies) and our baby’s right to life would be PROTECTED? I WANT to go to such a hospital, and to have such a doctor.
Jesurgislac: And you have the absolute right to do so, at any hospital in the US or in the UK.
My response: But you told us later that a hospital that is unwilling to do abortions should not operate an emergency room or offer ob-gyn services. No, you don’t really mean I have the absolute right to do so. Because I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO A HOSPITAL WHERE THEY FIND IT ACCEPTABLE TO RAPE A WOMAN WITH MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS in the name of medical care. Abortion is NOT medical care. It is butchery, pure and simple.
Jesurgislac: You make clear your wishes – in writing, ideally, so that there can be no confusion, but a simple verbal statement on arrival at the hospital is sufficient – that under no circumstances, not even to save your life, is anyone to perform an abortion on you. Then, if you are in the same tragic situation as this woman at St Joseph’s, in order to protect your baby’s right to life, the doctors and nurses would follow your wishes and let you die with your unborn baby, if an abortion were the only way to let you live and you unalterably rejected that option.
My response: Sorry, been there and done that already. I was FACED with that VERY supposed choice: submit to an abortion, or die. And I refused, and I’m here to tell you about it. Try again.
This is what is known in logic as a false dilemma or a false dichotomy. Present only two choices, both unacceptable, in this case, abortion or dying. Force a person to choose between the two. You are overlooking the fact that often there is a third choice that is not only better but totally morally acceptable. This woman had a pulmonary problem. TREAT THE PULMONARY PROBLEM. It makes no sense to cut off her healthy right arm in the name of saving her life. It makes no sense to rape her body with medical instruments and hack her baby to death to save her life, either. This uses up what little physical strength she has left. Where is the sense in that?
PLEASE go take a course in elementary logic. I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
Jesurgislac: given the unborn baby was dead either way.
My response: Are you sure? I’m not.
Jesurgislac: You do not have the right to insist that the hospital shall kill others who do not wish to die.
My response: I DO have a right to insist that NO hospital OR doctor has a right to rape a woman with medical instruments and hack her baby apart with sharp and dangerous instruments, using up what little physical strength she has left IN THE NAME OF SAVING HER LIFE. And you have NO right to call refusing to rape her and hack her baby apart KILLING her. Abortion is NOT medical care. It’s butchery. Period.
Jesurgislac: Hospitals and doctors have no business finding abortion unacceptable when it’s performed to preserve a woman’s life or health.
My response: There are NO occasions where a woman’s health requires her to have an abortion. NONE. And I fail to see how raping her and hacking her baby to death can be performed to preserve her life. Let the doctors take the baby from her womb intact, and then give the baby either life-saving care or comfort care, whichever is appropriate. But if she has some other condition, TREAT THE CONDITION. Don’t attack another human being in the name of treating a condition in a totally different part of her body.
Jesurgislac: Hospitals and doctors have a professional obligation to preserve life and to maintain health, and they do not have any obligation to kill or to harm simply because some of their patients want them to kill or to harm other patients.
My response: Hey, we agree! They don’t have an obligation to kill or harm unborn babies, either! In fact, it’s unethical for ANY doctor, not just Catholic ones.
Jesurgislac: The segregated whites-only hospitals of the Deep South, which denied care to some patients because of the prejudices of other patients, were the same kind of abomination of health care.
My response: False analogy.
Jesurgislac: I would stand by you to the death for your right to choose NOT to have an abortion. I will not support your claim to choose death or harm to others.
My response: Hey, I’m not the one who is choosing death to others. The persons who did the abortion on the woman did that!
Me: I choose to stay away from doctors and hospitals that believe abortion is good medicine.
Jesurgislac: That would be all of them. You may need to become a Christian Scientist.
My response: This statement is absolutely false on its face. We wouldn’t be HAVING this discussion if you were correct. Catholic hospitals generally do not think abortion is good medicine. And many doctors are pro-life and won’t do abortions either. And no, I won’t become a Christian Scientist. They’re batty. Their theology is totally false, and their idea of medical care is a joke.
Jesurgislac: I wouldn’t say that. A hospital could provide services such that it would never need to perfom abortions: it could cease to provide emergency services, cease to have an OB/GYN department, and ideally, deal either primarily with geriatric patients or primarily with men only.
My response: I’m not a man, and I may need to use an emergency room. I repeat: you want to deprive me of being able to choose a hospital where people are not being hacked to death. A hospital that allows that could do almost anything when it comes to the crunch. It warps the judgment of doctors and other hospital personnel.
Judith Becker MD: relating to the question of where a patient has a right to determine what therapies can and can not be performed, in ALL nonsectarian hospitals, Jesurgislac is correct. You have the absolute right even if it means losing your life to abstain from any medical or surgical procedure.
My response: this right extends to a lot more than simply refusing abortion. How about refusing a CAT scan or chemotherapy? A person always has the right to refuse treatment, and if I do choose to refuse treatment, I may actually be saving my own life. Some treatments are both unnecessary and dangerous. This isn’t a problem confined to just abortion. Allopaths have been using warped judgment for a very long time, when they give dangerous drugs instead of finding a natural remedy. I have lost count of the number of times I either couldn’t get a diagnosis, or I couldn’t even get treatment of any kind for a condition, from an allopath. And I have also lost count of the number of times that the natural treatment I chose worked so much better than pharmaceuticals are even REPRESENTED to work. Abortion would never have become an issue in the first place if doctors had been adhering to “primum non nocere” (first do no harm) with respect to all treatments all along. Again, don’t present us with a false dilemma. If I refuse treatment, it does NOT necessarily mean I will lose my life.
Becker: Because of the litigious society we live in, you may find an accompanying not in you chart stating that you are not following medical advice, but it should have no effect on subsequent care, and if you choose your Drs carefully it will not (Drs like all human beings have their good and bad apples and therefore it is always preferable to get to know and feel you trust your Dr before you are in a situation where you life is on the line.
My response: all too often, a doctor will simply refuse to treat at all if a patient refuses a particular treatment or test. And I have always tried to choose my doctors carefully. I chose a doctor who stated he was pro-life, and HE is the one who referred me to an abortionist I didn’t know who tried to deceive and intimidate me into an abortion.
Becker: A good example of this is how Jehovah’s witnesses and others who refuse transfusions are handled. Pat, if you could run your own hospital in an ideal world and a Jehovah’s witness was brought in with a bleeding ulcer and a huge blood loss, could you accept their demand that you NOT give them blood products? Many JW find this an absolutely unacceptable therapy and they can be excommunicated for having it.
My response: I would respect any patient’s right to refuse any treatment. If the patient is incapacitated and unable to communicate, I would do my best to exercise my medical judgment. If they bring in an accident victim, and the victim doesn’t have a Medalert or some way of telling me he’s a JW, then I wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at him that he was.
Becker: That is actually a medico-legal question, and as long as they have a health certificate, they can function within the confines of the law.
My response: And that is exactly why abortion should be illegal. Abortion is butchery, and people shouldn’t be expected to butcher mothers and babies simply because seven tired old MEN on the Supreme Court dictated that we have no right to protect mothers and babies from abortionists!
Spherical Time: After the fact, the nun was excommunicated.
My response: Incorrect. The nun wasn’t excommunicated. She excommunicated HERSELF. The bishop simply told the world what she had done. If you are Catholic, you agree that abortion is a sin that causes latae sententiae (automatic self-excommunication). If you don’t agree with that, don’t be Catholic!
Spherical: the Church has made it perfectly clear that in the future the pregnant woman should be left to die.
My response: Oh please! Not another one with Straw Man arguments!
Spherical: I’ll slightly rephrase for clarity: If the Catholic Church cannot stomach running emergency medical facilities (and understand what the doctors must sometimes do to save the lives of some of their patients) they should cease running them and find some way of divesting themselves of such responsibility.
My response: Yes, and deprive me of MY right to go only to a hospital that operates ethically. Thanks, but no thanks!
{Pat, I made the correction 🙂 GN}
[…] The Phoenix Abortion: A Pediatric Cardiologist Weighs In, More Debate on the Phoenix Abortion, More Debate With Dr. Becker on the Phoenix Abortion, How Catholic Bioethics is Guided, and The Principle of Double Effect. I’ve devoted a lot of […]
Pat: My response: Oh please! Not another one with Straw Man arguments!
Actually, a straw man argument would require that not to be what the Bishop has said.
My response: Yes, and deprive me of MY right to go only to a hospital that operates ethically. Thanks, but no thanks!
That isn’t a “right.” There’s nothing about that in the Constitution, nor cannon law. You’re more than welcome to sign a DNR at a non-Catholic hospital, or simply not consent to the procedure.
Spherical, I feel like I just managed to crash Eliza! Eliza is a computer program that is supposed to act like it’s intelligent. It simulates a psychiatrist. I used to like to tell it my problems and keep responding until its grammar got messed up. Your message makes no sense to me.
Spherical: Actually, a straw man argument would require that not to be what the Bishop has said.
Huh? WHAT not to be what the Bishop said? To my knowledge, he never said that the Roman church thinks we should kill mothers. Certainly he didn’t say that refusing to do an invasive procedure on a woman is tantamount to killing her. You’re the one who accused the Roman church of killing mothers. I see absolutely nothing in anything the Roman church stands for that advocates killing mothers.
Your statement was a Straw Man because you warped the Roman church’s stand against killing babies into a stand that kills mothers. Refusing to kill one patient isn’t killing the other. If she dies, it will be from natural causes. Nonaction is NOT killing. If she wants an abortion, she should get one where they do them. Abortion is not medical care. Nobody is entitled to DEMAND that an unwilling entity perform one.
Me: Yes, and deprive me of MY right to go only to a hospital that operates ethically. Thanks, but no thanks!
Spherical: That isn’t a “right.” There’s nothing about that in the Constitution, nor cannon law. You’re more than welcome to sign a DNR at a non-Catholic hospital, or simply not consent to the procedure.
You got things backwards. That’s not what I am saying at all. I’m not talking about signing a DNR or not consenting to a procedure. I’m talking about being allowed to go to a hospital that refuses to butcher women and children, because the practice of butchering women and children taints the whole establishment. When people are in the business of killing, you can’t trust them not to kill or mistreat YOU. These ethical hospitals exist, and they welcome my business. The government has no right to shut them down, or make it impossible for them to operate ethically. You know, the whole PURPOSE of the Hippocratic Oath was to stop doctors from KILLING! And we are throwing away that priceless legacy. I have a right under the Constitution to freedom of association, and I choose to associate only with medical institutions and personnel who abhor killing. I’m personally not bound by Canon Law, so it’s not part of this discussion, with me, anyway. It just so happens that on this issue, Canon Law is right, and I agree with it. Simply put, I have a right to give my business to a hospital that already exists, without the government interfering. When you say that Catholic hospitals should not operate emergency rooms or offer ob/gyn services, what are you proposing? That government forbid it? Or do you plan, instead, to go there and shoot all the people staffing the emergency room? Or do you have some other harebrained scheme to deprive us of the right to act ethically?
I think that operating in a Catholic hospital must sometimes entail some very delicate and difficult decisions.
I find that some of the arguments in this string rather suppose that the nun (Sr McBride) was in fact a secret abortionist and that the hospital in Phoenix is also secretly and wantonly carrying out “catholic” abortions. I suspect neither is the case. It worries me that the Church is not offering its full support to what must have been an extremely difficult situation, which none but those present can really appreciate. Who would work in such a place? Will this tip the balance towards doing nothing? The sin of omission is also very real.
Sally,
Your opening statement sounds very much like some of the rhetoric that the choicer movement often uses to try to justify abortion. They tell us that women agonize over the decision, as if this agony somehow justifies the action they ultimately take. Don’t even go there.
I see no reason for you to defame anyone. Nobody has said that Sr. McBride is a secret abortionist, and I really don’t think anybody has even implied it. And again, just because the decision is difficult, doesn’t make it right. Perhaps the reason it’s difficult is because it’s the wrong decision!
As I pointed out earlier (perhaps elsewhere), this woman was said to be dying. Where is the sense in doing a vicious and violent invasion of her uterus? That will use up what little strength she has left, so that she cannot endure corrective surgery or treatment. The woman should be treated for the PROBLEM, and the baby isn’t the problem! If her hormones are a problem, deal with that after the corrective measures have been taken. If all corrective measures known have been taken, she is still less likely to die immediately if they leave her body alone. And the first thing they needed to worry about was her immediate death. If she is strong enough to endure an abortion, she will live when she is transported elsewhere for ten minutes. This whole thing smacks of a very high level of being totally illogical.
Who would work in a hospital that holds the line and refuses to kill? I would. In a heartbeat. I wouldn’t want to be in a position where I had to help someone kill their baby. You should Google Jill Stanek. She has a lot to say about this problem.
As for the “sin of omission”, it is NOT a sin to REFUSE to kill someone because if you don’t, “someone else MIGHT die”. If this happens, it’s not your fault; it is the fault of the medical condition, so unless you sneaked into the woman’s room one night and did something to her to bring on this disease, you are blameless. And it’s not like you should do nothing. You SHOULD give her treatment for her CONDITION.
Abortion kills a human being. It is unethical. Even having it on the table warps medical judgment. There are ALWAYS better answers. If an abortion seems that important, you probably can’t save the woman anyway. If for some reason they’re lucky and she survives, you have no way of knowing whether she might have survived without the abortion. Saying someone is dying is ALWAYS a speculation in a sense. Yes, we’re right some of the time. But there have been plenty of other cases when it didn’t happen.
So let’s not even go there: abortion is an unacceptable decision, not merely a difficult one. And in our hearts, we know it. In pregnancy, mother and baby are a dyad. Harm one, and you harm the other. It’s that simple.
How will this woman react if she does survive, and then she gets to thinking about what they did to her, which she may have consented to?
I have experienced some of the emotional consequences of abortion: I have had horrible nightmares. I wouldn’t wish that off on anyone. If a woman experiences a lifetime of regret, is she really better off? Not in my opinion. Don’t fall for the false dilemma. To repeat, that’s when two options are presented, both bad or evil, and the person is told you have to choose one of them. There is almost always a third answer, a better answer that is perfectly acceptable.
I WANT the Catholic hospitals to hold the line, so that when I need hospital care, I can find a hospital where I will be treated in accordance of medical ethics, and I don’t have to feel that sick as I am, I have to be constantly on my guard to prevent them from doing me harm.
Hi Pat,
I just want to make it clear – it’s not me who thinks that either Sr McBride or the Phoenix hospital are secret abortionists – I do, however, feel it is implied in much of what is being said on this site ie, the supposition that an abortion was wantonly carried out without reference to any other medical possibility. You are right, abortion is always wrong. Are we absolutely sure that is what happened here? I am in England (and yes, I have phoned the ministry to protest about the abortion advert, and I’ve signed the petition too). Like most of us I wasn’t in the operating theatre in Phoenix when this procedure happened. There seems to be a lot of wild speculation about what went on. People do make wrong judgements, but I would have thought that in a Catholic clinic we could at least give the benefit of the doubt that they were trying to do everything they could to save both baby and mother. Especially if previously the clinic had an unblemished record.
Should there not have been some sort of enquiry by the Episcopal authority before the excommunication was declared to be valid – perhaps there was and I did not know. In which case why is this whole thing being argued about still? It’s what appears to be the summary nature of the excommunication that upsets me. I’m not arguing for abortion – heaven forbid – I’m just saying; how can Canon Law be so categorically sure that an abortion per se was carried out in this case unless there was an enquiry and all the facts were laid out on the table? I would have thought that an excommunication would only be appropriate if it could be shown that the death of the baby was specifically intended from the beginning, which as you say, in a Catholic hospital, ought never to happen. If it did happen, then was is a one-off mistake (albeit grave, and lethal for the baby) based on false information or medical error, or is there an insidious creep of false ethics going on in this particular hospital, which a good dose of excommunication would be appropriate to cure?
Hi, Sally,
I am glad we agree on the right to life.
I don’t mean to imply you are saying that the sister is a secret abortionist. I’m saying that for you to read into people’s words that she is a secret abortionist is potentially defamatory.
Here’s my take on it. It is very unlikely they delivered the baby intact at 11 weeks. I don’t know of anybody who is doing that. How would they do it? Caesarian section? It would be difficult to take the baby intact vaginally, and people are just accustomed to cutting the baby apart. I think that deliberately tearing the baby limb from limb is malice aforethought, even if the motivation is allegedly good. They needed to figure out how to keep the baby intact. I tend to think the bishop investigated, discovered it was an abortion, and then announced that the sister had excommunicated herself. There may be more about her background that we don’t know as well. There are a lot of sisters who are publicly advocating legal abortion, and a lot of others who think that way. I don’t know what she has said in the past. But I suspect there were other problems. The point is, the sister decided the baby had to go, and the bishop reacted to this decision. Excommunication serves the purpose of getting someone to repent so she can be restored to fellowship. It only results in loss of salvation if the person refuses to repent. Excommunication is used far too seldom. A lot of people lose their salvation BECAUSE they’re not disciplined properly. They continue to sin and refuse to repent. Not only that, but they corrupt the people in the church, and more people fall into grievous sin and lose their salvation.
People have said the only ethical thing to do is take the uterus with the baby inside. Given that the uterus was not a defective or damaged organ, I would question whether that is even ethical. Judging by the comments of the doctor who has participated here, it is customary to do an abortion on a woman with this particular medical condition because the pregnancy hormones aggravate the disease, and in her clinical opinion, it could be enough to kill the woman.
My analysis of the situation is that if the woman was truly dying, then she was not strong enough to endure an abortion. If she was capable of enduring an abortion, there was time to transport her for ten minutes. There are some people out there who are baiting Catholic hospitals. They deliberately go to a Catholic hospital to try to violate the policies in order to corrupt the hospitals. I saw the same behavior with respect to homosexuals desecrating Catholic churches. I’m not saying this woman tried to bait the hospital, but the upshot of it was that this is effectively what happened. Even if the doctor was correct that an abortion needed to be done (in her clinical opinion, though I don’t share it), the medical treatments for the condition should be applied first. Then, if the woman survives the immediate crisis, she may be strong enough to endure an abortion.
The bottom line: there was time to transport her elsewhere. If she would have died because she was transported, she would also have died from the abortion. Abortion causes serious trauma to the body, and transporting a person for ten minutes doesn’t begin to compare.
It is important to realize that abortion has so thoroughly insinuated itself into American medicine that a lot of doctors don’t even think in terms of avoiding doing an abortion and finding a better answer. I have lost count of the number of cases where a woman was told either her life was endangered by pregnancy, or her baby would have a serious defect, and the woman refused to have an abortion, and both survived, and the baby was normal. I am one of those people who got told my life was in danger. I declined to have an abortion and I’m here to tell you about it. When first you compromise on ethics, it naturally follows that many doctors won’t bother to find a better answer. But given the analysis I have done here, I think the bishop acted correctly. The sister should have arranged for transportation for the woman to go elsewhere, or had her loved ones do so. I would even question whether she ethically had the right to arrange transportation, and I personally would refuse. But I sure don’t see how the sister is without blame.
Pat wrote “As I pointed out earlier (perhaps elsewhere), this woman was said to be dying. Where is the sense in doing a vicious and violent invasion of her uterus? That will use up what little strength she has left, so that she cannot endure corrective surgery or treatment.”
Goodness me. The woman had an abortion at 11 weeks – this isn’t something “vicious and violent”, it’s minor (very minor!) surgery, to treat a condition – her pregnancy – that was KILLING her.
And it worked: she lived. And though this site doesn’t seem to agree, that was a GOOD thing.
Hi Pat
Thanks for taking the time to reply, mine will be quick as I’m in the middle of making supper for the family, but I don’t want to wait or our conversation will be interrupted by such as above!
Would doctors in a Catholic hospital not try to avoid an abortion – surely they at least would not be so insinuated into the abortion culture?
I agree that if the medical ethics of the particular hospital were beginning to slide, or the person excommunicated did not have an unblemished record, then the action was correct. I’ll say no more as I do not wish to defame anyone.
Perhaps Dr Nadal could comment on the medical correctness of what you have said vis a vis abortions at 11 weeks? I hope you don’t mind – unless you yourself are a doctor?
Orly, give me a break! An abortion at 11 weeks is a deeply invasive act that has a very high rate of complications. It causes such grievous harm that the reproductive system of 35% of the women who get one is KNOWN to be harmed, and that statistic doesn’t even include breast cancer! I have WATCHED abortions being done. Have you? It is NO minor procedure. Not only that, but abortion causes serious emotional problems in some women. A woman is 7 times more likely to commit suicide after an abortion, than if she gives birth. She is also several times more likely to die a violent death, either from homicide or accident. She is more likely to abuse drugs, alcohol, or herself. She is more likely to develop anorexia or bulimia. These figures comes from epidemiological studies in a country where records of all abortions are kept, and were correlated with these other events. Future children are at much greater risk from prematurity, and prematurity is a leading cause of birth defects. Brent Rooney estimates that we have double the number of cases of cerebral palsy we would have if we weren’t doing abortions. A baby can also develop epilepsy, autism, mental retardation, blindness, or deafness. The incidence of autism has been increasing substantially. If a woman aborts her first pregnancy and has close relatives with breast cancer, she is almost certain to get it, and it will happen when she is in her 30’s, or earlier. 1/4 of the women who get triple negative breast cancer die from it. This pushes the death rate from abortion into the millions, but nobody is counting. A woman is 400% more likely to have a miscarriage or a tubal pregnancy after one abortion. Miscarriage means the death of the baby: more deaths, this time of wanted children. A tubal pregnancy is life-threatening and requires emergency surgery. Again, the baby will die. And from the immediate consequences of abortion, there are many uncounted deaths, because it is routine for the cause of death to be listed as the complication, not abortion, even though the complication would never have occurred without the abortion. A private investigator with limited financial means uncovered hundreds of cases never reported to the CDC. He did it by investigating public records, such as death certificates, news reports, and so on. I have two books he wrote full of case histories. Who knows how many thousands more there are out there. I also have entire books devoted to discussing the consequences arising from abortion. Women are bleeding to death after pill abortion (though it wouldn’t have been possible to do a pill abortion at 11 weeks), dying from toxic shock syndrome, and having a ruptured uterus. If it doesn’t cause abortion (and sometimes it doesn’t), it can cause horrible birth defects: microcephaly with profound retardation, foreshortened limbs (remember Thalidomide?), frozen facial muscles, and other problems. If they do a surgical abortion to complete the pill abortion, it subjects the mother to TWO sets of risks. See above. The manufacturer of Cytotec says a pregnant woman should never take it, so it’s being given off-label, and that’s malpractice. I don’t think I need to go on, but I can write a booklet right here without even consulting my information.
And no, her pregnancy is NOT a condition. It is a natural part of a woman’s sexuality. Her lung disease was the condition. It wasn’t the pregnancy that was killing her. It was the LUNG DISEASE!
My whole point here is that they didn’t NEED to do an abortion on the woman, because the most important thing is to stabilize her, and an abortion would take at least as long as transporting her elsewhere, if they INSISTED she have an abortion. Abortion causes body trauma that makes transporting look like a piece of cake by comparison. They didn’t need to implicate a Catholic hospital in this. It was TOTALLY UNNECESSARY.
Don’t be too quick to assume that the abortion saved this woman’s life. You haven’t followed her long enough to be able to make that assertion. She may have survived for now, but I think the information presented here shows that she would have survived short term regardless.
If she lived because of the abortion, she would have lived long enough to go elsewhere for an abortion. End of story. Full stop.
And that’s what this discussion is all about: a Catholic hospital being snookered into doing something that goes against medical ethics and against its own standards.
The bedrock principle of Primum Non Nocere (First do no harm) was violated in this case. Without this principle, doctors are nothing more than butchers. There is a long history of doing very dangerous things to patients in the name of helping them, from giving them toxic pharmaceuticals instead of herbs and supplements, to unnecessary tests, to cancer treatments (cutting, burning, poisoning), to giving vaccines with toxic substances in them, like mercury, to surgical procedures that a person would be better off without. Those of us who believe in medical ethics WANT to be able to go to a hospital where we KNOW they will be respected, and our right not to be harmed is also respected. And now, this hospital no longer qualifies. I am glad the bishop took a stand. How many other Catholic hospitals are getting away with violating medical ethics? I don’t know. It’s frightening.
Sally, thanks for the reply. ONE act of murder, or conspiring to commit murder, is a mortal sin in the Roman church. It doesn’t require that the sister have a record of defying church teachings.
There may be differences of opinions among doctors on whether the abortion was “necessary” to save the mother’s life, but it is not at all clear that it is a foregone conclusion that she couldn’t be managed until 22 weeks. The whole point here is that the availability of abortion WARPS MEDICAL JUDGMENT of some doctors. This is clearly a hard case. And hard cases make bad law. So we have wholesale genocide being committed because of a FEW hard cases. I don’t care how careful you are, there are going to be women who seem to “need” an abortion to survive, and some of them will not survive. It’s a risk the doctor takes. Why not take the risk in favor of life? One anecdote (or even three or four) does not scientific proof make. We don’t know how long this woman will survive. We also don’t know she would definitely have died without the abortion, and not survived if she didn’t get it. They had to take one course of action or the other, and the results of the other course of action will remain forever unknown.
And like I said, why didn’t they try adult stem cells? They could have supplied these to her lungs. They could probably keep her stable long enough to culture them. But her baby is dead, and we cannot do anything about it.
The whole point here is that regardless of whether Dr. Becker or anybody else felt the abortion was necessary to reduce pregnancy hormones because they might push a woman’s body over the edge, THERE WAS TIME TO TRANSPORT HER ELSEWHERE. Either there was time, or the abortion would have killed her. The fact she survived the abortion means she could have been safely transported.
Pat,
Great replies. Could you send me a bibliography of the books that you have dealing with the consequences of abortion? I’d like to add them to my reading list.
Thanks,
Gerry
Thanks, Gerry,
Will do.
Pat
Pat and Gerard
Thanks for being. I think my head will explode with the amazing amounts of insight and intelligence you have provided.
God Bless