Nun excommunicated for allowing abortion to save the life of a mother

[AOII Angel]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=126985072

Last November, a 27-year-old woman was admitted to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. She was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, and she was gravely ill. According to a hospital document, she had "right heart failure," and her doctors told her that if she continued with the pregnancy, her risk of mortality was "close to 100 percent."

The patient, who was too ill to be moved to the operating room much less another hospital, agreed to an abortion. But there was a complication: She was at a Catholic hospital.

"They were in quite a dilemma," says Lisa Sowle Cahill, who teaches Catholic theology at Boston College. "There was no good way out of it. The official church position would mandate that the correct solution would be to let both the mother and the child die. I think in the practical situation that would be a very hard choice to make."

But the hospital felt it could proceed because of an exception — called Directive 47 in the U.S. Catholic Church's ethical guidelines for health care providers — that allows, in some circumstance, procedures that could kill the fetus to save the mother. Sister Margaret McBride, who was an administrator at the hospital as well as its liaison to the diocese, gave her approval.

Documents
Church Q&A On Abortion, Sister Margaret McBride And Excommunication
The woman survived. When Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted heard about the abortion, he declared that McBride was automatically excommunicated — the most serious penalty the church can levy.

"She consented in the murder of an unborn child," says the Rev. John Ehrich, the medical ethics director for the Diocese of Phoenix. "There are some situations where the mother may in fact die along with her child. But — and this is the Catholic perspective — you can't do evil to bring about good. The end does not justify the means."

So I guess it's better to leave four children orphans than to allow an abortion to save the life of this mother? I applaud this nun for making the hard, real life decision to allow this mother and her doctors to make the decisions in her medical care.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=126985072



So I guess it's better to leave four children orphans than to allow an abortion to save the life of this mother? I applaud this nun for making the hard, real life decision to allow this mother and her doctors to make the decisions in her medical care.

This really just pissed me off. All anyone could say was "hopefully" they'd both live. And that's just... GAH.

I yelled at the pope on my facebook the other day though so I'm already in a mood.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

This really just pissed me off. All anyone could say was "hopefully" they'd both live. And that's just... GAH.

I yelled at the pope on my facebook the other day though so I'm already in a mood.

I know, me too. I love that the argument is, that the ends don't justify the means. If the baby has no chance to live whether or not the pregnancy is terminated, why damn the mother to death by refusing to allow her to end the pregnancy. Let the mother live to take care of her other children!

[KSUViolet06]

Sad but not surprising.

I would tend to agree with AOII_Angel on this one.

I mean, it's not like the church is going to provide for them if mom does die.

[Drolefille]

According to NPR there is an exception in the Catholic Healthcare code of ethics or something that is what the hospital and this nun based her decision on, so why?

Also, people who molest children get "therapy" and are NEVER ex-communicated even if convicted and this nun gets the harshest theological punishment possible. bullshit.

[Psi U MC Vito]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

According to NPR there is an exception in the Catholic Healthcare code of ethics or something that is what the hospital and this nun based her decision on, so why?

Sounds like the code of ethics allows for procedures that might put the fetus at risk. I doubt it would cover an out and out abortion.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

Sounds like the code of ethics allows for procedures that might put the fetus at risk. I doubt it would cover an out and out abortion.

It's the principle of double effect. The gist would be that an action that has two effects -- one morally good and one morally bad -- is morally acceptable if there is no intent to cause the morally bad act and if morally acceptable means are used. So for example, removal of the fallopian tubes in an ectopic pregnancy would be moral as necessary to save the mother's life even though it will result in the death of the fetus. The death of the fetus would be considered an indirect (though certain) result of removing the fallopian tubes, which is necessary to save the life of the mother. But if an actual abortion were performed, that would fail the double effect test both because a morally bad effect (an abortion) is intended and because it is use of an immoral means.

The principle is also sometimes invoked in situations involving the withholding or removing of life support.

[Drolefille]

For the sake of playing devil's advocate, the church's position is that it's never ok to kill someone to save another's life. So abortion is always wrong even if it saves the life of the mother.

I can wrap my brain around the concept even though I vastly disagree with the premise.

[WinniBug]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

For the sake of playing devil's advocate, the church's position is that it's never ok to kill someone to save another's life. So abortion is always wrong even if it saves the life of the mother.

I can wrap my brain around the concept even though I vastly disagree with the premise.

Yep, I completely agree!

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by WinniBug

Yep, I completely agree!

I am however pondering the concept of Just War which the church supports and how it relates.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

For the sake of playing devil's advocate, the church's position is that it's never ok to kill someone to save another's life. So abortion is always wrong even if it saves the life of the mother.

I can wrap my brain around the concept even though I vastly disagree with the premise.

I still can't understand. If the choices are two lives lost or one life lost, the choice should be simple. What you DON'T do makes you responsible for two deaths.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Right. It goes to the intent. In this case, it's semantics that reflect a philosophy that goes back at least to Thomas Aquinas.

Dekeguy may know more, but I think it's the principle of double effect on a large scale, though I know there are specific considerations for whether a war is "just" or not.

Sometimes war is necessary to protect the innocent, defend freedom or fight evil. WWII makes a great example. One does not wage a just war with the intent of killing others, although that clearly will be an inevitable result. The intent is defending freedom/the innocent/"good."

So is the intent of this abortion. I think it's a contradiction still.

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

So the fact that the fetus is in the wrong place and that organ is removed means that mother gets to live. Yay for her! I wonder if they'd performed a hysterectomy on the women in the OP if this would be okay too?

I guess I still don't see the difference. In an ectopic pregnancy, the intent is still to terminate the pregnancy. The end result is it saves the mother's life. In the case we are discussing currently, the intent was to terminate the pregnancy. The end result is to save the mother's life. How are these different in any way? In both cases, the fetus is not viable to term. In both cases, terminating the pregnancy will save the life of the mother. In both cases, the pregnancy is terminated surgically. I think the church has just found a way to keep people happy since ectopics happen fairly commonly. Wouldn't want to stand by and let thousands of women die every year because we can't kill a nonviable fetus to save the life of a mother.

It goes back to those philosophical questions: Would you push 1 person in front of a train if you knew you would save 5 others? Would you save the 1 person if it would kill 5 others? Would you pull the switch and move the train down the track that would kill 1 person to save 5 others or let the 5 die? If they see the fetus as a human person, despite the fact that it MAY not live naturally, they cannot justify killing it, even to save the life of the mother. It's the difference between pushing someone in front of the tracks and letting the train hit someone.

Or similarly, would you pull someone onto a rowboat that you know will sink it and kill you? Would you push someone off the rowboat if you knew it would sink and kill you if you didn't? What if it weren't just you in the boat?

Originally Posted by violetpretty

I still can't understand. If the choices are two lives lost or one life lost, the choice should be simple. What you DON'T do makes you responsible for two deaths.

It absolves them of responsibility because the deaths were, natural, god's will, whatever. They were going to happen. If you intervene, you're responsible for the intervention's effects. Allow an abortion = condoning murder. Disallowing abortion = she may die, if so that's better than murdering someone, and she dies without the stain of murder on her soul.

As I said, it's their perspective and I don't agree with it.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Yep, this aspect is uniform from a theological perspective at least.

And excommunication sounds really horrible, but it's fixable through confession and penance, assume that you accept that you've done something wrong. It's not a permanent state, unless you want it to be basically.

Not sure if it's just 'if you want it' to be. If you truly believe you haven't done wrong, then you're 'stuck' so to speak, as any confession would be invalid and dishonest. *blinks* Holy disappearing post, Batman.

Interesting opinion piece on NPR:

Sister McBride is allowed to return to the church if she confesses, does penance and works with the church to help manage the scandal. I want to tell her this: "Don't confess. Mercy is not a sin." I don't know about Bishop Olmsted's God, but my God is a merciful God. And dogma without mercy is hollow. It makes people capable of great cruelty.

Although the personal story she shares is different in that a doctor allowed her grandmother's unborn child to die and didn't perform a C-section that he thought would kill the woman.

I wonder what Sister McBride will do, but odds are it won't be nearly as public as this whole ordeal has been.

[Psi U MC Vito]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

I wonder what Sister McBride will do, but odds are it won't be nearly as public as this whole ordeal has been.

From my understanding of it, the Church probably wouldn't even have not announced the excommunication if she wasn't in a position of leadership. The fact that she is a religious sister might also have been taken into account when deciding to announce it.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

From my understanding of it, the Church probably wouldn't even have not announced the excommunication if she wasn't in a position of leadership. The fact that she is a religious sister might also have been taken into account when deciding to announce it.

The impression I get is that locally there was some sort of fuss about it and that the bishop there is not just obviously pro-life but like 'don't take communion if you voted for a pro-choice politician' pro-life. (which btw is bullshit.) So combine those two and i suspect you would have gotten the fuss whether or not she was a sister but it makes the whole thing all the more dramatic. It may have been that she didn't go to confession immediately after this situation either... though not sure that even the bishop would know that one way or the other.