While the Catholic Church may be criticized for covering up crimes by priests and resisting efforts to discipline offenders, it seems to waste to time with errant nuns. Sister Margaret McBride has been excommunicated for the offense of approving an abortion to protect the life of a mother as a senior administrator of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix. There does not even appear to be any room for mitigating circumstances in such a case. Bishop Thomas Olmstead (left) immediately excommunicated McBride.
McBride was faced with a case involving a 27-year-old mother of four with pulmonary hypertension. The reviewing doctors concluded that she stood a serious risk of dying in child birth from the condition. As part of the Ethics Committee, Sister Margaret agreed with the medical staff that the abortion was necessary. Bishop Olmstead then promptly ruled that Sister Margaret was “automatically excommunicated.” Where was that automatic provision in the cases of serial child abuse?
For the full story, click here.
doubtful former medic:
“Perhaps, it would be best that those interested in this event to pray for those involved in this saddening event to have understanding for each other and to show each other their God’s love; and that the mother, the father and the child’s brothers and sisters can find peace after the loss of a child and sibling that was probably wanted by them all.”
*******************
Perhaps it might have been better had all involved not wasted their time and emotional energy praying to an indifferent deity (or nothing at all), and respected the well-being of the patient, who faced the prospect of dying while the religionists dithered about the propriety of saving her. Helping the life in being — that is what you folks swear to do, isn’t it?
Though I have read the story you are referring to and understand that the physicians found cause to be concerned, there is neither enough information in the report to condemn or console either party.
Where as the one patient was prevented the possibility of death there was one that was clearly killed. This is the likely belief of the RC church. Neither the bishop or the nun are the attending physician and I believe that the nun understood this well when she chose to go against her belief of the child’s right to life in favor of saving the mothers life.
The question that is clearly not answered is whether the mother would have been able to carry the child to the point where an early termination of pregnancy would not have meant the death of the child.
All said, I am hopeful that the mother was informed of everything that we are not fully aware of and that she chose to do as she did because it was not possible to have both survive. Given she had 4 other children I am led to believe that she liked children and was not out just to make life convenient and would therefor feel that the nun would have concluded likewise about the situation. I doubt that anyone took their decision light heartedly and that the nun knew that her approval would have resulted in the actions taken.
Perhaps, it would be best that those interested in this event to pray for those involved in this saddening event to have understanding for each other and to show each other their God’s love; and that the mother, the father and the child’s brothers and sisters can find peace after the loss of a child and sibling that was probably wanted by them all.
Why does it no dawn on the cave dwellers, that by letting both the mother and the fetus die, they are murdering any children that she might have had if she had been allowed to live.
It is just so important for these men to find excuses to punish women and childen even to the point of death, and to blame it on God.
Pathetic.
No thinking, caring parent should let their boy-child anywhere’s near that bespeckled Bisshup in the pink dress…
The mother had pulmonary hypertension. According to Gabbe et al, “Obstetrics: Normal and Problem Pregnancies” 5th edition (2007), pulmonary hypertension during pregnancy has a 50% mortality rate for the mother. Gabbe’s text is the unquestioned authority in obstetrics, it is the standard in the field with the latest research on obstetrical care, used in every medical school and nurse midwifery school in the country. Termination of pregnancy IS indicated in this case.
I am an ex-catholic. I experienced, also, being told that despite my health conditions (nowhere as serious as pulmonary hypertension thankfully) it would be a “blessing” and “martyrdom” were I do die in childbirth, rather than use contraceptives. I was told this when I was an undergraduate at a radically right wing conservative catholic college in the Dallas area. I was also told that it would be a sin to divorce my alcoholic, abusive husband. Wanting to get right with god and save my soul, I acquiesced, stopped with the contraceptives, and continued with my zero self esteem until finally I left the whole lot of the crazy, child abusing bastards. There is no way to “accommodate” that church. They are truly misogynistic, hate women, and do see us as second class physical vessels for having as many children as possible.
The bishops’ stance also makes clear they would rather leave the woman’s existing children motherless, and experience their mother’s death, rather than save her life. Without knowing her health history, there is a possibility she will not have pulmonary hypertension in a subsequent pregnancy, and could reproduce more, if that indeed is the sole reason for her existence. There is no way to “reason” with these catholics. Males can literally get by with murder; women can’t get by with anything.
mespo727272
1, May 29, 2010 at 8:14 am
Blouise:
“Two souls residing within one body seems a bit much … but then I am neither a theologian or a philosopher …”
************************
What if the embryo splits to form identical twins – two souls? How about the chimera, where two embryos merge? What happens to the other soul? This theological math is hard.
=============================================================
Exactly, mon cher, which is why I have so much trouble accepting the dictates of mere mortals as to when the soul indwells.
Considering how very wrong religion has been about so many things from the sun god, to eclipses to the solar system to the shape of the earth to gravity to … well, you get my point … why in the world would anyone trust a cleric’s view on the existence, position, and purpose of a soul? Foolishness.
Blouise:
“Two souls residing within one body seems a bit much … but then I am neither a theologian or a philosopher …”
************************
What if the embryo splits to form identical twins – two souls? How about the chimera, where two embryos merge? What happens to the other soul? This theological math is hard.
Retrospective abortion should be mandatory for that bishop and all the rest up to an including the Hitler Youth Pope.
She probably does not realize it but Sister Margaret is lucky, the Paedophile church has thrown her out.
It is a great pity that most Catholics don’t have the will power of Martin Luther to recognize that the institution is beyond redemption and leave for another flavour of the Christ cult or to start their own.
What was once viewed as “quickening” is now known to be normal movement from growth. So when does the soul occupy the body?
It has always seemed rather strange to me that the fetus would house a soul as the mother already has one. Two souls residing within one body seems a bit much … but then I am neither a theologian or a philosopher …
This is an appalling story, as many here have noted. But, Bishop Olmstead’s action emanated from the same unctuous and fatal legalism that gave Catholics the following ultimatum in the matter of a married couple where one of the spouses has HIV: It is better for the uninfected partner to become infected with the AIDS virus than to use a condom and risk preventing a pregnancy.
I hope the church has abandoned this inhuman stance, but that would mean overturning a teaching sanctioned by John Paul II — a man many want to make a saint, and the pope whose backward-looking reign made inevitable the ascent of the rigid and tone-deaf Cardinal Ratzinger. It will be years before new light streams through the stained-glass windows of St Peter’s. Until then, expect more nonsense such as this.
I attended both public and parochial elementary schools and a Jesuit high school. My view is that both the theology and politics of abortion are muddled. As James M. and mespo note, early teaching of the Catholic Church relied on Augustine’s concept of “quickening.” Augustine in turn was heavily influenced by Aristotle’s notion of “ensoulment.” The idea was that God breathed life into the fetus, thus creating detectable movement in the womb. This idea carried over into the common law, which provided no criminal sanctions whatsoever for abortions performed prior to quickening. (It was also a problem of proof; a prosecutor could not prove an aborted fetus had been alive prior to the abortion in the absence of evidence of movement.) Nevertheless, the Jesuits I studied under recognized that therapeutic abortion was not simply a matter of choosing the fetus over the mother, but of balancing risks.
Modern science and Rowe v. Wade have only complicated the debate. Scientists are now generating synthetic cells. The artificial time-lines discussed in Rowe v. Wade seem quaint given what medical science has accomplished with viability. Legislative treatment of the legal rights to be afforded a fetus are all over the board. In short, we have neither theological consensus nor public policy consensus as to when fetal tissue should be treated as “human life.”
I believe that the excommunication of Sr. McBride has a great deal more to do with the particular diocese in which she resides than it does with church doctrine on therapeutic abortion. There is not unanimity on the issue. In addition, Catholic bishops have become increasingly political and have been heavily influenced in recent years by Protestant evangelicals active in the right-to-life movement. Hence the absurd opposition to health care reform over insurance coverage for abortions.
But regardless of the debate within the church, it remains annoying to me that we cannot have a rational debate on the public policy issue. When should we recognize life as “human” under the law? That is not something that should be determined on a state by state basis and it is also not an issue that society seems willing to tackle.
As I said on Twitter, the nun was excommunicated for interfering with the supply chain. Those little boys come from somewhere!
R. Campbell
That’s the movie I always recall when the mother/child choice obtains. It was Tom Tyron. Anthony Quinn was in Shoes of the Fisherman.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056907/plotsummary
My Catholic in-laws explained the reason for saving the child, rather than the mother, was because the child could/would be able to eventually produce more children than the mother, if she lived. This made no sense to me, because the mother could produce several more children who could in turn produce more children.
I expect the real reason is that to interfere with God’s will should be avoided – even if both die. Pretty damn harsh, if you ask me.
Old white pedophile enablers, dressed in robes and living behind stone walls—whether celibate, closeted, or guilty of abuse themselves—are not qualified to judge the medical, much less spiritual, fitness of anyone. Jesus would be horrified.
Elaine M.,
Although my Mother is deceased, she will always be first in my heart. She was Catholic and got my Dad to convert. I will say that She was the first Catholic on my Dads side of the family and did that cause a stink….