bishop_olmsted


From the "Well, duh" Dept.:

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix is being criticized by religious lawyers and medical ethicists for his declaration that a nun had excommunicated herself by advising that a seriously ill woman could have an abortion.

The story in today’s Republic says that a national debate has arisen after the events at St. Joseph’s late last year. The paper recounts them this way:

The 27-year-old woman, who had four other children, suffered from pulmonary hypertension and agreed to doctors' recommendation that she terminate the pregnancy only after it became clear to her that her life was in danger. McBride, as head of the hospital’s ethics committee, took part in the decision with doctors, the patient and the mother’s family.

The procedure took place in November but became public only in May after The Arizona Republic wrote about it. None of the people directly involved have been willing to discuss it.

In other words, a hospital, whose job it is to save lives, did what it had to do to save a life.

Olmsted then injected himself into the matter, and cashiered McBride, the hospital’s top nun administrator.

Olmsted is a fanatic on a lot of issues. Among other things, he sent $50,000 of church money to support an anti-gay marriage political campaign in New Hampshire.

And yet he has been oddly silent, unlike many other Catholic officials, about SB 1070.

Unsurprisingly, the people the paper interviews find ambiguity and shades of grey where Phoenix’s rogue radical bishop didn’t see any:

Cathleen Kaveny, a law professor at Notre Dame University who focuses on the intersection of law and morality, pointed out in Commonweal Magazine that McBride’s intention meant the procedure “wasn’t an ‘abortion’ ” in the sense the procedure is prohibited by Catholic moral teaching, despite the “foreseen, terrible and unwanted side effect of causing the baby’s death.”

The St. Joseph’s case was more like cases of uterine cancer or ectopic pregnancies, in which Catholic theology approves removing the diseased organs even if a fetus resides inside them, the Rev. Kevin O'Rourke, a professor of bioethics at Loyola University-Chicago and consultant for Catholic hospitals, wrote in America, a Jesuit magazine.

O'Rourke also argued that McBride must not have “knowingly and willingly” violated church law, making the excommunication “questionable.”

Now, PHXated would like to point out that most of both sides of this debate are nonsense.

The Catholic Church has made it clear its moral rigidity in cases involving vulnerable people like dying pregnant women becomes quite malleable when the subjects are male priests, particularly those who’ve abused children and been protected by the church’s malevolent bureaucracy.

So it has no moral authority here.

But more importantly, we live in a free society, where atavistic religious practices aren’t supposed to intrude into public life. You should be able to go to a hospital without worrying that your life might be in danger because of a crazy religious fanatic.

The real danger today exists for the next pregnant woman at St. Joseph’s, who might end up being advised by administrators fearing for their jobs.

It’s a genuine health hazard for pregnant women in the city: Olmsted has made clear his dictats extend to all three Catholic hospitals in town—St. Joseph’s, Mercy Gilbert Medical Center and Chandler Regional Hospital.

Now, an argument could be made that a hospital that is funded entirely by private money probably has the right to practice medicine as it sees fit, given some public regulation regarding disclosure.

It could present incoming patients with forms saying, in effect: “Look, if you’re a pregnant woman, we’ll let you die like a dog on the operating table if your previous little fetus is in danger. And if you’re a gay guy, we might not do too much to save you because you probably got sick from committing sodomy and you’re going to hell anyway.”

And so on and so forth. Then patients would know what they are getting into.

The only good aspect of the nauseating events at St. Joseph’s is that at least now the dangers pregnant women potentially face there are public knowledge.


Previously in PHXated:

Bishop Thomas “The Turtle” Olmsted: Candidate for Worst Arizonan!

NPR reports on the debacle at St. Joseph’s

Creepy bishop punishes a hospital administrator for allowing an abortion—to save a woman’s life