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I'm glad that The New York Times' Nick Kristof continues to cover the story of St. Joseph's Hospital and Sister Margaret McBride.
Here's a recap: The Phoenix-based Catholic hospital terminated a pregnancy in order to save the life of a 27-year-old mother of four. The decision to save this mother's life was approved by the hospital's ethics committee, after receiving doctors' assessments that this person's chance of dying if she continued her pregnancy was "close to 100 percent."
Sister Margaret McBride, a long-time health care professional and administrator, nurse, and Catholic nun, sits on the hospital's ethics committee and approved the life-saving abortion. In response, Thomas Olmsted, the Bishop of Phoenix, declared in May 2010 that Sister McBride was "automatically excommunicated" from the Catholic Church. What's more, last month Olmsted stripped St. Joseph's of its affiliation with the Phoenix Diocese, which means, among other things, that the hospital and its patients can no longer celebrate the Eucharist.
Now, the moral fight described above is not simply a fight about names, reputations, and religious affiliations and their associated religious benefits. More importantly, what's at stake are the lives of women who deserve to know if they are going to be held hostage by the violent dogma of certain conservative Catholic bishops. As Kristof mentions in his most recent Op-Ed on St. Joseph's and abortion rights:
"The National Women's Law Center has just issued a report quoting doctors at Catholic-affiliated hospitals as saying that sometimes they are forced by church doctrine to provide substandard care to women with miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies in ways that can leave the women infertile or even endanger their lives. More clashes are likely as the church hierarchy grows more conservative, and as hospitals and laity grow more impatient with bishops who seem increasingly out of touch."So, with Catholic hospitals accounting for 15 percent of all hospital beds in the United States, the problem of dogmatic bullying — the bullying of healers by powerful ideologues — is nothing short of monumental.
The lives of women who are receiving medical care should be protected by the full force of federal and state law. The prospect of religious figures (like Thomas Olmsted, who has no medical experience) being allowed to force the hand of people like Sister Margaret McBride (who has over 36 years of clinical and administrative health care experience) is absurd and morally perverse. And why should the law permit someone like Olmsted to send any woman to a certain death?
St. Jospeh's and Sister McBride have been absolutely heroic in their unwavering insistence on living their values of compassion and care — they refuse to apologize to Bishop Olmsted, exactly because they did nothing wrong. For those other providers, though, that have been bullied into providing substandard care and incomplete information (whether in regards to abortion or contraceptive access), I only hope that the state realizes that they have every right and legal basis to intervene and save and protect the lives of its citizens.
