In this post, I mentioned a case where the Catholic Church excommunicated a nun who was a hospital administrator who allowed an abortion to save the life of a woman. The bishop has now decided that the hospital is not Catholic. The ACLU has added this fact to their lawsuit:
“This confrontation never should have happened in the first place, because no hospital – religious or otherwise – should be prohibited from saving women’s lives and from following federal law,” ive ACLU attorneys wrote in a letter to Donald Berwick, the CMS administrator, and his deputy, Marilyn Tavenner.
The hospital in question defended its actions with this simple statement:
“Consistent with our values of dignity and justice, if we are presented with a situation in which a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life, our first priority is to save both patients,” Hunt said. “If that is not possible, we will always save the life we can save, and that is what we did in this case. We continue to stand by that decision. “
One thing to notice is that the president of the hospital, the leader of the Catholic Health Association, and the person who wrote the analysis defending the hospital are all women (two are nuns and the third is a moral theologian).
A couple side bits:
This was not a casual decision by the mother:
A 27-year old woman with a history of moderate but well-controlled pulmonary hypertension was seen on October 12, 2009, at her pulmonologist’s office for worsening symptoms of her disease. The results of a routine pregnancy test revealed that in spite of her great efforts to avoid it, she had conceived and was then seven-and-a-half weeks pregnant. The pulmonologist counseled her that her safest course of action was to end the pregnancy, since in the best case, pregnancy with pulmonary hypertension carries a 10-15% risk of mortality for a pregnant woman trying to carry to term, and because of the severity of her disease, her own prospects were closer to 50-50. Importantly, the woman, a Catholic with four children, decided not to terminate.
On November 3, 2009, the woman was admitted to St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center with worsening symptoms. At this time, the woman was eleven weeks pregnant. A cardiac catheterization revealed that the woman now had “very severe pulmonary arterial hypertension with profoundly reduced cardiac output”; in another part of the record, a different physician confirmed “severe, life-threatening pulmonary hypertension,” “right heart failure,” and “cardiogenic shock.” The chart noted that she had been informed that her risk of mortality “approaches 100%,” is “near 100%,” and is “close to 100%” if she were to continue the pregnancy. The chart also noted that “surgery is absolutely contraindicated.”
Abortion has not always that cut and dried in the Catholic Church, so, unlike many commenters at some of the sites, this is not a case where they upheld 2000 years of tradition.
Petunias 
Dec 23, 2010 @ 12:39:18
The Didache makes it very clear that abortion is not permitted. And the Didache was among the earliest Christian writings, written even at the time the Gospels were written.
Regardless of all that, the ACLU says ‘no hospital should be prohibited from saving…lives’, yet hospitals are legally allowed to perform partial birth abortions, which is murder of a viable human child…isn’t this kinda paradoxical??? Hospitals are supposed to save all life possible. The mother at risk could have been placed on watch to ensure that both lives would endure, but chose not to. I’ve heard of cases where an ultrasound resulted showed a problem in a fetus’ brain, and the hospital recommended aborting the child, but the mother said no. Said child has a slight learning disability. This shows that the hospital is not always right, and that our lives are God’s responsibility.
Dec 24, 2010 @ 10:20:02
As late as Thomas Aquinas (and probably later), it was not believed that the fetus had a soul until quickening and so it was not believed to be murder until then. It was believed to be wrong much earlier, but not murder. Also, in the early Church, one of the specific reasons for not allowing abortions was that it was a way to control women.
Finally, there is debate in the Church about whether this was a direct abortion since the fetus was going to die anyway and the intent was to save the mother’s life.
Dec 24, 2010 @ 13:39:42
You and I do not know whether the child would die anyway. That’s why we must leave it to God.
For the record, I would not care to be in the position to try to make the correct decision in this case. The mother’s life is as precious as the child’s. What I might do is try to keep the mother under watch and care, and try to bring the baby to full term. If the mother deteriorated, then I would do everything possible to save the mother.
Dec 24, 2010 @ 14:01:26
By the way, how was ‘quickening’ defined, by Thomas Aquinas? Today quickening is defined as the first time you feel your baby move. Most mothers feel that way before the child is welcomed into the world…Today we can see that with technology way before Thomas could have known.