I didn't see a diary on this anywhere -- this is shocking to me.
A nun and administrator at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix has been reassigned and rebuked by the local bishop for agreeing that a severely ill woman needed an abortion to survive.
Link
The nun, Sister Margaret McBride, was on an ethics committee that was consulted about a young woman who was 11 weeks pregnant.
The woman was suffering from a life-threatening condition that likely would have caused her death if she hadn't had the abortion at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center.
The woman who received the abortion has apparently been excommunicated:
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese, indicated in a statement that the Roman Catholic involved was "automatically excommunicated" because of the action. The Catholic Church allows the termination of a pregnancy only as a secondary effect of other treatments, such as radiation of a cancerous uterus.
Apparently, termination is only allowed if it happens as a "side effect" of something like radiation treatment. However,
The patient, who hasn't been identified, was seriously ill with pulmonary hypertension. The condition limits the ability of the heart and lungs to function and is made worse, possibly even fatal, by pregnancy.
"This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee, of which Sr. Margaret McBride is a member," the hospital said in a statement issued Friday.
So ... if they had waited and her lungs or heart had failed, abortion woujld have been "OK" if it happened while they were giving her CPR in the emergency room ... !!!!
It is just me, or is this bat-shit crazy? Does the Catholic Church think it's OK to play Russian Roulette with a woman's life this way?
Are they frickin' nuts?
(And what is it with Arizona anyway???)
OK ... I thought I was going to have a nice peaceful evening, and now I'm livid with rage!