St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix is affiliated with the Catholic Church.
A lot of hospitals have had their beginnings with church groups.
I was born in a St. Joseph's hospital, in Tacoma. In Chicago,
a doctor at Augustana Hospital remodeled my ulcerous stomach.
(He did a good, Lutheran job!) There is a Methodist's at Mayo.
A woman, who already had four children, came to St. Joseph's
with a fifth, very dangerous pregnancy, about eleven weeks along.
Her doctors said that she would die if something was not done.
The ethics board of the hospital, among whom was Sister Margaret
McBride, agreed that without aborting the fetus, the mother would die.
The Bishop, Thomas Olmstead, said Sister Margaret had been
automatically excommunicated. He further demanded that
the hospital never again perform an abortion to save the life
of the mother. The hospital said they would not fire Sister Margaret,
and they said they fully intended to try to save mother's lives.
The Good Bishop said they could not celebrate the Mass
in the hospital chapel, anymore.
Tough love, huh? Nope. Ignorance. Arrogance. Maybe sexism.
In the first place, it does happen sometimes that one has to choose
between saving the mother, or saving the fetus. It is perverse
ignorance, or moral cowardice, to let things go and see if the mother,
or the fetus, or both die. Who, with an ounce of understanding
or compassion, could say that the mother of those other four
children, the wife of her husband, and a member of a whole
community of other people, had to have her life put in risk
because she was carrying a fetus in such a way she would almost
certainly die; but that the fetus deserved an equal chance to live?
The problem is that official Catholic doctrine, and a large number
of other religious people agree (although many more do not),
have decided that human life is an on/off, yes/no, instant achievement.
And when is that instant when one becomes a person?
At fertilization, they say. The instant that sperm wriggles into an ovum
and coils its DNA around that of the egg, there is a person!
A new human being! A brand new Catholic, or Baptist!
No. It is alive, in the sense that it is not a rock, or a book,
but it is not much of a human being. It might become a person,
in about half of such occurrences, but that will take time,
and luck. Very often, things do not go right, and there is
a miscarriage. It just happens. It needs to happen.
Human life is an achievement, in time. All life is that.
An oak tree does not become an oak tree at a precise moment.
The information that can make an oak tree is in the acorn,
and with good luck, and time, the acorn becomes an oak tree.
When? Gradually. It is a continuum, a process, an extremely
complex transformation guided, not by a tiny tree in an acorn,
but the information in an acorn that has the potential.
Either/or, yes/no, absolute ethics simply do not correspond
to what actually goes on. A fetus is not the equivalent of a mother.
A fetus might, some day, become a mother. It might, on the other
hand, get all screwed up and kill a mother, and itself.
It might be nice if all ethical decisions were simple matters
of yes or no. But probably not. It might only result in more Bishops
making more ignorant and perverse decisions.
St. Joseph's did not fire Sister Margaret McBride.
Neither did the hospital agree that it would not ever again
try to save such a mother's life. I suspect they will, rather,
lament what they have to do sometimes in order to be moral,
in order to save lives, and mothers, and families.
They might have to do without the Bishop's blessing, and
without Mass in the Chapel, if the Bishop refuses to allow it.
They, and Sister Margaret, and (Bless them!) the Catholic
Health Association of hospitals, and lots of ordinary,
sensible Catholics might have to care for the sick and needy,
those who are weak, and afraid, and in danger of death,
who want to affirm life--the goodness of such complex life--
by making the hard and necessary decisions of life.
A lot of hospitals have had their beginnings with church groups.
I was born in a St. Joseph's hospital, in Tacoma. In Chicago,
a doctor at Augustana Hospital remodeled my ulcerous stomach.
(He did a good, Lutheran job!) There is a Methodist's at Mayo.
A woman, who already had four children, came to St. Joseph's
with a fifth, very dangerous pregnancy, about eleven weeks along.
Her doctors said that she would die if something was not done.
The ethics board of the hospital, among whom was Sister Margaret
McBride, agreed that without aborting the fetus, the mother would die.
The Bishop, Thomas Olmstead, said Sister Margaret had been
automatically excommunicated. He further demanded that
the hospital never again perform an abortion to save the life
of the mother. The hospital said they would not fire Sister Margaret,
and they said they fully intended to try to save mother's lives.
The Good Bishop said they could not celebrate the Mass
in the hospital chapel, anymore.
Tough love, huh? Nope. Ignorance. Arrogance. Maybe sexism.
In the first place, it does happen sometimes that one has to choose
between saving the mother, or saving the fetus. It is perverse
ignorance, or moral cowardice, to let things go and see if the mother,
or the fetus, or both die. Who, with an ounce of understanding
or compassion, could say that the mother of those other four
children, the wife of her husband, and a member of a whole
community of other people, had to have her life put in risk
because she was carrying a fetus in such a way she would almost
certainly die; but that the fetus deserved an equal chance to live?
The problem is that official Catholic doctrine, and a large number
of other religious people agree (although many more do not),
have decided that human life is an on/off, yes/no, instant achievement.
And when is that instant when one becomes a person?
At fertilization, they say. The instant that sperm wriggles into an ovum
and coils its DNA around that of the egg, there is a person!
A new human being! A brand new Catholic, or Baptist!
No. It is alive, in the sense that it is not a rock, or a book,
but it is not much of a human being. It might become a person,
in about half of such occurrences, but that will take time,
and luck. Very often, things do not go right, and there is
a miscarriage. It just happens. It needs to happen.
Human life is an achievement, in time. All life is that.
An oak tree does not become an oak tree at a precise moment.
The information that can make an oak tree is in the acorn,
and with good luck, and time, the acorn becomes an oak tree.
When? Gradually. It is a continuum, a process, an extremely
complex transformation guided, not by a tiny tree in an acorn,
but the information in an acorn that has the potential.
Either/or, yes/no, absolute ethics simply do not correspond
to what actually goes on. A fetus is not the equivalent of a mother.
A fetus might, some day, become a mother. It might, on the other
hand, get all screwed up and kill a mother, and itself.
It might be nice if all ethical decisions were simple matters
of yes or no. But probably not. It might only result in more Bishops
making more ignorant and perverse decisions.
St. Joseph's did not fire Sister Margaret McBride.
Neither did the hospital agree that it would not ever again
try to save such a mother's life. I suspect they will, rather,
lament what they have to do sometimes in order to be moral,
in order to save lives, and mothers, and families.
They might have to do without the Bishop's blessing, and
without Mass in the Chapel, if the Bishop refuses to allow it.
They, and Sister Margaret, and (Bless them!) the Catholic
Health Association of hospitals, and lots of ordinary,
sensible Catholics might have to care for the sick and needy,
those who are weak, and afraid, and in danger of death,
who want to affirm life--the goodness of such complex life--
by making the hard and necessary decisions of life.
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