See, this is why it needs to be between a woman and her doctor.
Posted by: Donna
It doesn’t always end with a Tim Tebow.
Primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) is a rare, progressive condition aggravated by the physiologic changes occurring during pregnancy and surgery. The maternal mortality rate associated with pregnancy and pulmonary hypertension ranges from 30 to 50%.12 The administration of IV epoprostenol has been well-demonstrated to improve hemodynamics in nonpregnant patients with PPH.3 We report a successful maternal-fetal outcome in a pregnant woman in whom PPH was diagnosed who was treated with IV epoprostenol before, during, and after undergoing cesarean section.
Women with PPH who survive their pregnancies often require a heart-lung transplant.
Anti-choice leaders have pushing a kinder, gentler, feigning-concern-for-women message in the past few years. They want to take away our rights over our bodies, we are told, because they love us so and don’t want us to harm ourselves with abortion. “Women Need Love, Not Abortion”, read a sign held by a protester in front of Planned Parenthood in Phoenix a couple of Saturday mornings ago.
Someone must have forgotten to clue Bishop Thomas Olmsted in on the new script.
A Catholic nun and longtime administrator of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix was reassigned in the wake of a decision to allow a pregnancy to be ended in order to save the life of a critically ill patient.
The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese, who indicated the woman was “automatically excommunicated” because of the action.
The good news is that the medically necessary abortion was performed. (Yes, trolls, something that saves you from a 30-50% risk of dying or needing a heart-lung transplant is medically necessary.) The Catholic hospital made the right decision in the patient’s case (though let’s not even get into why an “ethics committee” was required when a woman’s life was in danger) and despite reassigning Margaret McBride, St. Joe’s is defending her decision. Sucks for Sister McBride, to be automatically excommunicated, but thems the breaks when you opt for the canonical life. However, Bishop Olmsted is quite the piece of work in his denunciation of her:
“I am gravely concerned by the fact that an abortion was performed several months ago in a Catholic hospital in this diocese,” Olmsted said. “I am further concerned by the hospital’s statement that the termination of a human life was necessary to treat the mother’s underlying medical condition.
“An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals certainly try to save a pregnant mother’s life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.
You got that ladies? You will carry that pregnancy to term and if you have to die in the process, oh well. The patient in McBride’s case wanted the procedure but who cares what she wants? When Thomas Olmsted wants to know what an incubator thinks about her precarious pregnancy he’ll tell her to suck it up and carry it to term. That’s how he rolls. BTW, his statement could be interpreted to mean that terminating an ectopic pregnancy isn’t permitted. “An unborn child is not a disease”, after all, no matter where it is located in a woman’s body.
What gives people with no medical credentials license to intrude upon other people’s health care decisions? Catholic Healthcare West controls St. Joe’s, Chandler Regional Medical Center (dang, I didn’t even know that one was Catholic), and Mercy Gilbert Medical Center. All fine medical institutions, to be sure. Obviously not keen to perform elective abortions but that’s okay since this is an urban area and women here have other options. They’re clearly squeamish about therapeutic abortions since they appoint ethics committees to decide when they can happen. But the people running these hospitals aren’t so married to religious dogma that they will sacrifice women’s lives to it. That’s why they have directives that allow them the wiggle room to terminate pregnancies when women’s lives are threatened. Because they’re hospitals, not churches. That might be a newsflash to Bishop Olmsted but it’s old news to anyone who works in health care or who has personal experience with a medically problematic pregnancy. Olmsted’s act on Sister McBride seems to be meant to send a message to Catholic health care systems in Arizona. It’s a bad one.
The woman, her doctor, and whoever else she wants to include in the decision are the only ones who belong in it. That might not include you, Bishop Olmsted.
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I am so sick of the Catholic church talking about their deep concern for children. Hard to stomach when it has lately seemed like little more than a conspiracy to hide the serial sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children. These men like Bishop Olmsted are disgusting.