Phoenix hospital that performed abortion no longer Catholic

PHOENIX, Arizona, December 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Catholic hospital that performed a direct abortion last year has lost its official endorsement as a Catholic institution by the local bishop.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Az. announced in a news conference Tuesday morning that St. Joseph’s Hospital was no longer Catholic after it refused to comply with the bishop’s terms, which included renouncing the direct killing of an unborn baby of a woman suffering from pulmonary hypertension, at 11 weeks gestation.

Olmsted said that, “Communication with leadership at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Catholic Healthcare West has only eroded my confidence about their commitment to the church’s ethical and religious directives for health care,” according to local news reports.

“They have not addressed in an adequate manner the scandal caused by the abortion,” said the bishop. “Moreover, I have recently learned that many other violations of the ethical and religious directives have been taking place at Catholic Healthcare West facilities in Arizona throughout my seven years as bishop of Phoenix and far longer.” Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) is the parent company of St. Joseph’s hospital, and is based in California.

In a statement published Wedesday, Olmsted explained that he had “hoped and prayed that this day would not come,” but that it had been a losing battle since he first began discussing with CHW how to resolve its violation of the U.S. bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives (ERD) seven years ago.

The bishop said that he learned, in only the last several weeks, that both the facility and CHW had administered contraceptives, performed sterilizations, and conducted other direct abortions “due to the mental or physical health of the mother” or after rape or incest.

“In all my seven years as Bishop of Phoenix, I have continued to insist that this scandalous situation needed to change; sadly, over the course of these years, CHW has chosen not to comply,” said Olmsted.

Olmsted said that in the case of the abortion fueling the current scandal, it was “clear” that “the equal dignity of mother and her baby were not both upheld” and that the baby’s death was brought about directly, rather than as an unintended effect of therapy for the mother.

While outside commentators have lambasted the bishop’s actions as an overreach of power, a decree from the diocese explained that Olmsted’s decision followed upon his authority over the name of “Catholic” within his diocese according to the Catholic Church’s canon law. Canon 216 states: “no undertaking [by the Christian faithful] is to claim the name Catholic without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority.”

While the bishop has limited power to remove the hospital’s public Catholic identity, he plans to remove its association with the Church as far as possible by disallowing priests to celebrate Mass there, and by maintaining a public notice of the hospital’s new status on the diocesan website.

Olmsted emphasized that his actions do not impede the hospital’s operation, but only affect its public standing with the Church.

“The Catholic faithful are free to seek care or to offer care at St. Joseph’s Hospital but I cannot guarantee that the care provided will be in full accord with the teachings of the Church,” he said.

Here's some links to documents from the Catholic Ethics people which lay out the moral criteria under which pre-term induction of labor (not PRE-TERM SLAUGHTER OF BABY) can be justified --- in the extremely small number of cases in which continuation of the pregnancy would otherwise be imminently lethal:
http://www.ncpd.org/webinars/prenatal

Hope this helps.

I have taken a close interest in this, because it seems to me that the hospital people have misused the principle of double effect, and Bishop Olmstead --- though he's right --- hasn't done very well in explaining this to conscientious Catholic health professionals, let alone the press or the public at large.

If anybody wants to get back to me on this with questions, I will attempt to assemble the information I have.

I find it appalling that Catholic Health West, the consortium that owns and operates the hospital in question, couldn't come to a meeting of the minds with Bishop Olmstead about this. Even well-intentioned people are very confused about this because of dreadfully inept communication. It bodes very poorly for the future of many, many Catholic hospitals.

I'm not Catholic, so I am not familiar with Catholic Ethics. I also don't know if there was another option besides DNC or induction.

However, I do know that if they induced labor on a woman that was suffering from pulmonary hypertension, it would almost certainly amount to a death sentence. I couldn't imagine that it also wouldn't be considered malpractice.

I’ve been following this story, and to be honest I’m very surprised. I would have thought a bishop would have more actual power over the situation than he actually possesses. Apparently, he’s unable to do anything beyond the most symbolic of gestures.

He has no control over the hospital’s policies or operations whatsoever. He can’t even keep St. Joeseph’s from calling itself a Catholic hospital to the public. He can only refuse to recognize it as a Catholic hospital.

I thought the church owned these things. Is this not the case?

Dear Kara37, you wrote: "..if they induced labor on a woman that was suffering from pulmonary hypertension, it would almost certainly amount to a death sentence. I couldn't imagine that it also wouldn't be considered malpractice."

I would like to ask someone with professional training or clinical experience, e.g. high-risk obstetrician, about that.

Just guessing, it would seem to me that in the case of a pregnant patient with pulmonary hypertension,

inducing labor or
doing a C-section or
doing a hysterectomy or
doing a D&E

might be comparably stressful.

I'm not sure that any of the first three would permit the delivery of a baby that would live even for a few moments; all of these 4 procedues would terminate the pregnancy and prevent the mother's death (hopefully, but even this is not certain); only the last one would do so by intentionally attacking the child. And in this case, even prescinding from the ethical question of dismembering a patient to cause death, there would be the additional stress (to the mother) that she knows they are intentionally mutilating her baby to facilitate compete evacuation.

It would help, in an extreme situation like this where any course of action entails grim risks, if a knowledgeable and ethically well-trained person (LadyDoc?) would supply more accurate information, as well as some idea of other options? What's out there on the management-of-high-risk-pregnancy frontiers?

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