The only medical "facts" we have at this point is what has been released (or leaked) by the hospital. There's been some very selective editing and a lot of opining, probably at the insistence of their legal department. But if you look at the surrounding facts as opposed to the doctors' CYA opinions, it tells a different story.
The dirty little secret here is that this woman was seen several weeks before all this came down. She had a pre-existing condition which had nothing to do with the pregnancy. Pregnancy related pulmonary hypertension typically does not kick in until the 2nd or 3rd trimester. When she showed up the first time, the hospital immediately recommended an abortion, which she refused. They then sent her home.
Why? Here's the problem: she was on Medicaid. Medicaid would not pay the hospital for the treatment she really needed, which was bed rest, extensive (and expensive) treatment to alleviate her heart condition, and a Caesarian section once the baby could survive outside the womb. That would add up to $$$$$$$ most of which the hospital would have to eat. Medicaid would, however, pay for an abortion. And that's why the hospital went to that as the first choice, when the woman's life was not even arguably in danger.
But she showed back up in several weeks and her condition was much worse since the pulmonary hypertension had gone completely untreated for several weeks. At that point the doctors insisted on the abortion.
They could well be looking at a lawsuit for neglecting to care for the woman for several weeks while her hypertension reached boiling point.
So this is simply another case of "defensive medicine". If the hospital couldn't afford to pay for all that extensive medical treatment, the right thing to do would have been to appeal to the Catholic community to help this woman save her baby. Apparently that never occurred to them.
This is not by any means the first abortion performed at a CMW facility. The bishop's investigation uncovered multiple abortions, as well as contraceptives, sterilization, and other procedures that violate Catholic teaching. The bishop gave the hospital multiple chances to repent and promise to adhere to Catholic teachings in the future. It refused. Clearly the hospital prefers to continue in its ways more than it wants to remain Catholic. And that is, after all, its choice. But you can't have it both ways.
And just how do you know all of these “facts”?
I do not work for CHW, but I do know people directly involved, and I do clearly know that finances had absolutely nothing to do with the decision making. To assert otherwise without knowledge would be dishonest in my view.
It came down to having a choice between a dead mother and a dead baby, or a dead baby and a living young woman.