(Prolifer)ations 12-22-10
by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN
As always, we welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs! Please email Susie@jillstanek.com.
- National Catholic Register has just broken the news that Bishop Olmstead has stripped St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix (affiliated with Catholic Healthcare West) of its Catholic status, due to its refusal to adhere to Catholic doctrine by participating in an abortion. Judie Brown has stated the St. Joseph’s case may not be an isolated one, according to an American Life League investigation of CHW’s hospitals.
- ProLifeBlogs draws attention to a U of Toronto Students for Life piece on why pro-lifers “still exist” and why it isn’t a question of religion.
- MommyLife says President Obama is “still working to overturn conscience rights for medical professionals on abortion that were put in place at the tail end of the Bush administration.”
- Secular ProLife has the 3rd post in a series on accusations of “pro-life misogyny.” The latest post unpacks the claim, “If you truly care about people, you will approve of or accept any choices they make.”
- Vital Signs covers the release of the 2008-2009 Planned Parenthood Federation of America Annual Report, which shows PP received more government funding, resulting in more abortions.
- ProWomanProLife notes how recent coverage of selective reduction is affecting the public’s opinions of the pro-life stance.
Dec.21, 2010 2:25 pm |
Blogs |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
PC’ers get furious when prolifers point out that some abortions are done for the sake of convenience, but selective “reductions” are proving that we are right. This practice is repugnant to even some PC’ers.
“Designer babies” anyone?
The Roman church puts the “life” of the fetus above the life of the woman who carries it. In this case, medical professionals deemed that a woman would die if she did not have an abortion. The world’s oldest men’s club deemed otherwise. Good riddance to “Catholic status.”
“Vital Signs covers the release of the 2008-2009 Planned Parenthood Federation of America Annual Report, which shows PP received more government funding, resulting in more abortions”
I guess more pap smears, more cancer screenings, more HIV testing, more educational outreach to poor communites don’t matter. And “Vital Signs” – could that be a non partisan source. I don’t think so. But LOL – more money results in more abortion. Does that mean that PPFA, when they get “more money” goes out and solicits abortion? If American is as “pro-life” as the anti-choicers claim, then no woman would heed the siren song of PPFA. Right?
DD, the Roman Catholic church does no such thing. It values all life equally, born and unborn. The rights of the unborn and the rights of women are not diametrically opposed, they are INTRINSICALLY LINKED. It is you, the pro-abortion community, that devalues the lives of the unborn; you take away value that is already inherently there. The right to live trumps a woman’s right to a new pair of shoes.
Really, the amount of energy you spend trying to justify killing is frightening.
DD 5:26PM
You have no clue what you’re talking about. I have worked in Catholic hospitals for decades and can assure you that everything necessary is done to save the pregnant woman’s life, and that includes abortion. Thankfully in this day and age with better diagnosis, prenatal care, and technology, as well as medical specialty fields, it rarely comes down to the question of the mother’s life vs. the child’s and in most cases, both can be saved.
DD 5:32PM,
If PP provides so vital and charitable a service, then perhaps it should consult charities as to how to solicit donations and provide a great service to people in need using only donations. Recently a homeless shelter in our community spent several million dollars to greatly expand its facilities and services. and did so without a penny of gov’t funds. It was all private donations.
So take heart PP, it can be done.
“You have no clue what you’re talking about. I have worked in Catholic hospitals for decades and can assure you that everything necessary is done to save the pregnant woman’s life, and that includes abortion.”
According to the Catholic heirarchy, they’re apparently doing it wrong. I don’t doubt your statement that usually both lives can be saved. It’s where both can’t that I have a problem–the idea that it’s morally better to not kill a fetus that’s going to die anyways than to save a woman’s life is, frankly, offensive to me.
The Catholic church recognizes that when a pregnant woman is having health problems, her doctor has two patients. The doctor cannot kill the mother to save the child. Ectopic pregnancy that has to be treated to save the life of the mother is NOT elective abortion.
And what ghouls like Tiller did for money did not save the life of the mother. As I’ve written before, a mother with skyrocketing, deadly blood pressure can’t afford the 2 or 3 days that Tiller took to murder healthy children in healthy mothers.
And Jayn, you can’t murder a fetus “that’s going to die.” We’re ALL going to die anyway at some point. If a preborn child is experiencing a life-or-death health crisis, there’s no just reason to kill him a few days, weeks, or months early. I was a premie, I had a dire prognosis. I am typing on my keyboard today because no one preemptively murdered me out of fear.
Ninek: your continued existence was not putting the life of another in danger. More importantly, your continued existence was not putting your only means of survival in danger. A fetus cannot survive inside of a dead mother. In cases like the one as St. Joseph’s, the death of the fetus could either be a meaningless tragedy, or it could be given the purpose of saving the mother’s life. And it is one of the few examples of times that I abhor pro-life logic.
“The Roman church puts the “life” of the fetus above the life of the woman who carries it. ”
DD, why don’t you educate yourself about what the Roman Catholic Church really teaches? Otherwise, you will continue to make a fool out of yourself.
PC’ers get furious when prolifers point out that some abortions are done for the sake of convenience, but selective “reductions” are proving that we are right. This practice is repugnant to even some PC’ers. (Phillymiss)
I don’t get furious, but it is an interesting thing. Personally, I’m for letting the woman or the couple decide, and their reasons are their own – it’s not up to me to approve or disapprove. Yet indeed I have seen objections on sex-selection abortions from some people who are normally pro-choice.
I think there is a difference between it being on an individual basis, considering one woman having an abortion, and seeing the demographics of an entire region or country, as with China, being changed to the detriment of the populace.
According to expert research and opinion, abortion is never the proper treatment for pulmonary hypertension of a mother with an 11-week old baby developing within her. The child does not place a significant amount of stress on the mother, and the mother’s condition can be managed until the child can be delivered via C-section at the point of premature, yet still viable, development. This shows that not only did this hospital violate the Church’s stance against the intentional killing of children, they were also woefully incompetent. It is no different than if a woman went to this hospital with an ear infection, and they shot her husband as her treatment.
Jayn,
I said in my post that when necessary to save the life of the mother, the Catholic hospital permits abortion, as it certainly permits removal of the with ectopic pregnancy. I have NEVER seen a situation where any woman was permitted to die, even if it could or would mean sacrificing the life of the fetus.
Fortunately in this day and age it rarely comes to this type of decision as it often did in the past.
“Ninek: your continued existence was not putting the life of another in danger.”
This mother’s child & the pregnancy itself was not the problem. The mother should have been treated for hypertension. Murder is not treatment for hypertension. If a mother is in a life threatening situation and treatment MIGHT result in the death of her child, that is NOT an elective abortion. In this case, the child was assaulted to death via the abortion.
EWTN is going into this case extensively today on one of their radio shows. It might be archived, so maybe you can look it up. Other medical professionals have said that they should have treated the mother but not interfered unnecessarily with the pregnancy. The Catholic Church teaches that both the mother and the child are equal. Not one better or more valuable, but equal.
You abhor pro-life logic because, like all logic, it interferes with what you WANT. The whole abortion industry is about wants not needs such as Cecile Richards WANTS your money but she doesn’t NEED to murder children for a living.
Finally, since you don’t know the details of my mother’s pregnancy and my prognosis, what you said about me is irrelevant. Not only that, but a fetus can develop inside a mother who is on life support. It’s been done already, the unfortunate mother was unconcious, on support, and raped by a health care employee. The child was delivered healthy.
The Ends Do Not Justify the Means
What people fail to understand is the difference between a direct primary effect and a secondary one. To abort a child is the deliberate intention and act of killing him or her. To remove a ruptured fallopian tube from an ectopic pregnancy has the direct intention and effect of excising a diseased part from the mother’s body. Secondarily, the surgery removes the developing child within. The intention is to remove or repair the rupture not to kill the child.
Another example: If I take The Pill to regulate my menstrual cycle because of a disease I am experiencing, that is acceptable as a Catholic. It is different than taking them for contraceptive / abortifacient purposes. The result in both cases may be that I do not get pregnant, but my intent is completely different.
Mary, I wasn’t trying to argue with you. I believe you, and I’m glad to hear that Catholic hospitals are willing to abort a fetus when necessary.
Ninek: 1) I was trying to give the care providers the benefit of the doubt here–being a Catholic institution, I would expect them to at least consider all other possible avenues before resorting to abortion. If they say there was nothing else that could be done, I’m going to defer to their wisdom. 2) I abhor pro-life logic in certain areas, not because it interferes with what I want–that’s pretty irrelevant–but because at it’s logical extreme, such as this case shows, it actively denies people their lives.
And 3) You stated you were a preemie, which implies you’d already been born. You gave me no reason to believe your mother’s condition, whatever it was, was in any way related to yours.
I don’t have to tell my entire medical history to make a point; I gave enough.
Women today have been indoctrinated by both the mainstream media, Planned Parenthood, the pharmaceutical companies, their college campus clinics, and the deadly advice of post-abortive women who push others to the same bad end. You don’t realize the gravity of abortion, what it does to the child, the mother, the family.
Back when I was young, we were sold the idea of abortion as a way to protect desperate mothers who were going to hurt or kill themselves attempting to abort. But in reality, we were herded toward abortion like cows to the slaughter. It is a product. It is being sold to you. If you buy it, you murder your child and take part in an epidemic of anti-human sickness. I wish a person like you, with all the possibilities in life ahead of you, would stop defending and promoting child murder. The world could be your oyster, as they say, yet you come here and defend murder.
These days women abort for even the most superficial reasons. They kill twin siblings, or call their children parasites. I wish young women wouldn’t drink the abortion kool aid and squander their skills and talents serving death. Choose life.
I do think that the Catholic church made a big mistake by excommunicating the nun who approved that abortion. If a doctor says that the woman involved will die if she carries a pregnancy to term, than that is a legitimate, if tragic, reason to terminate a pregnancy. If the Catholic hospital had performed an abortion for non medical reasons, than I can see why they would be stripped of their status. Actions like these are what sends the message that the church considers women to be chattle and has no consideration for her very life. In this particular case, the distinction of “unintentionally” killing the fetus seems legalistic and absurd.
Hi Joanne,
The Ends Do Not Justify the Means….
Another example: If I take The Pill to regulate my menstrual cycle because of a disease I am experiencing, that is acceptable as a Catholic. It is different than taking them for contraceptive / abortifacient purposes. The result in both cases may be that I do not get pregnant, but my intent is completely different.
Isn’t it all really the same thing? You’re saying taking the Pill is justified by the end of fighting the disease. Obviously, for many people, preventing an unwanted pregnancy is justification enough.