Catholic Health Association defends Ariz. hospital

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Catholic Health Association defends Ariz. hospital
Contradicting a local bishop responsible for determining compliance with Roman Catholic healthcare ethics, Catholic Health Association President and CEO Sister Carol Keehan is defending the actions of a large Phoenix hospital that saw its official religious status removed this week over what the Phoenix diocese determined to be ethical lapses.

St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, the largest hospital in Arizona at 697 beds, was officially labeled non-Catholic on Tuesday, 115 years after its founding by an order of Catholic nuns, because hospital ethicists in November 2009 allowed a mother of four to terminate her 11-week pregnancy after discovering she had a serious health condition.
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:rolleyes:

😦

:mad:

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Sr. Keehan proudly displays the pen used to sign pro-abortion legislation given to her by President Obama in recognition of her public and unflinching support for that pro-abortion bill in open defiance of the Bishops and the constant teaching of the Church.
 
I couldn’t access the link provided. Here is a link to an article that relates to the CHA’s statement.

ncronline.org/news/catholic-health-association-backs-phoenix-hospital

Olmstead clearly has authority to determine what is or is not the interpretation of Catholic moral teaching for his diocese, and thus for institutions located in his diocese. However, the way that he exercised that authority in this case, so publicly and in such a heavy-handed manner, seems wrong to me.

More substantively, the “right answer” to the real-life moral dilemma faced by the hospital is far from clear-cut, despite the insistence of Bishop Olmstead and many who post on CA forums. The hospital sought to save both lives, and failing that, the life of the mother. Forcing the mother to continue the pregnancy almost certainly would have killed both mother and child. That cannot be the right answer, the moral answer.

Perhaps the U.S. bishops will back Olmstead and decide that no CHA hospital is a Catholic hospital any longer. I’d be willing to guess that a complete audit of hospital practices in similar cases will turn up many more women who were saved from death yet lost their unborn children as a result. Obviously, to many bishops like Olmstead, this is unacceptable. Or perhaps “don’t ask, don’t tell” will be the standard operating procedure in other dioceses.
 
Alan, I think you’d be interested in this excerpt from commonweal, which also provides links to the physican’s report, etc.
Lysaught’s analysis includes a detailed summary of the medical condition of the mother. In October 2009, the mother’s doctor counseled her to terminate the pregnancy because the symptoms of her pulmonary hypertension were worsening. He estimated that, given the advanced state of her disease, she would have a 50-50 chance of surviving the pregnancy. The mother, a Catholic with four children, decided against ending the pregnancy. Less than a month later, she was admitted to St. Joseph’s with more severe symptoms.
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A cardiac catheterization revealed that the woman now had “very severe pulmonary arterial hypertension with profoundly reduced cardiac output”; in another part of the record, a different physician confirmed “severe, life-threatening pulmonary hypertension,” “right heart failure,” and “cardiogenic shock.” The chart noted that she had been informed that her risk of mortality “approaches 100%,” is “near 100%,” and is “close to 100%” if she were to continue the pregnancy. The chart also noted that “surgery is absolutely contraindicated.”
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As Lysaught makes clear, the pregnancy itself exacerbated her symptoms. Owing to physiological changes accompanying pregnancy, the mother’s heart could no longer supply enough oxygenated blood to sustain her organs–or the fetus. “In short,” Lysaught writes,
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in spite of the best efforts of the mother and of her medical staff, the fetus had become terminal, not because of a pathology of its own but because of a pathology in its maternal environment. There was no longer any chance that the life of this child could be saved. This is crucial to note insofar as it establishes that at the point of decision, it was not a case of saving the mother or the child. It was not a matter of choosing one life or the other. The child’s life, because of natural causes, was in the process of ending.
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There’s much, much more in the rest of the document–including Lysaught’s analysis of the intervention based on the work of Fr. Martin Rhonheimer and Germain Grisez, along with her response to the National Catholic Bioethics Center’s analysis and an application of the USCCB statement [PDF] responding to the controversy.
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www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=11494

The actual links you’ll be able to access by going to the above URL.

I think that the anyone could certainly challenge why the hospital would “suggest terminating a pregnancy” with an acknowledged 50/50 chance, in October of 2009.

But after admission, the situation became truly urgent, it seems to me.
 
Urgent or not, killing the child is not a morally permissible means to treat any disease or injury. If the mother and child die due to natural causes despite our application of all licit means to save them then we mourn, but no act of Evil has been committed through action or inaction. If a disease can be treated directly, but the consequence is the collateral death of the baby (such as in an emergency hysterectomy) it is still not an act of Evil under the Principle of Double Effect. If we save the mother by means of directly and willfully killing the child (like it was an infection or something else subhuman), however, an act of Evil has been committed that can never be excused by claiming that “the ends justify the means.”

That act of directly taking an innocent human life as a means or ends unto itself is Evil, period. It doesn’t matter if that human life is “hopeless,” or “just going to die anyway.” No mortal man - be he peasant or king, doctor or garbage man, stranger or mother has the right to take that life for our own purposes. If we abandon that principle of human dignity for the sterile calculus of body counts we’ve abandoned Catholic morality completely. We might as well cut right to the chase and start vivasecting anyone who is in hospice care or scheduled for an execution for their organs and boiling them down for Soylent Green in the name of the “Greater Good.”

If people like the Catholic Health Association and Catholic Healthcare West believe that their brand of Utilitarianism trumps the moral instructions of the Church and the body of ethical and moral works put down by the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas then they need to take “Catholic” off their organization titles and descriptions because they are advertising falsely and bringing scandal to the faithful.

It’s seriously little wonder this society doesn’t bother to use the Hypocratic Oath anymore. We can’t even get past “Primum non nocere.”
  • Marty Lund
 
Alan55 said:
I couldn’t access the link provided. Here is a link to an article that relates to the CHA’s statement.

ncronline.org/news/catholic-health-association-backs-phoenix-hospital

Olmstead clearly has authority to determine what is or is not the interpretation of Catholic moral teaching for his diocese, and thus for institutions located in his diocese. However, the way that he exercised that authority in this case, so publicly and in such a heavy-handed manner, seems wrong to me.
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It only became public toward the end of a seven-year confrontation where the hospital was consistently on the wrong side of Catholic teaching. The abortion incident was just the final straw.
More substantively, the “right answer” to the real-life moral dilemma faced by the hospital is far from clear-cut, despite the insistence of Bishop Olmstead and many who post on CA forums. The hospital sought to save both lives, and failing that, the life of the mother. Forcing the mother to continue the pregnancy almost certainly would have killed both mother and child. That cannot be the right answer, the moral answer.
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But what cost them their Catholic identity were much less life-and-death practices such as voluntary sterilizations and dispensing birth control.
Perhaps the U.S. bishops will back Olmstead and decide that no CHA hospital is a Catholic hospital any longer. I’d be willing to guess that a complete audit of hospital practices in similar cases will turn up many more women who were saved from death yet lost their unborn children as a result. Obviously, to many bishops like Olmstead, this is unacceptable. Or perhaps “don’t ask, don’t tell” will be the standard operating procedure in other dioceses.
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Well, the US Bishops have no say in what Bishop Olmstead does in his diocese so it’s immaterial whether they “back” him or not. I don’t think there is even an appeal to Rome since the authority to grant “Catholic” status rests soley with the Bishop. Hopefully, this will encourage other Bishops to do closer auditing of hospitals operating as Catholic institutions. The number of pregnant women in actual life or death pregnancies is virtually zero.
 
The issue with looking to the USCCB to take action is that their gathering has no special authority within the Church. Each Bishop has individual authority in their see, and that’s it. It is up to the Bishop of each Diocese to assume the responsibility of stripping the title of “Catholic” from Catholic Healthcare West facilities that perform these despicable acts. Likewise the burden falls to them to instruct the perpetrators as to the reality of their automatic excommunication in the case of providing abortion services.
  • Marty Lund
 
mlund said:
…
If the mother and child die due to natural causes despite our application of all licit means to save them then we mourn, but no act of Evil has been committed through action or inaction. If a disease can be treated directly, but the consequence is the collateral death of the baby (such as in an emergency hysterectomy) it is still not an act of Evil under the Principle of Double Effect. If we save the mother by means of directly and willfully killing the child (like it was an infection or something else subhuman), however, an act of Evil has been committed that can never be excused by claiming that “the ends justify the means.”
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My understanding of this dispute was that the Hospital said it was the former scenario, while the Bishop is placing it in the latter category.

Either way, from what it sounds like, this hospital has been Catholic in Name Only for quite some time - this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
Alan, I think you’d be interested in this excerpt from commonweal, which also provides links to the physican’s report, etc.
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Commonweal has a reputation of being notoriously heterodox, calling for women’s ordination etc… Why would you use them as a source?
 
1holycatholic said:
Commonweal has a reputation of being notoriously heterodox, calling for women’s ordination etc… Why would you use them as a source?
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The subject is not women’s ordination. The subject is the case being discussed on the thread. I use varieties of sources when clarifying contradictory or incomplete statements (or attempting to clarify, this is not always possible, naturally). The particular article I referenced had Primary Source links. It’s always best to go to primary sources so that at least the data (including reports, chronology) can be examined. Secondary sources are less reliable.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
The subject is not women’s ordination. The subject is the case being discussed on the thread. I use varieties of sources when clarifying contradictory or incomplete statements (or attempting to clarify, this is not always possible, naturally). The particular article I referenced had Primary Source links. It’s always best to go to primary sources so that at least the data (including reports, chronology) can be examined. Secondary sources are less reliable.
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The subject is deliberate dissent from the teaching of the Church. M. Therese Lysaught is a contributor to Commonweal, which as previously noted has a documented record of heterodoxy. Further, M. Therese Lysaught is not an authoritative interpreter of Catholic moral theology, in this case the authority to interpret lies with Bishop Olmstead.

In this case the hospital procured a direct abortion which is in direct contradiction to Catholic moral teaching. No assistant college professor or religious can change that fact.
 
mlund said:
Urgent or not, killing the child is not a morally permissible means to treat any disease or injury. If the mother and child die due to natural causes despite our application of all licit means to save them then we mourn, but no act of Evil has been committed through action or inaction. If a disease can be treated directly, but the consequence is the collateral death of the baby (such as in an emergency hysterectomy) it is still not an act of Evil under the Principle of Double Effect. If we save the mother by means of directly and willfully killing the child (like it was an infection or something else subhuman), however, an act of Evil has been committed that can never be excused by claiming that “the ends justify the means.”

That act of directly taking an innocent human life as a means or ends unto itself is Evil, period. It doesn’t matter if that human life is “hopeless,” or “just going to die anyway.” No mortal man - be he peasant or king, doctor or garbage man, stranger or mother has the right to take that life for our own purposes. If we abandon that principle of human dignity for the sterile calculus of body counts we’ve abandoned Catholic morality completely. We might as well cut right to the chase and start vivasecting anyone who is in hospice care or scheduled for an execution for their organs and boiling them down for Soylent Green in the name of the “Greater Good.”

If people like the Catholic Health Association and Catholic Healthcare West believe that their brand of Utilitarianism trumps the moral instructions of the Church and the body of ethical and moral works put down by the likes of St. Thomas Aquinas then they need to take “Catholic” off their organization titles and descriptions because they are advertising falsely and bringing scandal to the faithful.

It’s seriously little wonder this society doesn’t bother to use the Hypocratic Oath anymore. We can’t even get past “Primum non nocere.”
  • Marty Lund
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Hard cases make bad law, I suppose. It seems callous to be asked to stand by while two people die when one could be saved.
 
OriginalJS said:
Hard cases make bad law, I suppose. It seems callous to be asked to stand by while two people die when one could be saved.
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And I view this from a different perspective. I think it seems callous to kill one individual to “save” another individual without trying other methods.

It is never okay to kill someone to save someone. I just can not understand how some people can not understand that other than they do not think an unborn baby is a person.
 
1holycatholic said:
The subject is deliberate dissent from the teaching of the Church. M. Therese Lysaught is a contributor to Commonweal, which as previously noted has a documented record of heterodoxy. Further, M. Therese Lysaught is not an authoritative interpreter of Catholic moral theology, in this case the authority to interpret lies with Bishop Olmstead.
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Interpretation depends on facts. Naturally the bishop has the authority to interpret facts. Many people responding to this issue listened only to the bishop’s version of the facts. I actually availed myself of all the (so far) publicly available information (not narrowly limited to commonweal, CAF, or any other single source). It wouldn’t matter whether the links were on commonweal or the links were on the vatican website. The links pointed readers to the medical history. That medical history is also available elsewhere. It differs vastly from what I heard the bishop say at his news conference. (I watched the entire thing, including the Q&A.) He stated that the baby was perfectly healthy. Not according to other publicly available information. Baby and mother were both – at the critical moments determining life and death – on an irreversible road to death. Neither could have been saved without intervention. I’m sure the good bishop wishes otherwise. Don’t we all. But that’s not my issue.

(1) He stated clearly at the press conference that medical ethics and Catholic ethics are two different things. He answered, when questioned, that even though medical ethics do require intervention to save a life when trained medical knowledge and experience determine proximate death to be inevitable, that Catholic morality is not based on that, and that therefore in his judgment the hospital cannot be called Catholic, since the hospital is choosing medical ethics over Catholic ones. That’s his privilege to make such statements. It’s just important to be clear about what his statements were based on. Correspondingly, the hospital, to maintain its professionalism as a medical provider, is bound, in accordance with the most current medical knowledge, to preserve what life they can save. In their medical judgment both lives were on a rapid road to death in late '09, so they felt bound to save the only preservable life.

(2) Regardless of his decision regarding the crisis event itself, it’s clear, as I said earlier, that he, and for that matter any Catholic patient, could have an issue with what the medical facts are regarding October 2009. The medical history shows that the hospital suggested to the mother an abortion at that time, when the mother’s survivability was 50/50. I don’t see how the hospital would be able to claim after the fact (they haven’t) that that earlier suggestion was made in an emergency context. That was advocating a direct abortion, and Catholic morality is clear on that. Neither the hospital nor Ms. Lysaught has denied that. For that alone, the Bishop could have pulled the Catholic identity from the hospital. (He learned about it later.)
 
Elizabeth502 said:
The subject is not women’s ordination. The subject is the case being discussed on the thread. I use varieties of sources when clarifying contradictory or incomplete statements (or attempting to clarify, this is not always possible, naturally). The particular article I referenced had Primary Source links. It’s always best to go to primary sources so that at least the data (including reports, chronology) can be examined. Secondary sources are less reliable.
Click to expand...
From what I could tell it did not have primary source links. It had quotes from a thoeologian’s analysis paraphrasing what was read in the primary sources. That’s not the same thing. I find it very hard to believe a physician’s report would have a public link considering the privacy laws in this country.

Even IF there was no other way to save her life, which is so scary to me as a young mom, it is still not permissable to directly harm the baby. The baby is not a pathology, and so therefore cannot be treated as one.
 
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