January 30, Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time
110130


RE: Phoenix excommunication




Come dance with me on the head of a pin, where angels celebrate but moral theologians and we common Catholics fear to tread. In the company of angels we “humble of the earth, who have observed His law; seek justice, seek humility (Zep2:3, Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time).

A 27 year old ten-week pregnant woman went to a Catholic hospital because of pulmonary hypertension. Prior to admission, she refused her doctor’s advice to terminate her pregnancy.

Her condition worsened to include right heart failure and cardiogenic shock. The placenta, which increases the mother’s blood volume, contributed to this grave condition. Her doctors believed that both mother and child would die if the situation were allowed to continue. They recommended termination of the pregnancy. She could not be transferred to another hospital.

What do you do? How do you decide? The case was referred to the hospital’s ethics committee, led by a Sister of the order which runs the hospital.

Abortion is never permitted. Catholic health services’ standards state that abortion may not be performed as an end or a means. Our catechism says that if we procure an abortion, we are automatically excommunicated.

Concluding that both mother and child would die if nothing were done, the Sister chairperson supported the hospital’s ethics committee’s permission to terminate the pregnancy.

When the Bishop learned that the abortion was performed in the Catholic hospital with Sister’s permission, he publicly excommunicated Sister because she had cooperated in procuring an abortion.

The Bishop’s message was clear to Sister, to everyone concerned, and, given the national secular and Catholic press coverage, the entire country. Plus, the effect the Bishop’s decree had on the husband and wife who chose the procedure!

But this is when we dance with the angels to seek humble, healing justice for the mother and her family: and for the next family in a similar situation.

Catholic health services’ standards permit operations to cure a serious condition when they cannot be postponed until the unborn child is viable: for example, the removal of a cancerous uterus which results in the death of the unborn child. The child’s death is an indirect effect: an indirect abortion. This tragic outcome is morally permissible.

Kevin O’Rourke, O.P., professor of bioethics at Loyola University Chicago, has extensively examined the ramifications of this case. See, e.g., his article in the November 15, 2010 issue of America.

In this type of case, is the termination of a pregnancy a direct or indirect abortion? Permissible or condemnable? If we remove the placenta, which makes the mother’s blood volume life threatening, to save the mother’s life, is the subsequent death of the child an indirect effect? Can we not give some rationale to saving the mother’s life in the situation when both mother and child will die if we do nothing? Should we not provide the family the solace of merciful understanding for choosing life but also suffering the death of their child?

We must dance with the angels!