A woman’s right to choose
A story broke last week concerning Sister Margaret Mary McBride, an administrator and member of the ethics committee at St Joseph’s Hospital Arizona regarding her excommunication by her Bishop Thomas J Olmstead for being involved with the decision to allow an abortion.
The Mother of the unborn child was suffering from a life threatening illness which would have resulted in her death and that of her unborn child. 
As I do not support God based religion I am not going to launch a tirade into the rights and wrongs as I would be here all day but please understand I have a healthy respect for all religion, providing it is not shoved down my throat!
I have read a lot of opinion online regarding this and whilst most support the Nun’s actions, there are more than a few who believe she should be prosecuted for murder. If religion is allowed to dictate what medical treatment you receive, how far could it go? Here in the UK we are lucky enough to have the NHS who treats people irrelevant of status but I shudder to think that a hospital could refuse me life saving treatment because of my religious views.
The obvious answer would be of course to change hospitals but what if that was not an option and you needed treatment there and then? Imagine you are a Jehovah Witness and your child required a blood transfusion, do you say “It is God’s will”, leave it and run the risk of your child dying? If you do and your child dies, in my opinion you are guilty of Murder. If God’s will is to be taken so literally then he/she would never have allowed us to develop technology to save lives surely?
Women have had the right to choose for a fairly short time in the great scale of things but as the mother chose the operation to save her life, the hospital must of asked her what she would like to do and she chose to live and perhaps have another child later on when she was well. It is a heartbreaking decision no person should have to make but it is one we have a right to.
No one is saying it is an easy choice and we have all heard stories about girls who use the abortion clinic as the ultimate birth control but in actuality this is rare according to Brook Advisory Centre, London.
I do not believe there is a place in a hospital for religion; by all means have a place of worship that is not what I am getting at. Hospitals are about treating and aiding the sick, not a place to pick and chose what service you are entitled to based on which Church you attend.
The Nun was put in an awful situation and I believe that the correct decision was made regarding the Mother but as for the Nun, she never made the final decision, she was only on the panel and was advising Doctors regarding this situation yet still, despite years of supporting her religion and working hard towards her beliefs she is still penalised.
Am I the only one that thinks her excommunication was a really bad call by the Bishop? It seems to be somewhat ironic that the Priests who abused children are getting away with it as I don’t see any of them being excommunicated.
Is seems to me to be rather sexist from the Catholic Church? If you are a member of the Church, are you not all following the same Bible? Why is a Nun being punished yet not a Priest?
What do you think? In 2010 does a woman really have the right to choose?
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Oh My! I absolutely agree with you that there is no place for religion in hospitals and that judgment should be made with a view to saving life. I listened to Radio 4 this morning and a Catholic priest whose job in the church was that of a fixer said the abuse of children was common occurrence and his problem was to make the problem go away and children were commonly rewarded with free college education and or cash. The offending priest was simply moved on to another Church! talk about double standards!
Thanks for writing this Angie, had been very angry about this since I read about it.
Quite clearly saving a family has less value to the Catholic church than all those families who had their children abused. They have a very weird concept of family if it protects priests.
Was it Gandhi who said “I like your Christ but not your Christians” – I am in total agreement with him.
Honest to God, I didn’t know I was pro-choice until this case in all its horror became public. Bishop Olmsted by his misguided misinterpretation of directives and worst of all atrocious pastoral discretion has convinced me, an active Catholic for pro-life (obviously I was ignorant of certain nitty-gritty particulars) that abortion in some measure must be legal. I now know that is true, as other religious have tried to tell me.
Sr. Margaret is guilty of following her informed conscience, something we glossed over in catechism classes. Didn’t know you could be publicly disrespected and chastised by on the holies for doing so. That’s the real sin in all of this. Furthermore, Bishop Olmsted has done more damage to our pro-life efforts than any of us know at this moment.
I agree, Angie – I too was horrified when I read about this story.
How is it possible to claim to value life, when you ignore the life of the mother? I feel sorry for the nun who clearly cared about the patient – but I find it hard to understand devoting one's life to a religion that puts dogma above human kindness. When one considers the refusal of allowing condoms in the face of the AIDS crisis in Africa, then the underlying values become all too clear.
I'm sorry, but when the Catholic Church is involved, this doesn't surprise me at all. For a religion that supposedly prioritises the right to life, they don't seem to do so very much. The whole point was that without the abortion both mother AND baby would die. Instead, only the baby did. How can two deaths be morally preferable to one?
And the church wonders why it gets a bad press???
I wish I could understand the logic behind it being better for two people to die than one. But I suppose logic doesn't come into it where religion is concerned. I'd be interested to hear the views of those who think she did the wrong thing.
Twitter: evenbreak
Interesting, yes but in my experience it's been horrifying to read and engage with those who believe Sr. Margaret did wrong. She's been called a murderer (along with the mother and husband and assisting team). You best not know, especially if your Catholic like me, what pro-life extremists are saying. I'm just stunned.
One friend, heart of gold praying all the time type I've gotten to know in the past few months, thought I was evil for even questioning how this isn't murder. Then she said (no lie) that she would insist upon being killed in that situation and if not, she would mostly likely commit suicide. She could never live like this mother. I think she has serious issues with this issue. Now I wouldn't wish this on anyone and I'd personally cry forever, BUT there's a time where an adult and one responsible for caring for 4 children and a husband acts like a mature adult and handles business. I consider her view to be very selfish, immature and insane even. Maybe it should be her choice if she wants to die but I can't possibly see how that is construed as holy. God save us from extremists.
At times like this, it makes you wonder: If only God would speak instead of these so-called appointed representatives of God speaking and acting in the name of “carrying out His will”. Makes you question why we are here if not to make decisions for ourselves. Just who these people in the Catholic church believe they are is anyone's guess. God Almighty perhaps?
In a world where there is much talk and action around sustainability, and given its treatment of Sister Margaret Mary McBride by comparison with its priests, one has to wonder just how sustainable the Catholic church really is.
Twitter: shaungisbourne