This afternoon I booked our accommodation in San Francisco for our 20th anniversary trip next month. We're going to stay in a B&B in Cow Hollow (Union Street)--in the English Garden room, which has a little balcony overlooking the garden. The B&B is situated in a residential/shopping area but nearby to many of the major sights (and with a bus stop right in front). I can't wait!
I was beginning to let myself get excited for the trip after booking the B&B until I drove home this evening and heard this story on NPR.
Last fall a 27-year-old woman was admitted to a Catholic hospital in Phoenix, with pulmonary hypertension and 11 weeks pregnant. Doctors advised that if she continued with the pregnancy, she would die. The hospital ethics committee, of which McBride was a member, decided to allow her to terminate the pregnancy. (They believed that there was an exception in Catholic teachings that would allow this.)
So if the pregnancy had not been terminated, the mother and the fetus would have died. And four children would have become motherless. There was no way in this situation to save the life of the fetus. Now Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted has excommunicated Sister McBride. She has also been demoted.
Once again the church has demonstrated that it believes that abortion is murder and a mortal sin. And we all know that it believes that sexual abuse of children is forgivable and no one ever gets excommunicated (or rarely defrocked) for that.
If you would like to express your opinion, send Bishop Olmsted an e-mail. I just did--a more politely worded and diplomatic one than this blog post. I know it will never reach him, but I just had to express my opinion.
And a word to the wise: women, especially of child-bearing age, should stay out of Catholic hospitals. God bless you, Sister Margaret McBride.
I was beginning to let myself get excited for the trip after booking the B&B until I drove home this evening and heard this story on NPR.
Last fall a 27-year-old woman was admitted to a Catholic hospital in Phoenix, with pulmonary hypertension and 11 weeks pregnant. Doctors advised that if she continued with the pregnancy, she would die. The hospital ethics committee, of which McBride was a member, decided to allow her to terminate the pregnancy. (They believed that there was an exception in Catholic teachings that would allow this.)
So if the pregnancy had not been terminated, the mother and the fetus would have died. And four children would have become motherless. There was no way in this situation to save the life of the fetus. Now Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted has excommunicated Sister McBride. She has also been demoted.
Once again the church has demonstrated that it believes that abortion is murder and a mortal sin. And we all know that it believes that sexual abuse of children is forgivable and no one ever gets excommunicated (or rarely defrocked) for that.
If you would like to express your opinion, send Bishop Olmsted an e-mail. I just did--a more politely worded and diplomatic one than this blog post. I know it will never reach him, but I just had to express my opinion.
And a word to the wise: women, especially of child-bearing age, should stay out of Catholic hospitals. God bless you, Sister Margaret McBride.
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