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Should Church control access to health care?
By Nancy Northup
president, Center for Reproductive Rights
Opinion pages of U.S. newspapers lambasted a decision by St. Joseph's Hospital, a Catholic institution in Phoenix, over the excommunication and demotion of a nun. Sister Margaret McBride was a head administrator at St. Joseph's Hospital who compassionately granted a critically ill young woman permission to have an abortion because continuing the pregnancy posed an immediate and grave risk to her life.
While many focused on the Church's "automatic excommunication" of McBride, an action squarely within the Church's religious purview, only a few addressed the secular punishment - her demotion from head administrator. In that action, the St. Joseph's Hospital was acting as a provider to the public of essential health care. As such, it should not be able to penalize an employee who acted within legal boundaries to deliver life-saving medical care, nor should it be permitted to withhold needed care for those who find themselves in its hospital wings. Indeed, a decision to let the young woman die instead would have been medical negligence as well as a grave violation of her legal and human rights.
The St. Joseph's story is, sadly, unsurprising. As human rights lawyers who work around the globe, we repeatedly confront the tragic consequences of the Catholic Church's sustained hostility to reproductive health services when it imposes its theology on public policy and the provision of health services to the public. In countries where the Church wields considerable power, the repercussions for women's lives are palpable.
In Kenya, for example, Catholic leaders are currently threatening to scuttle the adoption of a new constitution-widely seen as critical to ending political bloodshed there-because it contains a clause on abortion. The provision in fact would forbid abortion except in emergencies or when a woman's life or health is in danger. But the Church would prefer to preserve the narrower exceptions on the books today, which criminalize abortion except to save the woman's life. Poverty, a dearth of sexuality education, and sexual violence all fuel an epidemic of unintended pregnancy. Ultimately, Kenyan women ingest bleach, detergent, or other dangerous liquids, insert sharp objects or resort to back-alley abortions
In Europe, the Catholic hierarchy has become especially effective in some former Eastern Bloc countries, resulting in backsliding on access to reproductive health services. In 2008, when a Catholic priest in a Polish town found out that a 14-year-old girl was seeking an abortion (for grounds legal under Polish law), he unleashed a campaign of harassment against her and her mother. They were besieged by protests, phone calls, and text messages. The priest cornered the girl alone in her hospital room in an attempt to convince her to continue her pregnancy. He then helped persuade authorities to take her away from her parents and place her in a state-run juvenile center. The girl and her mother are now suing Poland in the European Court of Human Rights. It's the fourth abortion-related case against Poland in the court that we've been involved in over the last six years.
The Philippines, where the government is closely tied to the Catholic hierarchy, provides another example. Not only is abortion is criminalized with no clear exceptions, but due to the Church's influence, the government strongly discourages contraception. In Manila, an order by the mayor pulled every birth control pill and condom off the shelves of public health facilities, and forbade even sterilization.
For the population in Manila, most who live below the poverty line, the policy banning modern methods of contraception causes irreparable damage. It's not uncommon to see families with six or more severely malnourished children, living in one-room shacks surrounded by garbage and streams of sewage, and facing very few prospects for relief. Understandably, without access to affordable contraception, over half-a-million Filipino women in desperate circumstances turn to unsafe abortion each year. As in Kenya, the methods are crude and painful, and the subsequent deaths and complications suffered by women can only be described as a public health crisis.
This year at home, we saw the U.S. government give the Conference on Catholic Bishops veto power over the health-care reform bill, and in the end, millions of American women were left with a policy that restricts insurance coverage for abortion services even for those who pay for their insurance with their own hard-earned dollars.
The Catholic Church promises to serve the interests of the poor and marginalized, but its position on reproductive health is deeply at odds with those laudable goals. Societies thrive when women thrive - when they are able to finish their education, decide the number and spacing of their children, and live in dignity and equality. Depriving women of the ability to control their reproductive health and fertility does not create a moral and just world. It only further traps women, their families, and their communities in poverty and despair.
The Catholic Church, like any religion, is sovereign in the realm of its theology, liturgy, practice, and requirements of membership. But when it chooses to provide health services to the public as in the case of Saint Joseph's Hospital, or enters the realm of public policy debates in Kenya, the Philippines, Poland or the U.S., the governing standard must be the basic human rights of women to control their health and lives.
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
By Nancy Northup |
June 21, 2010; 11:15 AM ET
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Posted by: gloriagarza | June 29, 2010 2:41 PM
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EGRAFF
You are so right, the murder of innocent unborn babies should be front page news, Pictures should be shown of babies burned alive, or their body parts ripped out bit by bit, the best front page news would be a baby delivered feet first with its head still inside its mothers womb, then we can show how scissors are inserted into the babies brain to suck its head out. Reproductive rights, lets tell the WHOLE STORY and reveal in pictures the FULL truth FRONT PAGE NEWS, if its a wonderful thing everyone should be able to see it and rejoice in "reproductive rights" and this horrible outrage against women by other peoples desire to stop a baby from having its brains sucked out.
Posted by: peddlebill | June 27, 2010 2:38 AM
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Ms. Northup,
Aren't you late to your KKK meeting?
Posted by: ejk2 | June 22, 2010 3:52 PM
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It is the highest form of virtue to save unborn children from being murdered. Nancy, once again, proves her stripes, by advocating for any forward progress in the normalization of fetacide. Let's take it down to the lowest common denominator. It is wrong to kill babies. This is not about the mother, because the mother must, by position and by virtue, give up her life for that of her child.
These people have not only given us the deep graveyard of the Topeth, but have also brought our nation to ruin by demographic suicide. Just count up the taxes, Social Security, and Medicare taxes that an additional 50+ million Americans would be contributing to our society.
Nancy apparently has no faith. She has no faith that a mother can do what is necessary to raise her child. She has no faith that God decides which act of love will bear fruit, and she has no faith that people can deal with less than ideal circumstances. The only faith that she has, is that by howling to the moon in anger, she can get people to believe that they should have no consequence, and no obligation to virtue and to right.
She can spew her hatred here. Hatred for the unborn and hatred for those who seek to protect them. She attempts to twist love into hate, and hate into love. The Washington Post also attempts to help her by labeling her Trieste under the category of faith. Turns out that the Catholic Church has been defining the word "faith" for the past 2000 years. My hope and prayer is that it will take her longer than 2000 years to redefine it!
Posted by: Medbob | June 22, 2010 1:40 PM
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Indeed, this incident shouldn't be written up in the "On Faith" section. Such outrages [against women in the U.S. by a religious organization] should be front page news.
Posted by: EGraff | June 22, 2010 8:21 AM
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Under Health Care Reform, If you do not have medical insurance you can be penalized, but you can easily find medical insurance under $40 http://bit.ly/9sfoMb
Posted by: kleeclar | June 22, 2010 3:32 AM
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"On Faith" hahahaha LOL what a complete farce. Unbelievably anti catholic bias and bigotry with no opposing view. This hatefilled one sided rant has NOTHING to do with Faith. It is pure bigotry and intolerance to any opposing view.
"A CONVERSATION? on religion and politics" I cant believe you can write that and honestly think its true. I have never seen conversation in any of the intolerant anti christian rants from this column. Please, please, please simply be honest and rename the column, "Why conservative Christian's are evil" Keep on smiling Jon and Sally and thanks for showing both sides of an issue, what wonderful journalism hahahahahahahahaha LOL.
Posted by: peddlebill | June 21, 2010 11:47 PM
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"Center for Reproductive Rights"
Sad, this religious bigot begins with a LIE and it goes down hill fromo there.
Why to abortion lovers have to LIE about their cause and motives? Reproductive Rights, who are you trying to fool? Yourself?
It must be hard to sleep at night knowing that your life's work is advocating for the disposal of unborn babies. No wonder this person is eat up with hate and bigotry for those people who have refused to follow her down the hellish path which he has chosen.
You can lie to the world but you can't lie to your own inner conscience.
Posted by: LogicalSC | June 21, 2010 11:32 PM
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Will "OnFaith" ever get around to presenting anything other than attacks on faith? Half of the articles are written by atheists and the other half are written by partisan political hacks like the above. "OnFaith"? How about "OnBashingFaith"?
Posted by: bobmoses | June 21, 2010 10:08 PM
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As usual, "OnFaith" is dedicated to a writer who wants to attack faith.
Please change the title of this liberal partisan blog. It has nothing to do with faith at all, beyond the fact that it features liberals who focus their ignorant bigotry at people who don't share their narrow minded and hateful views.
Change the title to "OnPartisanLiberalViews". Of course doing so would mean that Meacham, the partisan hack, might have to admit that he and his publications have nothing to do with journalism.
Posted by: bobmoses | June 21, 2010 10:06 PM
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NewsBusters: WaPo 'On Faith' Laments the 'Tragic Consequences' of Pro-Life Catholic Church
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/sarah-knoploh/2010/06/21/wapo-faith-laments-tragic-consequences-pro-life-catholic-church
Posted by: StewartIII | June 21, 2010 8:32 PM
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The comments to this entry are closed.
It's just a matter of timing. If the mother had her baby and something were to happen that would put that baby in some kind of danger, no one would be surprised to see that mother risk her life to save the baby's life. But a month earlier, she's not about to make the same choice? I think we're not getting the full story here. I think we're being told what they want us to know in order to push a particular agenda: promote abortion.