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Arizona Nun Excommunicated for Saving a Patient’s Life

Jill

Because the patient needed an abortion, and the nun — who sat on the hospital’s ethics committee — approved it.

Sister Margaret McBride has been demoted from her position at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ after participating in the approval of an abortion for a critically ill patient in 2009. McBride was part of the hospital ethics committee that approved an abortion for a patient with pulmonary hypertension, which can be made fatal by pregnancy. Hospital officials say the procedure was necessary to save the patient’s life.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, the leader of the Phoenix archdiocese, said McBride was “automatically excommunicated” for acting to save a woman’s life. What role Olmsted played in McBride’s demotion is unknown.

Nice, you guys.

32 thoughts on Arizona Nun Excommunicated for Saving a Patient’s Life

  1. Church: “It’s better that both the fetus and the mother die through negligence, than just the fetus die through abortion.”

  2. I would like to be able to make a snarky joke, but I just can’t. I just don’t get the disconnect… either the abortion or the woman dies. It’s just crazy, and sad.

  4. The utter stupidity of their logic is appalling better for the mother and fetus to die than to abort it so the mother can live??

    So much human misery has been caused by these imaginary deities.

  8. Shakatany, that was a HUMAN decision. Blaming what you call imaginary beings for a human decision is flawed reasoning. They can try writing off their responsibility to those entities. But since you don’t follow them based on your own words, claiming it’s their fault makes no sense.

  9. It is totally inverted reasoning like this that drove me away from the pro-life movement (along with good pro-choice commentary on sites like this, but the main reason was anti-abortion nonsense). If a pregnant woman dies, unless the fetus/unborn baby is viable outside the womb, no abortion ends both lives, while an abortion ends only one life. I can’t see how it is pro-life to oppose abortion in a critically ill 11-week-prgnant woman.

  10. This is so…ugh, I don’t even have a word to describe how stupid this attitude is!

    I do want to applaud Sister Margaret. As a nun, I am sure she knew that the church could take this type of action. Her decision was brave. Excommunication is no laughing matter for a Sister. I hope that she is comforted by the knowledge that she did the right thing.

  11. Even though I don’t agree with it, I can at least understand why someone believes a embryo’s “right to life” begins at conception. I can not understand how the same people can believe a woman’s “right to life” ends at conception.

    Thanks for your courage, Sister Margaret.

  13. @ skateaway: My thoughts exactly. As a (personally speaking) pro-lifer, I still tend to think of the fetus as a living being, but I have always argued (even when I was still politically very radically anti-abortion) that, if the fetus is a living being whose right to life should be respected, that respect should at most be equal to that awarded to the prgnant woman’s life.

  14. Good going, sister Margaret! May you find peace and spiritual fulfillment in some other church.

  15. I still don’t get the Church’s epic logic fail here…I’m not allowed to save my own life? I can defend myself against a living, breathing, human being who is going to kill me, but not against the fetus who is “nearly certain” (from a quote I read from the physicians involved) to end my life should I carry on with the pregnancy?

    Even if you agree with the Church’s position that an 11-week old fetus is a “person,” TWO would have died instead of one. How is that better? I would really like for someone to explain, but none of the Catholics I know seem to be able.

    Also, agreed on the whole good-for-you you-awesome-nun vibe.

  16. Thank you Sister Margaret. We need more like you.

    There’s a lot of reasons I’m an atheist, y’all, but this is number one. Anti-woman bullshit such as this.

  17. Just when I am ready to throw in the towel…as fuck it…I’m post menopausal…not my problem anymore…

    THIS OUTRAGE.

    Apologies for being a whiny coward…I’m back in it now!

  18. I think that for this reason all Catholic hospitals should be disaccredited. You cannot consider a place where the ethics board is placed under employment pressure to promote the death of patients to be a hospital. You just can’t.

    All “hospitals” owned and operated by the Catholic church should be denied all Medicare and Medicaid funding, all emergency care funding, the use of the city ambulances… oh, and the cities ought to just take them under eminent domain, because if you won’t run a hospital to save people’s lives, well, we need a hospital around here, and look, you’ve got this building that would be a perfectly functional hospital if only you weren’t in charge of it.

  19. @Astrid–You write: “a (personally speaking) pro-lifer”–what do you mean?

    If you mean that if you were pregnant you believe you would definitely never choose an abortion, then you’re pro-choice, that is you decide to choose that you never want an abortion in any case, while giving others the right to make different choices.

    You are pro-life if you don’t believe women should be allowed to choose, only obligatorily become parents.

    If you call yourself “a (personally speaking” pro-lifer” then you’ve allowed the anti-choicers to brainwash you into believing that choice automatically equals compulsory abortion for everybody.

    Don’t!

    Because from your argumentation I gather that you’re a thoughtful person who has a lot of respect for other people’s choices.

  20. “I still don’t get the Church’s epic logic fail here…I’m not allowed to save my own life? I can defend myself against a living, breathing, human being who is going to kill me, but not against the fetus who is “nearly certain” (from a quote I read from the physicians involved) to end my life should I carry on with the pregnancy?”

    From the Church’s point of view, “nearly certain” isn’t good enough. A woman cannot sacrifice a fetus even though her own life a/o health is at risk. The Catholic model is St. Gianna Molla, who apparently refused to have an abortion despite being told by doctors that she would surely die. She carried the child to term and died days after the birth. In other words, the prospective mother is expected to sacrifice herself if necessary. The goal of the Church is to see that all women follow St. Gianna’s example whether they like it or not.

    Nice to know the Church can act fast against miscreants when it really wants to, though.

  21. Yeah, it’s really unfortunate for Sister McBride that she’s not a child molester or shameless apologist thereof. She’d be fireproof.

  22. Mary MacKillop and Suor Juana Inez de la Cruz had trouble with their bishops, too.

    Sr. MacBride is in good company.

    If only the same could be said for Bishop Olmsted.

  23. I looked into this because it seems a little fishy. Standard practice is if you commit a sin, you can get excommunicated if you refuse to repent and amend your ways (why the kiddy fiddlers can get a walk) . I was expecting the nun to have stood up in defense of her choice to preserve this woman’s life; maybe a critique of the churches stance on the value of motherhood but there’s nothing from the nun. The woman isn’t even named. I can’t help but wonder if the excommunication actually happened or if people just assumed so because of that idiot bishop’s blathering ” that if a Catholic “formally cooperates” in an abortion, he or she is automatically excommunicated” Maybe in his parish but that is not formal church procedure.

  24. “I can’t help but wonder if the excommunication actually happened or if people just assumed so because of that idiot bishop’s blathering ” that if a Catholic “formally cooperates” in an abortion, he or she is automatically excommunicated” Maybe in his parish but that is not formal church procedure.”

    There was a “you’re auto-excommunicated” thing under JPII, probably about 15 years ago now, in response to nuns and laity acting more or less like this woman has. It is highly unlikely that the nun is formally excommunicated right now, but the current stance of the Church is that she’s honor-system excommunicated and isn’t to seek any sacraments or rites because she knows what she did.

    I believe the Church functionaries and laity who participated in the 10-year-old Brazilian rape victim’s abortion last year have all been formally excommunicated by now, though, so the ball’s probably rolling.

  25. ” Standard practice is if you commit a sin, you can get excommunicated if you refuse to repent and amend your ways (why the kiddy fiddlers can get a walk) .”

    While this is true for some things, there are certain offenses that under cannon law incur automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication — meaning the excommunication happens because of the action performed, regardless of pronouncements by a bishop, or repentance of the person, or whatever. And, not surprisingly, having or aiding in an abortion is one of those. Other offenses that incur automatic excommunication include things like assaulting the Pope or ordaining women as priests.
    So that’s why the article says that the Bishop ‘indicated the woman was “automatically excommunicated” because of the action’.

  26. @piny: It’s so sad how very, very true that is. Aborting unborn children (to save a woman’s life) is not cool, but molesting the born ones is a-ok so long as you say you’re sorry. Ugh.

  27. Even if you agree with the Church’s position that an 11-week old fetus is a “person,” TWO would have died instead of one. How is that better? I would really like for someone to explain, but none of the Catholics I know seem to be able.

    Well, if a “pure” life (the fetus’) dies then that’s bad, but if a “slutty dirty” life (the woman’s) gets snuffed that’s good, so with both of them dying together they cancel out. At the very least the fetus should take the harlot down with it*. 9.9

    The woman’s sin is written all over her pregnant belly — bitch unmistakeably had sex! And is unmistakeably female! But the fetus is given the benefit of the doubt — it has thus far managed to keep its legs closed. And it might even turn out to be male, and therefore worth having! Naturally the life of the latter trumps the former… and if the former fails to carry the latter to term like she’s meant to then I guess she’s not even good for that so she might as well go ahead and die anyways, no loss.

    *(I’m pretty sure your Catholic friends would not explain it exactly that way, though. :p)

    1. Even if you agree with the Church’s position that an 11-week old fetus is a “person,” TWO would have died instead of one. How is that better? I would really like for someone to explain, but none of the Catholics I know seem to be able.

      Here’s how your Catholic friends would explain it: Both the woman and the fetus are patients. Doctors have to do whatever they can do to preserve the lives of both patients, but they cannot take any steps to do harm to one of them (although this gets confusing because they can sometimes do harm to the woman, but whatever). So, if a course of treatment like chemotherapy is going to kill the fetus as a side-effect, that might be ok, maybe; but the doctors definitely can’t do anything to deliberately kill the fetus, even if that’s necessary to save the woman’s life, and even if the fetus will die if the woman dies.

  28. So, if a course of treatment like chemotherapy is going to kill the fetus as a side-effect, that might be ok, maybe

    Wasn’t there a story recently about a woman who was denied chemo ’cause she was pregnant? (I totally don’t remember when/where I saw it…)

  29. “….but the doctors definitely can’t do anything to deliberately kill the fetus, even if that’s necessary to save the woman’s life, and even if the fetus will die if the woman dies.”

    Correctg. In other words, Future Mom is going to deliver that baby or die trying. Literally.

  30. The can’t-get-chemo was in Nicaragua. To make things even worse, she is a widow and has a 10(ish)-year-old daughter.

    So…to sum up…mother dead, check…unborn fetus, er, dead?, check…orphan, check. Wow! They ruined three lives all at once by their count. Awesome work, everybody!

    Brought to you today by the letters W, T, and F.

  31. “It’s better that both the fetus and the mother die through negligence, than just the fetus die through abortion.”

    Hey Niki,
    I will do my best to make sure that your request is granted if you should ever fall in to the same situation!

    “The Church isn’t pro-life, it’s anti-woman.”

    Sheelzebub, sad but oh so true!

    Funny how there are still so many priests out there who have molested countless numbers of children, yet many have not been excommunicated!

    Sister Margaret McBride,
    My thoughts and prayers are with you as I know this was not an easy decision for you to make. Stay strong in your faith, the church can NEVER take that away from you!
    Love,
    Rosie

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