This is pretty darn awful and disturbing and yet another example how necessary conscience clauses are for healthcare workers. With this upcoming debate on healthcare be assured that there will be a thorough going over of conscience clauses.
Remember, to the left abortion is a right. And your religion can’t preclude others from exercising their rights. Your religion can’t prevent some from having free speech or the right to assemble. They see abortion as the same thing. If they have their way, stories of health care workers being ordered to perform abortions will be an everyday occurence..
The New York Post reports that a Catholic nurse from Brooklyn, New York is claiming that the hospital where she’s employed ordered her to assist in a late term abortion or be fired.
Now there is curently a conscience clause which exists already but I guess there’s an out clause if the patient’s life is in jeopardy. The hospital allegedly told the nurse that the mother’s life was in danger and it would appear now that it was not, according to a lawsuit filed by the nurse.:
“It felt like a horror film unfolding,” said Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, 35, who claims she has had gruesome nightmares and hasn’t been able to sleep since the May 24 incident.
The married mother of a year-old baby was 30 minutes into her early-morning shift when she realized she had been assigned to an abortion. She begged her supervisor to find a replacement nurse for the procedure. The hospital had a six-hour window to find a fill-in, the suit says.
Bosses told the weeping Cenzon-DeCarlo the patient was 22 weeks into her pregnancy and had preeclampsia, a condition marked by high blood pressure that can lead to seizures or death if left untreated.
The supervisor “claimed that the mother could die if [Cenzon-DeCarlo] did not assist in the abortion.”
But the nurse, the niece of a Filipino bishop, contends that the patient’s life was not in danger. She argued that the patient was not even on magnesium therapy, a common treatment for preeclampsia, and did not have problems indicating an emergency.
Her pleas were rejected, and instead she was threatened with career-ending charges of insubordination and patient abandonment, according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.
Feeling threatened, Cenzon-DeCarlo assisted in the procedure.
She said she later learned that the hospital’s own records deemed the procedure “Category II,” which is not considered immediately life threatening.
“I felt violated and betrayed,” she recalled. “I couldn’t believe that this could happen…”
The day after the procedure, Cenzon-DeCarlo filed a grievance with her union. Later that week, she was cornered by two supervisors who told her if she wanted any more overtime shifts, she would have to sign a statement agreeing to participate in abortions, the suit says.
The next month, Cenzon-DeCarlo was assigned to one overtime shift, rather than the eight or nine she usually received, the suit claims.
Although the Brooklyn resident is still working at Mount Sinai, she’s asking a court to order the hospital to pay unspecified damages, restore her shifts and respect her objections to abortion.
Pray for all involved. Slightly more awful from a hospital called “Mount Sinai” named for the mountain where God gave Moses a list of commandments which included “Thou Shall Not Kill.”
As usual Pundette sums it up better than I could:
In a country where it’s acceptable for a mother to ask a doctor to dismember the baby she’s been carrying for 5 months, why would one expect anything, including religious freedom, to be sacred?
OSV has more.
July 27, 2009 at 3:48 am
As a medical student I take great interest in this topic and I sympathize with the nurse in this situation. However, what I do not understand is how she was willing to sacrifice her convictions that abortion is wrong for her job. If she was so against assisting in abortions, shouldn't she have walked away no matter what?
July 27, 2009 at 4:21 am
This is terrible! They forced her, threatening to fire her?
July 27, 2009 at 5:30 am
Franciscanmd –
there are a few instances where, as the mother's life really *is* in danger, abortion is permissible. Not sure if preeclapsia is one of those, especially not since there are treatments.
No way to know if the nurse was familiar enough with the problem to know that the statement that the mother could die if she didn't help was, as her research indicates, false. That it took further threatening to get her to cooperate suggests that she wasn't very sure of the matter, but she is to be commended for coming forward about this kind of disgusting bullying.
July 27, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Franciscanmd, she was lied to and forced to make a decision on the spot without time to think it over. We all like to think we'll do the right thing in such situations, but you never know. The good thing is she immediately realized her mistake, I pray she has recourse to confession.
Those doctors are SICK. I wonder if they lied to the mother as well to pressure her into killing her child. If the mother's life truly was in danger, wouldn't it have been safer to deliver the baby alive than to kill it in the womb and then deliver it. At 22 weeks the chances for survival aren't great, but it's not a death sentence either.
July 27, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Brian– A lot of hospitals refuse to put babies under 24 weeks in the NICU– if they deliver your baby early they just tell you "Tough luck. If you can keep him alive for 2 weeks without medical help, THEN we'll talk."
Still no excuse to kill the child. Also, I've heard stories of people who deliver a too young baby and call around until they find a hospital who WILL take him, and then transfer…..
July 27, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Foxfier,
You are mistaken; abortion is never permissible. I suspect you may be thinking of the principle of double effect, whereby miscarriage is the unintended consequence of a treatment for a medical problem (chemo comes to mind). But a procured abortion is never licit.
July 27, 2009 at 1:33 pm
When I have read other coverage of this story, it indicated that there was a 6hr window betwee nthe time the nurse was told to assist and the actual procedure. Moreover, upon entering the room, it was reported that she saw no indication of emergency. Also, preeclampsia NEVER requires a treatment that would result in abortion. The closest possibility would be if the child was induced and died. But that would not need to occur at 22 weeks.
Direct abortion is NEVER permissible and no matter what is happening, if the doctor says "We are performing a abortion" then you have no choice to walk away. That is why my sympathy for this nurse is limited. She chose to participate in a direct abortion.
July 27, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Correction: No choice BUT to walk away from a direct abortion
July 27, 2009 at 1:43 pm
This is a terribly sad story that did not even need to take place.
The hospital was wrong to even suggest abortion as an option for that woman. I personally have a sister in law who had severe pre-eclampsia with both her baby boys. She was able to hang on in hospital bed rest for 29 wks for the first and 28 wks for the second. Both boys were delivered. The eldest shows no signs of any severe mental/developmental problems, and the second one is thriving- jury's out on the developmental side. Either way, these boys are precious children! That hospital would then have aborted them instead of trying to treat their mother's condition and hopefully get her to hang on until they could survive outside. Shameful substandard care! If I were the mother, I'd sue the hospital too.
How can someone as a doctor take the hippocratic oath and not at least try to treat the pre-eclampsia before chosing the most dreaful of all "solutions?" Besides, I heard from my sis-in-law that the only time they induce (and pray the baby survives) is if the mother shows signs of liver or other organ failure.
Just my experience with pre-eclampsia and its standard treatments…
July 27, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I haven't seen any stories of the mother's side, which leads me to speculate she wanted the abortion and found a doc that would give a good excuse. Of all the people I've known that has had pre-eclampsia, the method of treatment was magnesium until a safe date to deliver the baby in order to do all they could for the baby.
I feel sorry for this nurse and sure, I'd like to say she had a choice, but having been in really rough situations like hers, it's VERY hard to look past the current pressure and threats. Sometimes it is easier to be submissive then attack later rather than to fight them at the game right then and there. At least now she has all the data and information she needs to make a very strong case. I just pray she can emotionally and psychologically get over this.
July 27, 2009 at 3:06 pm
My first thought was "Why didn't she just quit, then" From reading this article it sounds like this woman really needed her job. I suspect she may have to feed a family. This is the atrocity. Her employer has the responsibility to protect her rights–her right not to kill a person just to feed her family. I pray she has found Peace through her confession. I rarely support lawsuits, but I hope she wins.
July 27, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Steve, you are mistaken.
Tubal pregnancies where the abortion is conducted by removing the tube where the child has implanted *are* permissible. That *is* an abortion, though it is not a standard elective abortion procedure. (for obvious reasons)
July 27, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Foxfier,
I'm not sure I agree, though it appears to be simply an issue of semantics.
I don't think that tube removal can be equated with a procured abortion on any level.
July 27, 2009 at 6:39 pm
It is basically semantics– but semantics are very important. (Always confuses me when folks say it's "only" semantics– yes, it is about what the words actually mean; I know I choose my words carefully because I dislike misunderstandings, and many other folks do, too.)
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy– defining a procedure that terminates a pregnancy as a non-abortion would be both questionable and a very useful tool for abortion supporters. (see also, Plan B)
July 27, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Foxfier,
I definitely agree. But I think the principle of double effect needs to be emphasized. Intent matters.
Let's say a mother chose to undergo life-saving chemo or radiation therapy that would treat a cancer but kill the baby. Would it be logical to refer to undergoing chemo as "procuring an abortion"? I would say not.
July 27, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Furthermore, regarding your reasonable assessment that defining a procedure that terminates a pregnancy as a non-abortion helps pro-aborts, let's also think about what happens when we do classify it as abortion.
It serves to advance the canard that abortion saves lives. The bogus "life of the mother" exception undermines all our pro-life efforts–Blackmun said so much in Roe.
July 27, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Chemo isn't surgically removing the area the child is implanted in, either– it will generally kill the child, although there's a chance that, miraculously, it won't.
It serves to advance the canard that abortion saves lives.
Strictly speaking, not a canard, which would be a deliberately false story. Surgical removal of a fallopian tube where a child has implanted does save the mother's life, yet fits the definition of abortion.
Just because other folks will lie is no reason for us to twist meanings, trying to stop them.
On a practical level, they're better at it. ;^p
July 27, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Foxfier. In common language "abortion" is short for "procured abortion," a procedure whose intent is to kill a child. Technically removing a fallopian tube in an ectopic pregnancy is an aborted pregnancy, as is a miscarriage. But these lack any intent to kill the child.
The intent of the operation is to remove a diseased body part of the mother. The unfortunate side effect is that we do not currently have the technology to provide her child the medical care it requires at that age. While calling this an abortion may be technically correct, it only confuses matters in common parlance just as calling a miscarriage an abortion would give the listener the wrong idea.
July 27, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Brian Walden. I don't know what common language is used around you, but folks around my area that are talking about the willful procuring of a dead unborn child always say "choice" or "prevent a baby" or "get rid of fertilized eggs"– only the folks who don't want dead babies use "technical" terms like "abortion." Might be related to my being in very high-support-for-abortion areas.
July 28, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Surgical removal of a fallopian tube where a child has implanted does save the mother's life, yet fits the definition of abortion.
No, it is a salpingectomy.