According to NBC Philadelphia, Abington Health and Holy Redeemer Health System hospital announced last week that they will be merging in the future. Currently, abortions are performed at Abington Health. However, since Holy Redeemer Health Systems is a Catholic hospital, abortions are not offered at that facility. When crafting the merger of the two hospitals, it was agreed that abortions will not be offered after the two hospitals join together as one legal entity.
Abington Hospital (photo credit: Montgomery County Planning Commission on Flickr)
Larry Merlis, president and CEO of Abington, believes that it is necessary to respect the ethical and religious standards of Holy Redeemer:
We wanted [to] assure that we would be able to provide assurances that Holy Redeemer would continue to fully comply with ethical and religious directives — and all the Catholic entities of our new organization would…. But at Abington we would want to assure that we were also providing that full range of services — we have tremendous women’s health services between both organizations and reproductive health services…. But we, moving forward, would no longer do abortions at Abington.”
It is encouraging to see the sacredness of life protected in the business world and medical community. According to Holy Redeemer’s values statement, “[w]e revere all life as sacred and value each person as one created by God.”
Naturally, Planned Parenthood and other abortion supporters are not excited by the news. The CEO of the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania spoke out against the merger, stating, “It’s unfortunate that a longstanding provider of this critically needed care has chosen to succumb to pressure and is discontinuing these services.”
