A recent article in the Washington Post has targeted the growing influence of Catholic hospitals under the guise of concern for the health care provided there. But in reality, the heart of the Post’s concern is that more Catholic hospitals means fewer places abortions can be committed — even in states with entrenched abortion laws like California, Illinois, and Massachusetts.
Catholic healthcare is not a newcomer to the scene, and in fact has been providing healthcare in line with Catholic beliefs since the invention of hospitals by Catholics in the Middle Ages. Such attacks on Catholic healthcare are also not new, according to Sr. Mary Haddad, RSM, the president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association. “They’re trying to get at us for a long time, and now they’re using Dobbs,” Sister Haddad said, according to America Magazine. “But quite honestly, nothing has changed. This has always been the way Catholic [health networks] provided care in their communities. It’s not as if we’ve done anything different.”
Many abortion advocates attempt to twist health care that respects both mother and preborn child into something it isn’t, and the article’s tagline proclaims that “religious doctrine restricts access to abortion and birth control and limits treatment options for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.” But treatment for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages do not require induced abortion, as neonatologist Dr. Kendra Kolb points out. Health care aims to “do no harm,” and induced abortion – the direct and intentional killing of a preborn baby – always deliberately takes a life, and therefore is not legitimate health care.
“Pregnancy is a normal physiologic function, not a disease state. Interrupting this normal process is not health care. It is a surgical solution to a societal problem,” wrote Dr. Ingrid Skop in a paper published by the American Academy of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) and the Family Research Council. “The vast majority of abortionists are employed by abortion clinics, and for many, this is the only medical procedure they do. They are merely technicians performing a procedure for money,” Dr. Skop notes.
Dr. Skop cited the results of a survey showing that the vast majority of physicians refuse to commit abortions. Among members of the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the survey found that, while 97% of members received requests from patients for abortions, only 14% of ACOG members stated that they commit abortions.
Treating a disease process in a pregnant woman that may result in the foreseeable but unintended death of the preborn baby is also not an abortion, but instead is an example of a moral action via the principle of double effect. As an AAPLOG fact sheet points out, “There are rare circumstances during pregnancy in which a mother’s life is in jeopardy…. It is extremely rare for this to occur prior to the point of viability (currently 22-23 weeks). In this circumstance, delivery is indicated. Intentional killing of the fetal human being, however, is not necessary. We can save the life of the mother through delivery of an intact infant and then give both the care that they need.”
And while abortion-supporters make noise about how lack of abortion is “dangerous” to women, few such claims rely on actual data. In fact, a working paper published in 2016 by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Catholic hospitals were not associated with maternal-fetal complications. “We find some evidence,” the authors concluded, “that Catholic ownership [of hospitals] is in fact associated with a reduction in miscarriages that involve a complication, suggesting that anecdotal accounts may not be indicative of a widespread pattern.”
