An investigation from PBS is criticizing Catholic hospitals for not committing abortions, claiming it puts women’s health at risk.
John Yang of PBS Weekend, and Rachana Pradhan of KFF Health News, reported that Catholic hospitals are the only health care options nearby for approximately 800,000 Americans. The problem with that, Yang claimed, is that “if there’s an emergency pregnant people can find themselves caught between accepted medical standards and the religious base policies of Catholic run facilities.”
Pradhan then told a story, allegedly relayed to her by a nurse-midwife, of a woman who seemed to have experienced preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM). In Pradhan’s telling, this situation necessitated the intentional killing of the child:
And what she told us was, this patient expressed a desire to terminate the pregnancy because she knew that there was little chance of survival. And what happened was, as this nurse midwife told us, the doctor said that they couldn’t do anything, because there were still detectable fetal heart tones.
And so their hands were totally tied. That is not often what would happen in a non-Catholic hospital, and goes against accepted medical standards for treating that kind of pregnancy complication.
Yet the medical indication for PPROM is not an immediate abortion; the standard of care is essentially watchful waiting, where doctors carefully observe the woman’s condition for signs of infection or bleeding. This is the guidance offered by both Cleveland Clinic and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP); neither offer induced abortion as the standard of care for PPROM.
In some cases, the membranes re-seal and the amniotic fluid stops leaking, and medication can be given to stop preterm labor and to strengthen the baby’s lungs. Antibiotics are administered if an infection is present.
Nowhere is this acknowledged by Pradhan.
“[T]he Catholic Health Association, who we spoke with for our story before it published, they say that the ERDs, as they are known, do not prevent physicians from providing medically indicated care, especially in these situations involving very serious potentially life threatening pregnancy complications,” she said. “And they also took issue with our story. After it came out, they released a statement that said that it perpetuates myths about Catholic health care.”
Pradhan said she stands by her reporting, but nowhere does she offer any substantive evidence to indicate that women are being harmed simply because they do not have access to abortion on demand.
This is a long-running myth — that pro-life policies put women’s lives at risk — that has no basis in reality, and is merely another effort by pro-abortion ideologues to remove conscience protections from health care workers and, essentially, for everyone in the health care industry to be involved in committing abortions.
Their weapon in this battle is fear, regardless of whether or not it is based in fact.
