Sister Margaret Mary

Growing up, I often felt that I was missing out on an essential Catholic experience. Nuns no longer dotted the educational landscape as they did when my parents were in Catholic school. In fact, since my family moved while I was in kindergarten to a rare town with an overflowing Catholic grammar school, until college my only religious education took place after school in CCD classes.

When looking at colleges, my top three choices happened to be Catholic: Georgetown, Notre Dame, and BC. I wasn't looking for a Catholic school, but for whatever reason I almost certainly was going to end up at one. The size was right. The campuses were beautiful. The universities were competitive, but not prohibitively so. There was no Greek life.

I ended up at Georgetown, which is almost certainly the least Catholic of the three. Faith is an interesting topic at Georgetown. The biggest imprint of Catholicism is the active Jesuit Community on campus, as well as the requirement that all students take two semesters each of philosophy and theology. However, Georgetown is very big on diversity, including religious dialogue. Therefore, theology classes need not be about Catholicism or Christianity.

While many students at Georgetown come from Catholic backgrounds or identify as Catholic, not many practice. There is one chapel for the main campus, which is in sharp contrast to a school like Notre Dame, which has a chapel in each dorm in addition to the Basilica. Even fewer students are actively involved in the Catholic community. Out of habit, I attended weekly mass when I first got to Georgetown. After my grandmother's death, I attended daily mass for Lent.

One incident my sophomore year somewhat decisively led me away from the Catholic community at Georgetown. After most Catholic masses, there will be an announcement or two. After that particular mass, a young man stood up to make an announcement for Life Week. I wasn't offended by the announcement; after all, I knew the official line of the Catholic Church is a pro-life one, and Georgetown, a campus where the Vatican intervened to disband the student pro-choice group, followed that line. Instead, I was offended by the manner in which the announcement was made. He spoke offhandedly, and essentially he implied that everyone present at mass was a "good Catholic" who thought "yay life."

False. I guess I'm not a "good Catholic," but I was present at that Eucharistic celebration, and I am pro-choice. I'm of the school that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. An abortion is no occasion to celebrate, but I don't think that religious morality should dictate medical procedure.

I apologize for burying the lead, but I've been thinking about all of these issues a lot lately because of the recently publicized case of Sister Margaret Mary McBride in Phoenix.

Sister McBride was a member of the ethics committee at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. In November 2009, that ethics committee was asked to decide on the case of a 27-year-old woman who was 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from pulmonary hypertension. She had four young children already. The doctors said that the pregnancy would put the woman's life at risk. The ethics committee approved the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

When Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of the Diocese of Phoenix found out about the matter, he told Sister McBride that she was automatically excommunicated.

Supporters have come back and said that Sister McBride knew the rules of the Catholic Church about abortion. Ignoring for a moment the logic behind those rules, I'd like to point out the changing nature of those rules. For centuries, the Church had "limbo." Babies who died before they could be baptized went to limbo. All of a sudden, limbo doesn't exist anymore, and it would seem this shift is tied to the Church's preoccupation with abortion.

Now, I would like to get back to the logic of the Church's rules. The Bishop repeats over and over again that you can't prioritize the life of the mother over the child. However, we're talking about a fetus of 11 weeks, a child nowhere close to term. I'm not a doctor, but doctors at a CATHOLIC hospital (ie they probably were well versed in Catholic ethics, etc.) decided that in all likelihood the woman and the fetus would both die if the pregnancy continued, and there was not enough time to transport her to another hospital. Presumably, the woman and/or her family consented to the procedure that would save her life, and her life was saved after the hospital's ethics committee approved the decision. While some women may have opted to continue the pregnancy despite the inherent risk to her LIFE (not health), this woman did not, and I'm glad that the hospital provided her with the care and treatment that she needed and requested.

While prioritizing one being over another may be the stuff of ethicists, the best case scenario cannot possibly be for both the mother and the fetus to die. Yes, I suppose a miracle could have happened, but mathematically speaking, such a scenario was unlikely.

Further, I feel that a lot of people have been saying in support of Sister McBride's decision, "How could you leave four children without a mother if she died??" The point is quite moving, and I completely agree, but I don't think it ought to have mattered whether she already had children or not.

However, I must say that I'm completely baffled by Catholic ethics. Guess I should have taken Schall's Aquinas class. For example, in some circumstances, abortion IS acceptable, within strange limitations. When a woman has an ectopic pregnancy that does not resolve itself, there are two courses of treatment: drugs that cause the embryo to stop growing can be administered, or the affected area or entire Fallopian tube can be removed surgically. The only acceptable scenario according to the Church is to remove the entire Fallopian tube with the pregnancy attached. I'm a bit confused here; since one of the few roles for women praised by the Catholic Church is motherhood, it doesn't exactly make sense to me to reduce or destroy a woman's fertility when the administration of drugs could prevent that from happening.

In the case of the woman with pulmonary hypertension, the abortion is not considered permissible because it becomes the means to the end (saving the mother's life) rather than an unintended consequence (as when you remove the entire Fallopian tube or uterus to save the mother's life).

Obviously it probably owes something to my pro-choice views and beliefs on what constitutes a human being, but as a woman I can't help feeling that the Church thus sees me as an inferior being suitable really only for breeding. Maybe I would hope for a miracle and opt against medical advice that I was told would ultimately save my life when the fetus would not have a chance anyway, but I'm not sure that's the Church hierarchy's call. When I fall seriously ill or am involved in a terrible accident while pregnant, should I be praying not for my life or the viability of the pregnancy but rather that I be transported to a non-Catholic hospital so that I am confident that my life will be valued? I'm not talking about abortion-on-demand, I'm not talking about rape or incest, I'm not even talking about the health of the mother. I'm saying, a woman is seriously ill with a condition that the pregnancy is placing such a strain on that she cannot be transported safely to another hospital, let alone maintain the pregnancy for another twenty or so weeks. In a life or death situation, is death really the answer, no matter what, no matter the wishes of the patient? I haven't read anywhere whether the woman was Catholic or not. If not, she still ought to have a right to the highest quality of care when being treated at a hospital.

Furthermore, I guess I'm still a little upset about the Church's reaction to health care reform. Dear reader, you may have noticed that I did not analyze the eventual health care reform bill or its numerous drafts. I don't know what's in there. I'm sure it's not all good, but I do sincerely believe that something was better than nothing, and I'm disappointed we never got to see a debate over the substantive issues, first because of Sarah Palin's idiotic scare tactics and later because of the Church's hang-up on abortion and the Stupak Amendment.

I admired many American nuns for coming forward in support of the health care reform bill despite its opposition from Church hierarchy. Nuns, more so than priests, let alone bishops, are on the front lines, involved in either healthcare or working with the poor who so desperately need health care. It's great to value life, but we also need to take care of living human beings once they're born. Also, did they know pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition by many insurance policies???? Awesome.

I really wonder what it will take for the Church, particularly the American Church, to realize that it is truly self-destructing. It's pretty hard to stay relevant when you protect child abusers yet rebuke a nun who ultimately saved a life. I think that really has to be between Sister Margaret and God, not some middlemen.