- It's not like Catholic hospitals historically horned in on health care markets to push out profit-oriented hospitals, Bernie! They invented hospitals in Europe (and many other places around the globe) and have always catered to the populations that no profit-oriented docs bothered with. Can you really put abortion in the same league as seeing eye dogs? And by the way, a Catholic hospital would never let a woman die under the circumstances you suggest. I'm a bit shocked at your atypical arguments here, i.e. as opposed to your usual right-on, brilliant, humorous and insightful ones. But you are certainly right that some folks had better stay out of the health care bidness altogether, Jack Kervorkian, the Hemlock Society, and George Soros come to mind... Ah well, that's one of the great things about this country that people can disagree without resorting to sawing off heads!
All the best,
D. Ox
Comment by: Dumb Ox on October 21, 2006 05:54 PM
- I wasn't singling out Catholic Hospitals. But since abortion clouds the issue, let's leave that off for a moment. Let's take the situation where a woman who is not engaging in sex needs to take abortion pills, but not to abort any future fetus rather as an ameliorative against the debilitating effects of taking other certain medications such as steroids. Here we have no moral issues because there is no killing of human life, yet this woman cannot receive treatment at the only hospital in town, St Mary of Mercy. If this hospital did not hog up that medical space in her town, some other, secular, medical facility that can treat her would come in. I do not mean to take away the great, wonderful work that these Catholic Caregivers provide. It is beyond any gratitude one can offer. However, it comes at a price: that Catholic religious views over-ride any medical issues. I know you would like to believe that no hospital would let a woman die for religious reasons, but it's a fact. She would be turned away. Not because of callousness, but for the simple fact that they have no trained personnel to treat her.
Of course, if you have any link showing even ONE single Catholic Hospital that ever performed an emergency medical abortion, I would love to see it. And once you see there aren't any such links, you have to ask yourself, "Is it possible no woman in any Catholic Hospital ever had a problem birth that required an emergency abortion?" Is that really possible?
This is not an indictment against religious caregivers. Their motives are beyond reproach. I appreciate what they do. However, it is like having a surgeon with Tourettes syndrome. We appreciate the effort and their sincerity, but in the end such a person should not really be wielding a knife however noble their intentions.
Comment by: planck's constant on October 21, 2006 07:03 PM
- D. Ox, I'm still curious, how would you feel if a Saudi-financed general hospital came into your town. Remember, they are financed with "our" oil moneys. They can operate at a loss for centuries. After a short time, when other area hospitals have closed their doors, you and your neighbors find that the only operating hospitals within an hour's drive are only Muslim Hospitals. How would you feel about your womenfolk being examined by a male doctor hidden behind a curtain and that no real physical exam is possible? Nothing there bothers you any? Suppose their pharmacy does not contain any drugs made in Israel (there are such) and which you absolutely have to have to survive. Suppose you are told that if you need that specific treatment you have to go to a non-Muslim pharmacy but you will not be treated in that hospital. I wish I could say this is hypothetical, but it is not.
Aside from the Catholic Hospitals, how do you feel about Muslim hospitals in YOUR city?
Comment by: planck's constant on October 21, 2006 07:17 PM
- The topic is confusing no doubt thus I will let ya duke it out with my buddy D.Ox..lol..thanks for the link!..:)
Comment by: Angel on October 21, 2006 10:19 PM
- Well there's so much to cover, maybe a statement of principles is in order first. As a devout Catholic, with a hefty libertarian streak (as Catholics have always been rather suspicious of Caesar's grasping ways), I come to my own reasoned conclusions about things (which the Church rather encourages, despite a lot of noise to the contrary). One of my conclusions is that respect for human life from conception to natural death is one of the things on which the fullness of our humanity depends. Depart from the chief value of life, and liberty and happiness become meaningless. Debates over what sort of life is worthy of life have not had happy outcomes in the past and I doubt they ever will. Developing a habit of disposing of inconvenient lives, even and maybe especially at their beginning and at their end, is bound to lead to a hardening of hearts and instrumentalizing of lives for selfish purposes, treating persons as commodities, of the sort that we see more and more of every day in the world. So I'm "pro-life" or "pro-fetal rights" because I am pro-human happiness and I see the two as inextricably connected. Here we may not be on the same page at all, but at least you know where I am coming from, as they say.
Now I see you've taken this seriously since you know that Catholic teaching proscribes oral contraceptives (I think that's what you mean by abortion pills) not only because of the diminishment of the sex act with its consequences for emotional and psychological development, but also because most of them are abortifacients, or work by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting, etc. O.K. so she's not having sex, and even her motives have nothing to do with sex. But Bernie! This is a total red herring. She doesn't need a hospital to get her prescription. I won't bother pointing out all the myriad of ways she could get her health needs met.
If you are talking about the Morning After pill or about the actual abortion pill, you'd have to tell me what other therapeutic uses those have--I'm not aware of any. My understanding is that Catholic hospitals can give out emergency contraception in rape cases, but that is decided by their own ethical committees.
I can categorically state that a Catholic hospital has NEVER "let a woman die" versus performing an abortion, simply because such a thing is never actually necessary. I can also agree with you though that a Catholic hospital (if acting properly within Catholic teaching, which is far from the case) has never "performed an emergency abortion" to "save the life of the mother." These are not actually contradictory statements.
These are simply non-categories for Catholic medical ethicists and doctors.
Catholic doctors actually take the Hippocratic oath seriously. Doctors who take lives or who make calculations on which life to save I would consider an abomination on the profession, and the habit of them thinking in those utilitarian terms can only lead to dangerous powers.
Catholic doctors (again, if they are acting consistently with Catholic teaching) will ALWAYS try to save both the lives, of mother and baby, if the baby is at all viable. Always. That the baby may die despite their efforts to save both is normal, and it happens. That the mother may die from their efforts to save both is also possible. In an emergency, where the baby has to be delievered early, very early or whatever, in order for the mother to be saved, then that's what would happen. And despite all of the frantic scare-tactics of the abortion-o-philia crowd on the internet--and there are a ton of them worrying about abortion not being available on every street corner--these cases are also red herrings. The cases of ectopic pregnancies and such other non-viable pregnancies where women on the verge of death are allegedly turned away by Catholic hospitals are mythical, as far as I know.
To sum that part up then, Catholic hospitals never "let" either a mother or baby die, in order to save one of them. But they certainly do not kill babies to save mothers, a scenario, again, which from my reading is rarely necessary. You can save a mother while also trying to save the baby in just about any scenario other than chemotherapy or radiation treatments for certain tumors. I don't want to get into those cases, but even there there is more than intentional killing of the baby as an option.
I am for free markets as much as possible. Let the Saudis build their hospital. If they impose Islamic customs only fools (maybe paupers too) and Moslems would go there. (I'm not quite sure why your usual brilliant reasoning is so colored on this issue.) If the Saudis keep their intentions quiet while they eliminate the competition, my guess is as soon as they showed their sharia colors that another medical provider would come back to town, and pronto. As long as the market is kept free, property respected, and religious freedoms that are compatible with a pluralistic society protected, I don't see either the Saudi hospital case or Catholic hospitals as threats to good health care--and only the abortion/contraception case can be made against the Catholic ones.
The values at the base of a person or of an institution are what count in the final analysis. The fact that we're talking about pregnancy and abortion, versus some other medical "condition" and "procedure," is not a minor detail. There are religious dictates that are based on rational, coherent beliefs and that can be harmonized with a pluralistic society, and then there are those that are arbitrary, have no basis in reason, and cannot exist in a pluralistic society. The latter covers many Islamic laws and customs. I wcould argue the rationality of Catholic moral teaching, its soundness and utility for the flourishing and happiness of persons and of mankind, any day. When Moslems attempt to do this, which they sometimes do, even academics, even women professors, it is barely short of hilarious.
Veils on driver's licenses and seeing-eye dogs banned in cabs are actually much clearer cases of religious injunctions that are not tolerable in a free society. Facts and logic defeat such arbitrary things, and that's what we need to stick to in a free, pluralistic society--not pushing every religious dictate into the private realm, but weighing what insights religion has to offer, like any other system of ideas, in the marketplace of ideas and economics.
One final note. I tend to think it is a mistake to consider "religious" hospitals in some distinct category from "non-religious" ones. Such a notion presumes value-free medicine, value-free science, and some sort of objective reasoning that does not depend on ultimate value commitments. Sorry, I think this is a false belief, and a false religious belief to be more precise. The alternative to traditonal (Jewish and Christian) values in medicine is to have the values of Epicurus and Bentham instead. And those values will always be administered by fallible PEOPLE in any case. Do you prefer to have your life depend on a bean counter more than on a person who hopes to handle you with love?
Thanks for a good topic, Bernie. I don't expect to persuade anyone on abortion issues--apart from the academic and ethical arguments, you can't eliminate beliefs that come from people's deepest feelings and experiences, and I wouldn't want to eliminate those in any case!
My apologies for typos, etc., just wanted to get a reply out tonight despite the late hour...
All the best,
D. Ox
Comment by: Dumb Ox on October 23, 2006 01:27 AM
- p.s.
I'm surprised you fell for Moslem propaganda! (kidding) They never invented anything. (not kidding)
"The adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the empire drove an expansion of the provision of care, but not just for the sick. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. urged the Church to provide for the poor, sick, widows and strangers. It ordered the construction of a hospital in every cathedral town. Among the earliest were those built by the physician Saint Sampson in Constantinople and by Basil, bishop of Caesarea. The latter was attached to a monastery and provided lodgings for poor and travelers, as well as treating the sick and infirm. There was a separate section for lepers" Wikipedia ... Before the Christian and Roman ones, there were hospitals in South Asia. The Muslims only took ideas from other people...
Comment by: Dumb Ox on October 23, 2006 07:50 AM
- p.s. Note from Wikipedia: "The adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the empire drove an expansion of the provision of care, but not just for the sick. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. urged the Church to provide for the poor, sick, widows and strangers. It ordered the construction of a hospital in every cathedral town. Among the earliest were those built by the physician Saint Sampson in Constantinople and by Basil, bishop of Caesarea. The latter was attached to a monastery and provided lodgings for poor and travelers, as well as treating the sick and infirm. There was a separate section for lepers" Muslims never invented anything! South Asians had made the first hospitals, Persians probably copied them, and Muslim Arabs stole the idea later from them. But the Greek and Roman practices were greatly developed by the Church.
Comment by: Dumb Ox on October 23, 2006 07:52 AM
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