ARTICLES
September 2002 ARTICLES
Contents © 2002
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
They Walk With the Devil
Catholic Hospital Refers for Abortions
BY ROBERT KUMPEL
On Wednesday, April 24, a young pregnant woman and her boyfriend came to the Pregnancy Counseling Center, a non-profit, non-denominational crisis pregnancy facility in Mission Hills committed to providing pro-life solutions to women with unwanted pregnancies. The woman was visibly distraught and crying. She told the volunteer who helped her that she did not want an abortion. In her hand was a blue piece of paper given to her by a nurse at Holy Cross Hospital (15031 Rinaldi St., Mission Hills) with the address and a map of the cross streets with an arrow for Family Planning Associates, a nearby abortion clinic. The girl told the volunteer that she had been tested for pregnancy at Holy Cross Hospital and sent to Family Planning Associates. She was told that, although Holy Cross Hospital did not perform abortions, they would be glad to give her information about where she could obtain an abortion.
Shocked that a Catholic hospital would offer such information, the volunteer at the Pregnancy Counseling Center called Holy Cross' maternity center to verify that they had provided a patient the address to an abortion clinic. The people at Holy Cross Hospital claimed ignorance about the matter until a nurse admitted that she had provided the referral. The volunteer told the nurse that she had made a bad mistake and suggested that she learn more about abortion before offering pregnant women the addresses of abortion providers.
When the volunteer told Pregnancy Counseling Center's director, Julie Ball, what had happened, Ball could not believe it. As a Catholic, Ball was flabbergasted to find that a Catholic hospital offered the addresses of abortion providers to pregnant women and called Holy Cross to find out what was going on. Ball said that the first person she spoke to was Holy Cross operations director Kerry Karmody. Ball said she asked Karmody if Holy Cross was a Catholic hospital, to which he indignantly replied, "of course it is!" Ball then asked Karmody what made Holy Cross a Catholic hospital, and Karmody said, "first of all, it's non-profit and we are under the principles of the [Dominican] Sisters of Providence." When asked who the Sisters of Providence got their guidelines from, he sarcastically replied, "the pope!" and hung up.
Still not satisfied that she had appealed to the highest authority, Ball called Michael Madden, CEO of Providence Health Systems. Madden was not immediately available due to a business trip, but had Roseanne Morrison, director of Women's Services for Providence Health Systems, call Ball on his behalf on May 7. Morrison said that Holy Cross and St. Joseph's hospitals did not perform abortions, but did refer for them if a client requested. Ball was speechless. Finally, said Ball, Morrison asked, in an aghast tone, "what would you do if a client asked for an abortion? Would you make them find it themselves?"
Finally, Ball spoke with Sister Colleen Settles, regional director for Mission Leadership for Providence Health Systems. Ball was not impressed. "A friend who is a nun told me that director for Mission Leadership is a position on the board that is supposed to be a voice for the Catholic position in forming hospital policy. Morrison told me to expect a call from Sister Colleen and I waited and waited for her to call me, so finally I called her. I told her that I would like a relationship with their maternity center where they would refer pregnancies to us. I also told her that if she were to do this, that they should clearly explain that we are not a medical facility and we do not refer for abortions, but we are very helpful to women. I also offered to supply the hospital with pamphlets and other literature on alternatives to abortion. She said, 'I would love a packet of your literature.' So I sent her a packet and then I never heard anything more from her."
Subsequent to these events, the Pregnancy Counseling Center's newsletter reported on the incident with Holy Cross hospital, in a story titled "Providence Redefined," which concluded: "we now realize that they too [Holy Cross] are walking with the devil." Finally the story asked all readers to pray for the people at Holy Cross and everyone else in the medical community to protect and respect life. Ball did not bother mailing the newsletter to anyone at Holy Cross, but the letter reached Sister Colleen Settles, who wrote Ball back. In her letter, Sister Colleen said it was "disconcerting in your newsletter that you call this ministry 'walking with the devil.'" She said Providence Health System was "required by law and by the requirement of the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. to provide information to patients on obtaining services which are legal but we do not or will not provide." (Sister Colleen's letter was cc'd to Auxiliary Bishop Gerald Wilkerson.
Sister Colleen also noted that the hospital had changed its "direction sheet" since her conversation with Ball. The new direction sheet leads off with the following paragraph: "as a Catholic Healthcare provider, Providence Holy Cross Medical Center does not advocate for nor participate in direct abortions. You have asked for directions to a facility that may accommodate your wishes." Then follows the addresses of two Family Planning Associates abortion centers. Then, reads the direction sheet: "If you would like to learn more about your various options to abortion we encourage you to contact our Spiritual Care Department or one of the following counseling centers." The three listed centers include Ball's Pregnancy Counseling Center.
Sister Colleen Settles seemed defensive when I asked her about the referral for an abortion; she denied that it was an actual referral. "That's something we have to give them by law. If we did not, we would be stepping on their right; but we still reserve the right not to perform an abortion at our facility. We think that Catholic healthcare is too important not to exist, to be able to give the kind of care we want. Right now we are facing all kinds of pressure to provide things that we do not want to provide."
The "law" Sister Colleen Settles is concerned with is a standard for medical services from the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). The Joint Commission is a national accrediting body for hospitals and medical clinics whose standards are meant as guidelines for hospital accreditation and are not legally binding. Charlene Hill of the joint commission's media relations department told me, "we're not a government agency. The Joint Commission for Accreditation is a voluntary process. We're a private, not-for-profit organization. The federal government recognizes the joint commission in meeting their requirements for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, which might be why this individual [Sister Colleen Settles] may be a little confused. There are many hospitals that use joint commission accreditation to meet the requirements for Medicare and Medicaid funding, but the reality is that we are not a government agency and we do not have the ability to close an institution or revoke its license." The joint commission's standard reads: "the patient is educated about other resources, and when necessary, how to obtain further care, treatment to meet his or her identified needs."
By her assertion of patient's having "rights" that conflict with the preservation and protection of life, Sister Colleen is apparently ignorant of Catholic teaching. "Let's say someone wants to have something done that would end their life, but we don't feel that is in their best interest or whatever," said Sister Colleen. "We feel that that is something that we won' t do here ethically. Because of their right and our rights conflicting, we, by law and by ethic, have to transfer them to a place that they can get that procedure. This is under the same ethic that we are speaking of. We choose not to do abortions, but because it is legal, they have a right to know where they can go and our physicians have to not withhold that information."
Jim Lott, spokesman for the Healthcare Association of Southern California, a trade association that represents more than 300 healthcare organizations, said that he was not aware of any law requiring religious hospitals to violate their principles. "I know from direct experience that Catholic hospitals, for that kind of procedure or [for] sterilization, must state clearly to the patient, which is required by law, that they do not do those procedures, but that they may go elsewhere to get them. I know of no Catholic hospital that provides names or addresses of physicians and/or hospitals that do that. They do provide the consumer with the option that if they want that service and it's available -- they do have to tell them that. But I don't know of any that provides an actual referral -- meaning a name and address -- I have no knowledge of that."
When asked if it was the policy of Providence's hospitals to discourage abortions, Sister Colleen replied, "we don't have or write policies on a lot of things. This letter that we give them which gives the address, has all the other alternative places where they can get that kind of information, including our spiritual care department. The reality is, this has happened once." When asked if she could look the pope in the eye and tell him that such a policy was ethical, she was adamant. "Yes. it is," she said, "because we are not telling people that they should get an abortion.
"The reality of healthcare," continued Sister Colleen, "is that we are the most regulated industry in the world today. Part of that is because people are not feeling that they have access to healthcare -- good, bad or indifferent. That's why this has been promulgated, so that people do know where they can have access to the health care, if we don't provide it. We have to tell them where they can get it. Now that's different than giving a referral."
Sister Karin Dufault, chair of the board for Providence Health System, further clarified how telling patients where they can "have access to health care" (i.e. abortion) is not the same thing as giving a referral for abortions. In a July 12 letter to Ball, Sister Karin wrote: "providing such information to patients, when it concerns treatments not provided by Catholic organizations for moral reasons, does not constitute a 'referral'" which is "a specific action in health care that usually requires the involvement of physicians." Giving such information "in response to a direct request from a patient," wrote Sister Karin, "is a professional requirement for the nurse, both from a legal and regulatory perspective and from an ethical perspective."
When it was suggested that this was a compromise of Catholic ethics, she retorted, "we are consistent in our ethics of not providing abortions."
Sister Colleen apparently believes that abortion is just another type of "health care" that is simply proscribed for Catholic hospitals, which puts her at odds with the directives of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In the fourth edition, issued June 2001, of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, the United States bishops discuss many aspects of providing medical services. In the introduction to the directives on the "Social Responsibility of Catholic Health Care Services," the bishops write: "...within a pluralistic society, Catholic health care services will encounter requests for medical procedures contrary to the moral teachings of the Church. Catholic health care does not offend the rights of individual conscience by refusing to provide or permit medical procedures that are judged morally wrong by the teaching authority of the Church."
The first directive then states: "a Catholic institutional health care service is a community that provides health care to those in need of it. This service must be animated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and guided by the moral tradition of the Church."
The sixth directive deals with referrals to non-Catholic medical facilities: "a Catholic health care organization should be a responsible steward of the health care resources available to it. Collaboration with other health care providers, in ways that do not compromise Catholic social and moral teaching, can be an effective means of such stewardship."
The ninth directive states: "employees of a Catholic health care institution must respect and uphold the religious mission of the institution and adhere to these Directives. They should maintain professional standards and promote the institution's commitment to human dignity and the common good."
The section on professional-patient relationship states: "this professional-patient relationship is never separated, then, from the Catholic identity of the health care institution. The faith that inspires Catholic health care guides medical decisions in ways that fully respect the dignity of the person and the relationship with the health care professional."
Directive number 36 then states: "...it is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum."
Many might consider handing out the address of abortion providers to patients an initiation or even a recommendation, no matter how many caveats go with it. Most alarming, and contradictory to Providence's practice of offering such information, is directive number 45: "abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted. Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo. Catholic health care institutions are not to provide abortion services, even based upon the principle of material cooperation. In this context, Catholic health care institutions need to be concerned about the danger of scandal in any association with abortion providers."
The neglect of applying the principles of the Catholic Church seems to extend to other hospitals in the Providence chain. At the website for Providence Health System's medical education program, designed for prospective medical residents at its hospital in Portland, Oregon, a list of frequently asked questions includes, "what is the impact of training in a Catholic hospital?" The answer given seems to come from a non-Catholic standpoint: "questions are often asked about reproductive counseling. The Providence Ambulatory Care and Education Clinic, where all residents and Medical Education faculty practice, counsels patients on all aspects of birth control and abortion. We feel it is important that all patients make the contraceptive choices that are best for them and their family."
Another protection that Catholic hospitals currently enjoy are the conscience laws, which are currently under attack by pro-abortion groups. The California Health and Safety Code states: "nothing in this article shall require a nonprofit hospital or other facility or clinic that is organized or operated by a religious corporation or other religious organization and licensed pursuant to Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 1200) or Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 1250) of Division 2, or any administrative officer, employee, agent, or member of the governing board thereof, to perform or to permit the performance of an abortion in the facility or clinic or to provide abortion services. No such nonprofit facility or clinic organized or operated by a religious corporation or other religious organization, nor its administrative officers, employees, agents, or members of its governing board shall be liable, individually or collectively, for failure or refusal to participate in any such act. The failure or refusal of any such corporation, unincorporated association or individual person to perform or to permit the performance of such medical procedures shall not be the basis for any disciplinary or other recriminatory action against such corporations, unincorporated associations, or individuals. Any such facility or clinic that does not permit the performance of abortions on its premises shall post notice of that proscription in an area of the facility or clinic that is open to patients and prospective admittees."
Jay Wilson (not his real name), a pro-life activist in Sacramento who is well-versed in California law, says that there is more going on with Catholic hospital chains than most Catholics are willing to face. "The fact is, most of the Catholic hospitals are run by religious orders of women, or more correctly, formerly religious orders of women. They're run by lesbians, many of whom have long since left Christianity. The typical bishop is silent about abortion because these feminist nuns are blackmailing the bishops, many of whom are homosexuals themselves. We live in a country which is ruled by mediarchy, which is part of the reason we're seeing this phenomenon with the Boston Globe and other media outlets about a crisis in the Church. They decided it was newsworthy, but since much of the media is under the control of homosexuals, they won't look at the real problem, which is homosexuality. The modern nuns are the darlings of the media because their orders are controlled by homosexuals and feminists and the bishops are terrified of the nuns. To put it bluntly, they're 'nun-pecked'. That's why you see so many dioceses now that have nuns as chancellors. In most dioceses now, administrative positions in the bureaucracies are stacked with wild nuns. It's almost a requirement. The nuns have found out how to control the bishops."
Wilson says that Sister Colleen's interpretation of that joint commission's standard as law is absolutely false. "This is just one of the codes that has no legal standing whatsoever," said Wilson. "Even the words of that code that say, 'educate the patient,' can be interpreted another way. I know a crusty old doctor who told me about a patient of his who told him that she was getting an abortion against his advice and asked him to at least tell her the name of a good abortionist, because he had an obligation to find her a good one. You know what he said? 'Sorry, lady. There are no good abortionists. The man who is an abortionist is not a good physician. I'm a physician and you're asking me for a reference to a physician. You're asking the impossible. Most of those guys are butchers.'"
Ball said that she would resign rather than work for a "Catholic" hospital that referred women for abortions.