Catholics nuns seem to be getting a bad rap lately, except from Nancy Pelosi of course. Some supposedly Catholic groups of nuns came out swinging in support of healthcare reform at the last minute and now one Catholic nun has been automatically excommunicated in Arizona for supporting abortion, specifically an abortion that doctors say had to be done to save the life of the mother.

 From the Washington Post:

Sister Margaret McBride was on an ethics committee that included doctors that consulted with a young woman who was 11 weeks pregnant late last year, The Arizona Republic newspaper reported on its website Saturday. The woman was suffering from a life-threatening condition that likely would have caused her death if she hadn’t had the abortion at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese, acknowledged in a statement that Sister McBride was automatically excommunicated because of her actions.

Canon 1398 provides that, “a person who procures a successful abortion incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication.” This means that at the very moment that the abortion is successfully accomplished, the woman and all formal conspirators are excommunicated.

The Catholic Church does not allow abortion under any circumstances. However, the Church acknowledges that the unborn baby may die as a secondary effect of a procedure done to ensure that the mother lives if her life is in danger. For example, if there is an ectopic pregnancy, both the baby’s life and the mother’s life are in danger. The doctor will have to remove the fallopian tube and unfortunately the baby will die as a result of removing the tube, but the intent was not to kill the baby outright. The loss of the baby’s life is an unavoidable consequence at this point.

Doctors and surgeons are supposed to do everything in their power to save the life of both mother and baby, as the mother’s life is not intrinsically more valuable than the life of the baby.

These cases are extremely rare but they do happen. One such mother did die as a result from having her baby, but was made a saint.

It is interesting to observe that the Roman Catholic Church recently honored with canonical beatification a woman who died in 1962 in consequence of choosing not to undergo the surgical procedure just mentioned. Even though she knew that it would result in her death, Gianna Molla carried her baby to term and then died a week later. Her little girl grew up and was on hand in St. Peter´s Square to see her mother raised to the dignity of the altar.

 In 1951 in Allocation to Large Families, Pope Pius XII said this about saving the life of the mother:

 ”Never and in no case has the Church taught that the life of the child must be preferred to that of the mother.  It is erroneous to put the question with this alternative: either the life of the child or that of the mother.  No, neither the life of the mother nor that of the child can be subjected to an act of direct suppression.  In the one case as in the other, there can be but one obligation: to make every effort to save the lives of both, of the mother and of the child.

It is one of the finest and most noble aspirations of the medical profession to search continually for new means of ensuring the life of both mother and child.  But if, notwithstanding all the progress of science, there still remain, and will remain in the future, cases in which one must reckon with the death of the mother, when the mother wills to bring to birth the life that is within her and not destroy it in violation of the command of God – Thou shalt not kill – nothing else remains for the man, who will make every effort till the very last moment to help and save, but to bow respectfully before the laws of nature and the dispositions of divine Providence.”