David Quinn
Catholic hospitals must stand their ground on abortion, writes David Quinn
In the Dáil last week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar confirmed that Catholic hospitals will have to perform abortions under the terms of the upcoming abortion law. Let that sink in for a moment. Very few countries require such a thing because they know abortion is repugnant to Catholicism, indeed to Christianity, and therefore they respect the ethos of Catholic hospitals. They give them the freedom to be Catholic.
But this Government will not permit such a thing. If Catholic hospitals receive public funds then they must become, in effect, State hospitals with only a veneer of a Catholic ethos.
Varadkar confirmed what he requires of Catholic hospitals in response to left-wing TD, Mick Barry.
Services
He said that individual doctors will not have to performs abortions but then added: “It will not, however, be possible for publicly-funded hospitals, no matter who their patron or owner is, to opt out of providing these necessary services which will be legal in this state once this legislation is passed by the Dáil and Seanad.”
He went on: “So, just as is the case now in the legislation for the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, hospitals like for example Holles Street, which is a Catholic voluntary-ethos hospital, the Mater, St Vincent’s and others will be required, and will be expected to, carry out any procedure that is legal in this State and that is the model we will follow.”
Again, consider what this means. The proposed law, despite protestations to the contrary, will be in line with the sort of permissive abortion law found in countries like France or Denmark.
The abortion pill will account for most terminations in this country, that is to say, these abortions will be chemically-induced. The rest will be surgical, that is carried out by doctors while the woman is sedated. Many of these will take place in hospitals. They will take place mainly under the so-called ‘health’ grounds. But as we know from the British experience, in the great majority of cases both the mother and her unborn baby will be healthy by any proper definition of that term.
In other words, Catholic hospitals will be expected, in practice, to perform abortions on the healthy babies of healthy women. Leo Varadkar will pretend otherwise, but this is what will happen if Catholic hospitals capitulate to his demands.
Even in those very rare cases where the physical health of the mother is at real risk from her pregnancy, Catholic hospitals still cannot conduct abortions because taking a life is so disproportionate a response.
Michéal Martin has not demurred from the Government line. He is not prepared to defend the rights of pro-life hospitals. Nor is Sinn Féin, needless to say. Nor is Labour, much less the hard-left TDs.
But nor, so far, and this is much more worrying, is the Catholic Church itself. There has been total silence to date from the Catholic hospitals concerned, and silence from the Archbishop of Dublin in whose diocese most of the affected hospitals are to be found.
As Leo Varadkar pointed out in the Dáil, the Protection of Human Life During Pregnancy Act of 2013 already imposed a legal obligation upon Catholic hospitals to perform abortions under its terms.
Morally speaking, Catholic hospitals can terminate a pregnancy when it is necessary to save the life of the mother. That Act, however, also permits an abortion to take place when a pregnant woman is deemed to be suicidal even though there is no evidence abortion helps in this kind of situation or is a real last resort.
The hospitals concerned, namely the Mater and St Vincent’s, said they would obey the law. This was a disastrous moral compromise. Perhaps they compromised on the basis that, in practice, they would never have to perform an abortion on the suicide ground, and so in practice would never have to compromise their ethos. But they said they would, and this provided a terrible moral witness.
It also made it much tougher now to withstand the Government demand. Perhaps they are still hoping that in practice they will never have to perform anything other than life-saving terminations. That might be a forlorn hope because the planned law is vastly more permissive than the 2013 law.
Also, why weren’t these hospitals as brave as politicians like Lucinda Creighton, Terence Flanagan, Fidelma Healy-Eames who sacrificed their political careers rather than vote for abortion? The moral obligation on Catholic hospitals was stronger, is stronger, than on these politicians because it is the hospitals that were being asked to perform abortions.
The American Jesuit Fr James Martin has been invited to address the World Meeting of Families and suggest ways the Church can become more welcoming to LGBT Catholics. He is regarded within the Church as a liberal, but he tweeted last week that if Catholic hospitals perform abortions “then they won’t be ‘Catholic’ any longer”. That sums it up. Arguably they have already ceased to be Catholic, except in name.
What now?
What should happen now? First, the bishops in whose dioceses these hospitals fall must say something. They cannot be silent. Secondly, the hospitals themselves must say something. They have to say that they will never perform direct abortions and that they would prefer to close than do so.
The Mater public hospital in Dublin has around 500 beds and receives tens of millions in public funds every year. Would the Government seriously force it to close in order to impose the abortion law upon it? It would certainly be high-stakes poker. The Church is very unpopular at the moment and would probably lose any public relations battle, especially given the chronic bias of much of our media.
The Government might even push for another amendment, this one aimed at seizing Catholic property. That would enormously please the anti-clerics in this country, who would gleefully vote for it.
But the alternative is Catholic hospitals performing abortions, or saying they will, and ceasing to be Catholic anyway. In this scenario, they would lose their identity and their integrity. Forced with this Hobson’s choice, it is better to keep your integrity. They must publicly refuse to perform abortions.