A nurse from New York City is suing Mt. Sinai Hospital for forcing her to assist in the performance of a late term abortion in May. When she found out she was scheduled to be involved with the abortion, she immediately asked to be reassigned.
Hospital Claims Abortion Is “Life Saving”
Although they had six hours to find a replacement, they told her she must participate in this “life saving abortion” or she’d lose her job. Which raises the question-who schedules an emergency “life saving procedure” more than six hours in advance? None of the articles I’ve seen have addressed this question.
But more importantly for the lawsuit, according to a news article, Nurse Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo claims “the hospital reportedly exaggerated about the condition of the patient who was 22 weeks into her pregnancy. In her lawsuit, Cenzon-DeCarlo claimed that the hospital told her the patient had preeclampsia, a condition that could lead to seizures or death if left untreated. However, she… said the patient was not even given magnesium therapy which was a common treatment for preeclampsia. She found out later that the hospital’s own records described the procedure [as] ‘Category II,’ which is not considered immediately life threatening.”
Let us pray for this nurse, that she may find peace from the nightmares she tells reporters she’s been experiencing since that date in May. And let us pray that more pro-life hospital workers are not forced to participate in such experiences. If this suit is successful, perhaps hospitals will think twice before forcing good Christians to violate their principles.
Loss Of Conscience Clause Imminent
Unfortunately, if Obama rescinds the Conscience Clause enforcement mechanisms established by President Bush-which he is fully expected to do soon-Steve Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund predicts, in the current issue of World Magazine, that “Health care institutions with federal funding will believe they are not legally obligated to respect the conscience of health care staff, with the result being that pro-life doctors and pharmacists will be driven out of their professions.” Not good.
It’s The Truth, Not A Popularity Contest
Today’s Daily Herald carried a letter from Jim Finnegan titled “Images are graphic, so is abortion.” Finnegan reminds readers: “we are not interested in winning any popularity contest, but rather [in] show[ing] what the media will never show, the true face of abortion: what it does to the child, and the often misled mother.”
This reminded me of an article I came across in the League archives earlier today written by Joe Scheidler in 1986. It is in response to an article criticizing him for being “damaging” to the pro-life movement for being too in-your-face.
He wrote, “I don’t believe the movement is so anemic, nor do I believe our position is so dubious, that we have to keep doctoring up our image to hold our support. When you are right on an issue, you don’t have to be as careful of public opinion as those who are dead wrong. To sell people on murdering babies, the abortionists need every public relations gimmick they can latch on to. Those of us on the side of life can sometimes be a little more reckless.”
While Face The Truth doesn’t fall into the category of “reckless,” it does show that we’re not so overly cautious about our public image that we’re afraid to show what abortion really is. Yes, it’s gruesome and graphic-but it’s the truth, it’s what abortion is, and that’s why we need to continue to show it.
I hope you’re able to make it to our Truth Day in Rockford on August 12 to continue to oppose those who are “sell[ing] people on murdering babies.”
