In today’s New York Times, Nicholas Kristof writes about Sister Margaret, a Catholic Nun who was automatically excommunicated after participating in a decision by a medical treatment team to terminate a pregnancy that was threatening the life of the mother.  The pregnancy was three months along.  The Church’s position is that the fetus’ life was more important than the mother’s.

The excommunication of Sister Margaret McBride in Phoenix underscores all that to me feels morally obtuse about the church hierarchy. I hope that a public outcry can rectify this travesty.

I had known someone who worked as a doctor at St. Vincent’s hospital in the Village, and he told me that he was forbidden by hospital policy from so much as letting female patients know about the availability of the morning after pill, even if she had been raped.  I have wondered seriously whether or not two of the hospitals to close in Manhattan were affected by their status in the community because they were Catholic hospitals – Cabrini and St. Vincent’s.  Although they were closed for different reasons, I was surprised at the lack of community response to these institutions closing.  I couldn’t help but think maybe it had to do with these hospitals placing their personal – and what should be private – religious values above the health and well being of their patients.