Catholic Policy: Women Should Die Rather Than Terminate Any Pregnancy

The Catholic Church has cut ties with a Arizona hospital because doctors aborted an 11-week old embryo in order to save the mother's life from a blood pressure problem that would have resulted in her death.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted called the 2009 procedure an abortion and said St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center -- recognized internationally for its neurology and neurosurgery practices -- violated ethical and religious directives of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"In the decision to abort, the equal dignity of mother and her baby were not both upheld," Olmsted said at a news conference announcing the decision. "The mother had a disease that needed to be treated. But instead of treating the disease, St. Joseph's medical staff and ethics committee decided that the healthy, 11-week-old baby should be directly killed."

To speak of the Catholic Church's view on abortion -- a position that seeks to force women to maintain pregnancies so dangerous that the only result will be the death of both woman and fetus -- as "pro-life" is an abuse of language worthy of 1984. On this matter, as on many others, the Church is explicitly, consciously, and deliberately anti-life and pro-death.