Catholic hospitals to follow Plan B law

From the newsobserver.com:

HARTFORD, Conn. - Roman Catholic bishops in Connecticut have agreed to let hospital personnel give emergency contraception to all rape victims, reversing their decision days before a new state law requires it.
The church, which runs four of the state's 30 hospitals, had fought the state law requiring medical personnel to give rape victims emergency contraception, sold as Plan B, even if the women are ovulating.

Church officials had said the treatment was tantamount to abortion and had been considering legal action, but they took a step away from that position Thursday, in a joint statement by the Catholic Bishops of Connecticut and leaders of the Catholic hospitals.

The hospitals will be allowed to provide Plan B without ovulation tests "since the teaching authority of the church has not definitively resolved this matter and since there is serious doubt about how Plan B pills work," the statement reads. "To administer Plan B without an ovulation test is not an intrinsically evil act."

Bad news. I'm afraid that this is the thin edge of a wedge.

Notice of posts elsewhere

Here is a post where I talk about Saints Cosmas and Damian. I also comment on the modern physician.

In the previous post, I commented on why I would not recommend that my daughters go into medicine.

Have a great night!

EU Court Rules Poland Must Pay For Not Aborting Child

Poland, a country where the Catholic Church plays a major role in social policies, has been forced to pay a woman who could not receive an abortion and suffered and "eye hemorrhage." From the KaiserNetwork:

The European Court of Human Rights on Monday upheld a ruling that ordered the Polish government to award damages to a Polish woman who says that in 2000 she was denied an abortion despite warnings from physicians that she could become blind if she continued the pregnancy, the Irish Times reports (Irish Times, 9/25).

Alicja Tysiac alleges that Poland's abortion law violated her rights under Article 8 and Article 14 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which guarantee "respect for privacy and family life" and "prohibition of discrimination," respectively. Polish law allows abortion only if a woman has been raped, if there is danger to the life of the woman or if the fetus will have birth defects. Three ophthalmologists in February 2000 told Tysiac she would go blind if she were to give birth to a third child. None of the doctors would refer her for an abortion procedure.

In April 2000, Tysiac had an appointment at a public hospital in Warsaw, Poland, where a gynecologist said there was no medical reason to have the procedure. Tysiac gave birth via caesarean section in November 2000. After her c-section, Tysiac experienced a retinal hemorrhage. Since then, "a panel of doctors concluded that her condition required treatment and daily assistance and declared her to be significantly disabled," court documents said.

Kids Medical "Rights" in the UK

Yet another example of governmental efforts to separate children from their parents:

Parents taking their children to the doctor could be asked to let them be seen alone under guidelines issued today.

For the first time doctors have been ordered to "respect the rights" of children to make decisions for themselves and refuse treatment if they wish.

Official guidance from the General Medical Council says doctors should treat children confidentially and inform them of their right to a private consultation.

It applies to all 240,000 doctors - not just GPs - and is aimed at improving medical care for children and teenagers.

Sts. Cosmas and Damian

Sts. Cosmas and Damian were twin brothers who were physicians from Arabia. As Christians they practiced medicine with great kindness and charity and never accepted money for their services. They were martyred about the year 287 during the persecution of Diocletian. In the eastern Church they are called the Holy Unmercenaries. They are patrons of physicians and surgeons as well as pharmacists.

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God that we, who observe the heavenly birthday of blessed Cosmas and Damian, thy Martyrs, may by their intercession be delivered from all evils that beset us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Sts. Cosmas and Damian, ora pro nobis.

Physicians View Religiosity as Factor in Patients' Health

You can influence the suffering of your patients. From Medical News:

CHICAGO, April 10 -- A majority of physicians in a large survey declared that religion and spirituality, including divine intervention, affect their patients' health.

The survey of more than a thousand practicing physicians found that 56% believe religion and spirituality have a significant effect on health, researchers reported in the April 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

It goes on:

Compared with those with low religiosity, highly religious physicians were substantially more likely to report that patients often mention spiritual issues (36% versus 11%; P<0.001).


They were also more likely to believe that religion and spirituality strongly influence health (82% versus 16%; P<0.001), and to interpret the influence of religion and spirituality in positive rather than negative ways, the researchers found.


These associations persisted in multivariate analyses that controlled for religious affiliation, region of practice, age, sex, ethnicity, and specialty.

Catholic Teachers in Medicine

Here is the text of an message written by Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, the president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry on the profile of the Catholic teacher of medicine. In part:

If the professor of medicine is a Catholic, then this transcendence and this victory over death are not merely beautiful desires which, for many, in our secularized culture, do not go beyond good intentions and palliatives for the failure of death, but rather they are based on the same reality of an irrefutable historical event, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On professing this faith, the teacher of medicine becomes a triumphant professor. He and his students advance toward medical culture with the certainty and the joy of knowing that the progress in health science is a foretaste of the full health that they will find for themselves and for their patients in the resurrected Christ.

It is obvious that this is incomprehensible for those who do not profess this faith. For a physician who does not have faith in Christ and in his Church, nothing here means anything, and rather it is something absurd which would appear to be for ignorant and mad people as it goes against the biological experimental knowledge which they believe to be the only one valid in medicine: "evidence-based medicine." However, here is another type of evidence, even stronger than laboratory evidence, the evidence of a faith based on an irrefutable fact which is reached for the same reason, but which arises from a free and firm decision of the will of each person. St Paul already said that the announcement of a crucified Messiah was offensive for the Jews and madness for the Gentiles, but it is much wiser than all human wisdom, and what may seem to be weakness in God, is stronger than all human strength (1 Corinthians 1:23-25).