[5] McBride was an administrator and member of the ethics committee at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, Phoenix, Arizona, which is owned by Catholic Healthcare West, later, Dignity Health.
[1] On 27 November 2009, the committee was consulted on the case of a 27-year-old woman who was eleven weeks pregnant with her fifth child and suffering from pulmonary hypertension.
Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo.
Catholic health care institutions are not to provide abortion services, even based upon the principle of material cooperation.
"[12] In explanation of how McBride excommunicated herself through her actions, Father John Ehrich, medical ethics director for the diocese of Phoenix, issued the statement: "The unborn child can never be thought of as a pathology or an illness.
That is, the child is not that which threatens the life of the mother, rather it is the pathology or illness (cancer, premature rupture of membranes, hypertension, preeclampsia, etc.)
Since "no physician can predict what will happen with 100 percent accuracy", Ehrich wrote, "What we should not do [...] is lower risks associated with pregnancy by aborting children.
Jacob M. Appel, a leading American bioethicist, questioned "if women are safe in Catholic hospitals" following Olmsted's announcement.
[...] Until this recent incident, pregnant women could safely assume that Catholic hospitals would follow both the law and widespread standards of medical ethics in allowing the second directive to trump the first.
Its president, Jon O'Brien, said, "While not all the facts are available, it is clear that the Vatican's hard line on abortion led to this terrible situation.
The Vatican's outright ban on all abortions is insensitive and reflects an unwillingness to acknowledge the reality of women's lives, including the difficult decisions that often have to be made during a pregnancy.
"[16] The Reverend Thomas Doyle, a well-known canon lawyer, noted that the bishop "clearly had other alternatives than to declare her excommunicated."