In keeping with the ethical directives that bind Catholic hospitals, Caritas facilities will continue the practice of not providing abortion or sterilizations.This, of course, is good. Hell, it's expected!
Caritas refers privately insured patients who seek such services to their insurance providers and will do the same with state-insured patients who seek treatment via Commonwealth Care.This sucks. Always has. Always will.
Unless I'm misreading certain commentators, the logic seems to be thus:
If one doesn't receive earthly profit in an abortion, then all is honky-dory.
An analogy:
Judy calls me and asks me to help her procure an abortion. I contact a doctor for her, who performs the evil deed and gives me a percentage of Judy's fee. That's bad.
OR:
Judy calls me and asks me to help her procure an abortion. I tell her I cannot do this, since it is against my "policy," but give her the number of, let's say, Planned Parenthood.
Or, if I'm squeamish about this, I advise her to google abortion providers in her area.
Or, if I'm even squeamish about this, I simply tell her that, while I can't help her, I'm sure there are others who can.
Are any of the above alternatives supposed to be good?
Sorry. It's not only not good enough, it's not good at all. It's bad. What I'm supposed to do is (a) help Judy find an alternative to abortion or (b) refer her to one of the many people and/or organizations who are very good at doing just that.
Duh!
One good thing, though.
Until this whole issue came up, I never realized that so-called Catholic hospitals in the Archdiocese of Boston did the old Pontius Pilate number with abortion/contraception seekers. Now I do.
Knowing this might be a good thing. But it ain't good.
