Today in Why I'm Not a Catholic

In more lamentable news from our home state, a nun at St. Joseph's hospital was rebuked and excommunicated for allowing an abortion for a woman who probably would have died during pregnancy. The nun--an administrator at the Catholic hospital--made the life-or-death decision along with an ethics committee, doctors and the patient.

According to the medical directives that the hospital follows, abortion is defined as the directly intended termination of pregnancy, and it is not permitted under any circumstances - even to save the life of the mother.

...James J. Walter, professor of bioethics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a Catholic university, said that is a tough argument to make. He said a pregnancy may be terminated only in limited, indirect circumstances, such as uterine cancer, in which the cancer treatment takes the life of the fetus. Catholic teaching, he said, is that a pregnancy cannot be terminated as a means to an end of saving the life of a mother who is suffering from a different condition. Asked if the church position prefers the mother and child to die, rather than sparing the life of one of them, Walters said the hope is that both would survive.

No, pregnancy isn't the condition this woman is suffering from, but when it exacerbates her condition to the point of, uh, DEATH then you have some serious thinking to do. Which life is worthy of more respect? Catholic doctrine clearly chooses the fetus. I clearly choose the woman.