Conscience and the Law in New York (The Catholic Thing Blog)

The Catholic Thing:  "As the late Henny Youngman told it, Moses came to the top of Mt. Sinai, looked about and said, 'This would be a wonderful place to build a hospital.' But life in Mt.Sinai hospital in New York was not so wonderful recently for Catherina Lorena Cenzon-DeCarlo, thirty-five, a Filipina nurse, who was compelled to participate in a late-term abortion. When she joined the staff in 2004, she made it known that, as a Catholic, she had religious and moral objections to participating in abortions.

The administrators raised no objections, and professed themselves willing to make accommodations. The case at hand involved a woman twenty-two weeks pregnant. The patient was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a medical condition described as 'a complication involving hypertension and protein in the urine.' Ms. Cenzon-DeCarlo thought that the standard treatment prescribed magnesium sulfate, not an abortion. But the hospital was understaffed; her supervisors pressed her into service. She pointed out that other nurses could be called. Still, the supervisors would not have it, and the doctor would suffer no delay."
 
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