Catholics considering getting out of hospital business rather than be forced to kill children

Here's one more example of Catholic leaders rising up as strong moral leaders. In Australia, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart says a new abortion law may mean the end of Catholic hospitals there.

The Abortion Law Reform Bill, already passed by state's lower house of parliament, would require doctors who refused to perform an abortion for reasons of conscience to provide a referral to another doctor who would. "In the worst-case scenario, if a government is determined to enforce such laws, we have no option. We might get out of hospitals altogether," Archbishop Hart told Australia's The Age.

"Catholic hospitals cannot be part of any abortion," Hart said. "That has to be respected in the community. Even providing a referral is a cooperation in evil, and that impacts very strongly on us as Catholics." The clash between Catholic teachings and the codifying of the wider culture's values has already forced several Catholic charities and institutions to close. Last week, the Church announced that its charities in Wales will no longer provide adoption services because of new laws requiring their charities adopt children to homosexual couples.

In the U.S., Catholic Charities of the Boston Archdiocese also ceased providing adoption services, rather than compromise the Church's moral positions to comply with laws requiring adoption to homosexual couples. If Victoria forces doctors to make abortion referrals against their conscience, Hart sees Catholic hospitals following Catholic adoption agencies in closing their doors. "This poses a real threat to the continued existence of Catholic hospitals," he said.

Good for these Catholic leaders! Too bad for Australian society. Remember the Hippocratic Oath? That's what every doctor swears by. Here's part of the original version of it - in use for 2500 years…. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner, I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce an abortion.

In the aftermath of the horror of the Nazi medical experiments, in 1948, the World Medical Association revised the Oath to include this line… "I will retain the utmost respect for Human Life from conception." However, in 1964 Dr. Louis Lasanga at John Hopkins eliminated the references to abortion which led to the sanitized version doctors use today.

Interesting to me that ancient copies of the Oath script are in the shape of a cross.

I hope you think about the Cross all day today in light of abortion. An innocent death. The innocent are dying. Bloodguilt. Religious leaders, political leaders, doctors… trying to wash their hands of it to no avail. Catholics have great clarity on these matters.