Archbishop's Column
Statement Regarding Providence Alaska Medical Center and Alaska Right to Life
April 20, 2005
Comments published recently by Alaska Right to Life regarding early induction of labor at Providence Alaska Medical Center were inaccurate, misleading and inflammatory. Alaska Right to Life has yet to produce any credible evidence of its claims that Providence, a Catholic hospital, performs abortion. In the absence of evidence, Alaska Right to Life has resorted to character assassination directed at Providence as well as at Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz.
The moratorium on early induction requested by Archbishop Schwietz has
been replaced by a set of medical guidelines developed through extended
dialogue with the best Catholic ethicists available, including those
at the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
Providence Alaska Medical Center has committed itself to following these
guidelines. No procedures that fulfill the definition of abortion as
contained in the U.S. Bishops’ “Ethical and Religious Directives
for Health Care Services” are performed at Providence
Alaska Medical Center.
Please see the reverse of this sheet for a brief timeline of events and actions relating to this issue. Also, please visit the archives section of the Catholic Anchor newspaper Web site, www.catholicanchor.org OR catholicanchor.org/anchor.html, for news stories and editorials published there over the past two years. Links to other sources of reliable Catholic information on early induction can also be found in the Anchor’s online archives.
TIMELINE
2003
Archbishop Schwietz is told by Alaska Right to Life that a procedure called early induction of labor is performed at Providence Alaska Medical Center, a Catholic hospital. Alaska Right to Life, which is not a Catholic group, claims that the procedure is a form of abortion. Archbishop Schwietz halts the procedure at Providence while he looks into the allegations.
The archbishop reviews the issue and decides that the hospital’s actions and decisions on early induction conform to Catholic ethical principles, which allow for labor to be induced when certain criteria have been met. He lifts the moratorium on the procedure. However, he also decides that the hospital’s written protocol governing early induction could be improved and so asks Providence to work with the National Catholic Bioethics Center to update the protocol.
2003-2004
Professional Catholic ethicists assist Providence in updating its written protocol on early induction. After several months of work, the guidelines are finalized and approved by all the parties involved, including the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
Archbishop Schwietz takes two additional precautionary steps. He directs that the updated protocol should be reviewed periodically to ensure that it keeps pace with developments in medicine, and he sends the protocol to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church’s ultimate authority on such matters. (There has been no response yet from the doctrinal congregation.) The archbishop and Providence officials meet several times with Alaska Right to Life to answer questions and explain the Catholic principles underlying their decisions.
2005
On Jan 22 at a Knights of Columbus memorial service for the unborn, Alaska Right to Life passes out fliers that claim, among other things, that Providence does abortion and that Archbishop Schwietz is guilty of “grotesque inconsistency and blindness” for allowing it. “As a result,” the flier concludes, “Alaska RTL cannot join in any ceremony that includes the archbishop or his diocesan representatives.”
The following week, Knights councils in the Anchorage Archdiocese dissociate from Alaska Right to Life. The Knights’ State Deputy Tom Malone directs that AK RTL should not be allowed at Knights functions and that councils should not make any financial contributions to the organization. A short time later, the Alaska Catholic Daughters of the Americas group adopts the Knights’ directive, cutting ties with Alaska Right to Life.
In March, Alaska Right to Life publishes a four-page tabloid newsletter that contains numerous unsubstantiated allegations and outright falsehoods about Providence and Archbishop Schwietz.
