In a recent episode of her show Full Frontal, Samantha Bee lambasted Catholic hospitals that refused to perform abortions and related procedures because it conflicted with their religious beliefs. Naturally, anti-abortion conservatives, realizing that the tide of public opinion is turning against them, are not happy; among the anti-choicers to "debunk" Bee's claims is the National Review's Alexandra Descantis, who recently wrote an article for the National Review Online attacking Bee's segment as "dishonest". Now pretty much everything on the NRO's website is bullshit, but I randomly decided to dismantle this particular article because I only recently saw the (brand-new) segment. So let's go through Descantis's claims one by one:
• She claims that Bee ignores the storied, centuries-old tradition of Catholic teachings on abortion being evil and/or murder. Specifically, Descantis writes that instead of acknowledging this history and tradition, "she [Bee] portrays the Catholic guidelines for hospitals as a set of random proscriptions cobbled together by a group of old men (bishops) trying to control and harm women." Later, in response to Bee's claim about Catholic Church officials giving advice regarding reproductive health, she says, "Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals don’t give “reproductive advice”; they articulate the truth about human life and reproductive ethics in accord with Catholic teaching. A teaching promulgated and practiced for centuries by an entire religious group is fundamentally distinct from a panel of “virgins in bathrobes” dictating to women what they can and cannot do."
Response: This is irrelevant to the question of whether these hospitals are acting in the best interest of their patients, as they should be, as opposed to imposing their religious beliefs on others who do not share them, even when they endanger the patients' lives. It is not essential that, in order to be right about these issues, someone comprehensively summarize the traditions whereby Catholic abortion dogma was passed down over hundreds of years. However, those who seek to defend traditions dating back that far must acknowledge how much better healthcare is now because such barbaric practices are no longer followed in the name of religious dogma. Also, re that last sentence: no it isn't, at least not in terms of the authorities deciding what the dogma is (the Pope and other archbishops) or its consequences (serious medical conditions).
Descantis then moves on to the case of Jennafer Norris, who was refused a tubal ligation while having an emergency C-section at a Catholic hospital. She also acknowledges that Rupa Natarajan was not allowed to perform abortions while working at a Catholic hospital as an OBGYN. She responds by arguing that both these women could have gone to other hospitals, and then acknowledges that Bee responds by saying that it's hard to divert an ambulance's path to drive to a non-Catholic hospital, and that even if you could, you might run out of gas on the way. Her response to this response is laughably pathetic: "No woman has to grab the wheel of an ambulance while in the midst of miscarrying; she just has to call an ambulance from a non-Catholic hospital. Though it sometimes might be inconvenient for a woman to travel to a non-Catholic hospital, the inconvenience surely does not outweigh the importance of conscience rights, which demand that Catholic hospitals not be forced to provide procedures that Catholicism deems morally wrong."
Response: How is there a difference between abruptly diverting one's path to go to hospital B instead of A, or going to hospital A and then to hospital B? Sure, it's easier to call an ambulance at a hospital than to frantically divert one's path en route, but it's also slower, which can be a serious problem in these types of emergency scenarios. The argument about it being more important for Catholic hospitals to impose their dogma on unwilling women than for these women to not suffer serious medical consequences as a result is indefensibly and unambiguously wrong.
Here's Descantis's response to Bee's claim about women possibly dying if doctors don't terminate their pregnancies: "a direct abortion (in which a doctor intentionally kills a child) is never medically necessary to save a mother’s life." (emphasis in original)
Response: Wrong. Watch the episode for the case that led to the excommunication of Margaret McBride (starting at about the 2:30 mark), which clearly involves a woman who only lived because the doctors aborted her child.
Lastly, Descantis deals with the case of Mindy Swank, who wanted staff at a Catholic hospital to terminate her pregnancy so she wouldn't be at risk of an infection, uterine loss, and possibly even death, and because the child had birth defects. The hospital refused, and sent Mindy to a non-Catholic hospital. (See the episode for more details.) Descantis's response is as follows: "While the Catholic hospital certainly would “treat” Mindy, she falsely asserts that her life was in danger because she was refused an abortion. In fact, delivering a child with birth defects poses no health risks to the mother, other than those commonly associated with giving birth."
Response: Irrelevant, because, as I noted above, Mindy had to worry about other concerns than just giving birth to the child, like an infection or possible death. These concerns could have been dealt with by aborting the child, but weren't.
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