Catholic Healthcare Professionals

Having practiced medicine for nearly thirty-seven years, I have never considered medicine as anything other than a secular humanistic endeavor. And there is nothing inherently wrong in this. It has prevented me from ever intruding into a patient's spiritual beliefs and feelings and has enabled me to focus on arriving at a diagnosis and formulating a treatment for him. But having become aware of the life of St. Giuseppe Moscati, I have begun to rethink the entire issue. It will at least help me to develop a deeper sense of compassion for patients. Tiresias

Reciprocity is not an issue because I am certified EMT and had national certification but I gained my cert in Ohio to begin with. For me the only issue now is trying to strengthen my app for med school.

I see you are also hoping to further your education by becoming an RN.

Hi Raising3,
I am also a nurse yet worked at a hospital. I have not been in the same situation but I can understand what you are saying... It is a hard position to be in!

Morally I could not offer teen girls that type of information and feel good. There is no way. If it is a job requirement and the job won't allow you to do otherwise then personally I would find another job. (as hard as that may be, but following the Lord is not easy at times) It is hard to work in those types of environments that have requirements like that! Even though I'm sure you could be of MUCH help to promote abstinence and pro-life options, It wouldn't be okay to me if I still had to offer those other types of choices.

How dead set are they on giving out this information? Far out here BUT Could you offer to teach the other options instead? Maybe there are great pro-life choices in your area the school is unaware of and you could present it to them? (I doubt the school would go for that but anything is possible with God's help)

In regards to your feeling of abandoning them... Maybe if the school is unwilling to let you just teach pro-life options and you decide to change positions, you could gather local information for pro-life groups - pamphlets, business cards etc and see if they would at least present them as an option in the nursing office or wherever? You will be at least letting the girls have a choice instead of being coerced into an abortion when you leave!

I wouldn't risk my own soul by leading those poor teens down the wrong path for their souls. Think about it and pray hard about it. I will pray for you too!

God Bless

I must be lucky...
I live in a predominantly Catholic country. I'm currently doing residency training in a hospital run by a family who is Catholic. There is a Catholic chapel with a chaplain provided by our Archdiocese, and we are lucky to have the Blessed Sacrament reserved 24/7. There is also a community of nuns asked by the administration to stay in the hospital to take care of pastoral services. I can actually do my prayer near midnight right in front of our Lord!
The things to be thankful for !

One thing I think is obvious from the introductions in this forum is that many of us are concerned about conscience rights protection for healthcare professionals.

It is time to hit our knees and pray.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patroness of the Americas - and Patroness of the unborn. Let us ask her for intercession with Our Lord for our land.

O Mary, Mother of Jesus and Mother of us all, we turn to you today as the one who said "Yes" to Life. "You will conceive and bear a Son," the angel told you. Despite the surprise and the uncertainty about how this could be, you said yes. "Be it done unto me according to your word."

O Mary, grant our leaders sight to see how devastating these proposed laws would be to our land!

Blessed Mother, we pray for ourselves as healthcare professionals. May we have the courage to stand for truth and justice, remembering always that your Son walks beside us. May we always do what is right in God's eyes.

But, most of all, Blessed Mother, we pray today for all mothers who are afraid to be mothers. We pray for those who feel threatened and overwhelmed by their pregnancy. Intercede for them, that God may give them the grace to say yes and the courage to go on. May they have the grace to reject the false solution of abortion. May they say with you, "Be it done unto me according to your word." May they experience the help of Christian people, and know the peace that comes from doing God's will. Amen.

To the Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of Life:

Come Holy Spirit, Creator of all things...You who breathed over the waters at the dawn of creation and brought forth all living beings...You who filled the apostles when the Risen Lord breathed on them on the first Easter night, giving them the power to restore life to those dead in sin...You who, on the last day, will breathe again over all the dead and raise them from the grave--Come! Come and breathe on our world again, immersed as it is in the Culture of Death! Come, O Lord and Giver of Life! Defeat the works of death in our midst, that abortion may no longer stain our land.

We worship You, O Holy Spirit, and we rejoice in You. We know that no matter how strong the forces of death may be, we can still find in You the endless source of life. Renew that life in each of us, and make us worthy apostles of the Culture of Life in our day! Amen.

Before approving the Kennedy bill, the Senate HELP Committee rejected a series of NRLC-backed amendments offered by pro-life Republican members of the committee. Specifically, the committee's Democrats (with the exception of Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.) voted down an amendment by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wy.) to prevent health plans from being required to pay for and provide access to abortions, an amendment by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to prevent federal funding of abortions, and an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) to prevent nullification of many state laws regulating abortion. The pro-abortion majority even rejected a second Coburn amendment to protect the right of health-care providers to refuse to participate directly in providing abortions.

Similar pro-life amendments were voted down in the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee, as only a few Democrats joined the committees' minority Republican members in support of the unsuccessful amendments.

On July 20 or 21, the House Energy & Commerce Committee is expected to consider similar NRLC-backed pro-life amendments, proposed by Congressman Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mi.). The members of this committee are listed here.


The imposition of sweeping pro-abortion mandates as part of “health care reform” is currently the top priority of many pro-abortion organizations, such as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). These organizations are pushing for the abortion mandates both in public statements and in less visible lobbying efforts. In April, the president of PPFA said that her organization intends to use the health care legislation as a "platform" to guarantee access to abortion to "all women." Likewise, the National Abortion Federation, an association of abortion providers, said, "NAF supports health care reform as a way to increase access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion care, for all women."


A third version of health-care restructuring legislation is still being written, behind closed doors, by members of the Senate Finance Committee. On July 1, both PPFA and NARAL sent out national legislative alerts expressing alarm that some Republican Finance Committee members were pressing for bill language to exclude abortion from the scope of the mandates and subsidies in the Finance Committee proposal. Also on July 1, the Reverend Carlton W. Veazey, president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), sent out an alert to that organization's e-mail list headed, "Urgent! Access to Abortion Services Threatened." The alert said, "Let there be no mistake, basic healthcare includes abortion services. . . . Reproductive healthcare, including abortion services, is an essential component of women's health, and we must act now to make sure women get a fair shake in the final healthcare reform bill." (RCRC is made up of a number of religious bodies, including the Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church USA, and United Church of Christ.)

On July 17, 2007, during Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, he appeared before the annual conference of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Speaking of his plans for "health care reform," Obama said, "in my mind, reproductive care is essential care, basic care, so it is at the center, the heart of the plan that I propose." [emphasis added] Under his plan, Obama explained, people could choose to keep their existing private health care plans, but "insurers are going to have to abide by the same rules in terms of providing comprehensive care, including reproductive care ... that's going to be absolutely vital."